Lashed poles, hoops, and sticks give vining beans and tomatoes handsome support
The gardeners who tend the quiet plots inOld Salem , a historic Moravian small town in Winston - Salem , North Carolina , attempt to stay straight to tradition . But the exact specifications of many of those tradition are n’t laid out in a manual of arms . Just as the intrepid pioneers who made this community more than 200 years ago adapt to their age and portion , so too have its modern tenders . And the tomato supports and bean tepees used in the garden are good exercise of the accommodation .
While the gardeners have n’t traced the design and material to the original gardens , the spare appearance and practicality of the structures suggest they would be comfortable there .
These structure can be adapted for use in the abode garden using sapling , twine , and 1x1s from the garden pith . For hoops , you might try using woody vine , which are flexible when green .
Hoop cages and angled rails keep tomatoes corralled
The inspiration for the Lycopersicon esculentum support number not from the Moravians but from the jacket of a book by New England horticulturist Fearing Burr , Jr. The book , Field and Garden Vegetables of America , was primitively publish in 1863 and republish in 1988 by The American Botanist , Booksellers . caption “ Hoop - training of the tomato , ” the drawing shows three hoops staggered and tolerate on three stakes . Bill Crow of Old Salem village enjoin the draught was adapted to fit the plots he tends .
The hoop follow from wood used by the village ’s basket makers , who split white oak into long elastic pieces that keep an eye on the grain of the woodwind . Those pieces , about ½ inch wide and ¼ inch thick , are form into a circle and lashed with twine . The diam of the hoop browse from about 12 inches on the bottom level to about 18 inches on the top .
Sticks used to advert tobacco leaves in barn now serve as the stake supporting the hoops . Winston - Salem was for a long meter a bustling intersection on North Carolina ’s tobacco road , and Crow said the sticks are bountiful . They are about an column inch square and about 4½ feet long .
The specification may involve to be enlarge . “ We ’re still experiment with sizing , ” say Crow . “ Sometimes the tomato plant get so large they bend the hoops or sort of pull up the whole thing down . I think next time we ’ll bitch them up , ” he says , noting the gardener are now trying onetime fence pickets to patronize the hoops . These uprights are about ¾ column inch by 2 inch .
The idea for the angled rail came from an Old Salem actor who had see something similar in a museum . It ’s a aboveboard concept . The baccy sticks are lashed together to form the rails and then inserted at an angle into the priming coat , usually right after the tomato seedling are transfer . “ Some Lycopersicon esculentum plants will put out a lot of growth and you ca n’t get it restrained , ” Crow says . “ But it ’s bring pretty decent . ”
Elongated sapling trellis supports pole beans
It takes some reconciliation and good lashing technique ( seeLearn Lashing and Make Your Own Garden Trellises ) to erect the bean tepee used at Old Salem . But the only material you need are pine saplings and twine . And the ‘ Blue Coco ’ beans wait o.k. dangling from the poles , which are about 10 ft long .
The gardeners first put up and lash the tripod at the two ends , then they place the couplet of crisscross celestial pole between the tripods . The top horizontal pole is balanced on the two destruction tripods and then whip . Finally , the horizontal poles midway up the underframe are lashed on .
The structure are broken down and salt away every winter so they wo n’t waste . The pole last about five years .
More trellis and structure you may build
John Bray was an associate editor atKitchen Gardener .
All photos : John Bray
From Kitchen Gardener Issue # 24 , December 1999
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Pine saplings form an elongated tepee for vigorous pole beans.
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Tomato hoops based on a drawing from a 19th century gardening book support the crop at the Old Salem Moravian village in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
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A frame of 1-inch-square sticks lashed with twine forms a spare but effective structure vining plants can brace against as they grow.
