Okay - here comes the long awaited birds eye (actually corner of the next street) view of what the heck I'm doing, fer cryin' out loud...

First (For Mark)



The white pipe is an actual leftover length of old sewer line, cut and re-purposed
The other is just an old 2-liter bottle, with the bottom out of it.

(The sewer pipe was a wind-fall. What you can do instead is save old coffee cans (large size) and cut the bottoms out with a can opener.
The plastic lid you cut a one inch hole in for air circulation, and when it warms up pull the lid off, leaving the can and all that mulch around it for a wind break until it does well again or the weather warms more)

This is what you do if you hear of a possible cold front about to trash everything you set in the ground.

The higher you can heap dirt or mulch around them (mulch works lots better, but you can even use old decaying material to raise the temperature more) the better. It also prevents "Blow-Over" if it gets windy

*ONE of my notions here is that plastic DOES NOT last forever (contrary to popular belief) and that stuff IS made out of petroleum.
~So we had best get the most use of it that we can before it finally DOES biodegrade.

THIS is the tomato "BRIDGE" idea - and I had no idea it would be so useful at keeping local stray dogs from stomping the sprout trays in the garden:


~Not to mention thinking they were toys and running off with them....
At 16 to 18 inches, most will never run under it. They WILL NOT get on top of them to carry anything away!

They also should make it a lot easier to manage EVERYTHING, and the vines don't get all clumped together in a tangled mess that YOU CAN'T EVEN FIND THE TOMATOS IN

This way the toms hang underneath, the vines are easy to pick up and move, and the trench under them is the only major water and fertilizer concern

Bluntly - I pounded 3/4 inch schedule forty sections into the ground, using a trellis laid on it to find the places I wanted all the stakes, then I made simple keepers to lock the trellis wire into the tops of them.

It's called a J-hook.

Bend the last 1/4 inch of a bit of wire into a hook, bend the opposite third in a hook that will loop over the trellis wire and tuck down into the pipe in such a way that it forces the hook on the other leg to dig into the inside of the pipe...

It won't come out easily

But the trellis's (made of 6 inch mesh concrete reinforcing wire) turned out to have so much extra use as, among other things, a SPROUT AREA (and you water everything at once, instead of looking in odd corners for forgotten plants), a place to use as a garden table - NO WORRIES about a mess, everything goes into the soil under it all! YOU CAN'T MAKE A MESS OF IT...

Also a convenient hanger for odd tools, if you've any hooks or can make some of wire...

The list goes on


It just becomezzzz a convenient "THING"

Would you think I was nutz if I talked to my plants to encourage and empower them?

They strike me as better friends than some banks that I have heard of

unlike a bank - they give much more back to me. Besides, I get to see what they all look like!

My lettuce lasted until year end, and beyond. Lettuce loves cold weather.


My current redleaf lettuce is from last year...