Gilligan's Island Gardening

I've never been happy with the way I do tomato supports, pea trellises, and other vertical gardening elements. I have some of those cheap, badly welded tomato cages, but the tomato plants are too tall for them. The cages bend, come unwelded, and are hard to store in the winter. My old pea trellises, also made of wire, are too short, and I'm too cheap to buy new, bigger ones for either the peas or the tomatoes.

For years I've wanted to find bamboo to build strong, lightweight trellises. It's the Gilligan's Island theory of stuff: whatever you need, you can probably make it with bamboo. So I've been hunting for it as I drive around. 

And I've found it. It grows all over the Island, and I could probably draw a map showing you every place it grows. The problem is, most of these spots are in rich people's yards, and I'm too chicken to knock on their door and ask if they want to get rid of some of their bamboo. The rest are along roads so busy that it would be suicidal to pull over there and start hacking. A few days ago, though, I found an ad on Craigslist by a guy who has way too much of it growing in his yard. 

Free bamboo! All you have to do is come cut it!

I was on the LIE the same afternoon, heading to his house.

The guy was not kidding about how much bamboo he had. It had taken over his entire yard and was advancing on his house. He told me that somewhere in the thicket was a boat that the previous owner of his house had just left there, because he couldn't get through the bamboo to retrieve it. I couldn't even see the boat through the forest of thick stems. I cut a truckload full and went happily home with my treasure.

Check out this website for all sorts of ideas for trellises you can make with bamboo. If you have a small yard, like I do, you can grow many vegetables vertically and thus grow a lot more in a small space. You can even grow winter squash vertically, if you support the developing fruit in slings.

More than 50 photos of bamboo garden trellises!

This morning I built my first trellis--this one is for peas, in a formerly-neglected corner of the yard. I am reclaiming all these out-of-the-way corners to grow veggies in every possible spot. I planted peas under this trellis today, and put onion sets in the area in front of it. Soon I'll also plant lettuce and kale there. The spot is partly shaded later in spring, so it will be great for heat-hating lettuce and peas.

The two different kinds of chicken wire are from rolls I found in my basement--I have no idea where they came from and I know I never bought them, so I can only assume I found them on the side of the road somewhere and kept them because they might be useful.