Tuesday, June 23, 2009

When all you have is a hammer...

...or a TIG welder...

You end up using a $5000 piece of equipment for some pretty silly jobs. Here's a professionally built set of tomato ladders I just made for Sarah. We would have just bought some to go with the planters, but they were sold out (and they cost $25 each). I built enough for all 3 of 'em for $25 worth of steel and 15 minutes of time. Winner, chicken dinner.

Darn, they'll be ugly once they get rained on a few times. Hopefully the 'maters will actually get tall enough to need them!

The washers are tacked on as tie-on points - most of the actual plant-holding will be done with twine strung between the poles. Mmmm. Black Krim!

4 comments:

Feldy said...

This isn't as cool as the time you fixed the tea ball with your welder. ;-D

Joshua Stamper said...

Walt,
Something to bear in mind that a lot of folks overlook with produce in planters using potting soil is calcium fertilization. Western US soils generally have a plethora of free calcium (hence why they are referred to as calcareous soils), but store bought potting soils are generally deficient in Ca which leads to blossom end rot in tomatoes. Gypsum (calcium sulfate) and calcuim nitrate are both good Ca sources. gypsum is the same stuff that they make sheetrock out of, and in Georgia they reclaim sheet rock out of landfills to grind and use as a soil amendment in peanut production.

Lance said...

Are those Christmas lights in the background?

Willem L said...

Walt,
Is that a "self-watering" container?
If it is, check this link out :
http://www.hgic.umd.edu/_media/documents/HG600Containerveggardening.pdf

Maybe next year Sarah will have you build more than just ladders. Happy growing.....