Tensioning wire for espaliers

[iwatkins]

I've just got 4 espalier fruit trees for Christmas (thanks Mum & Dad!) and I am now trying to get the wire up on our garden fence to train them up.

I cannot find anywhere any simple advice as to how to tension the wire. I have put screw in rings into the fence, but past experience tells me that getting the wire anything better than "not too saggy" is difficult.

How do people go about tensioning wire in these circumstances? It doesn't need to be piano tight, but needs to be better than "unpropped washing line" :-)

Thanks.

[Alison]

I use some tensioning thingys on the wire - this is a piccie of them Ken Muir Ltd - Gripple Wire Tensioning System - Tree & Cane Accessories - Accessories but I bought just the green plastic bits off ebay pretty cheaply. They work really well and are dead simple to use.

[Jeanied]

I use a long nail! Twisted round like a tourniquet.

[Snadger]

If you've already used vine eyes you've got a ready made tensioning system.
Screw one into the end of the last post, puthe wire through the eye and pull tight and loop around eye. Screw the eye in withte wire around the outside of it and as it screws in it will tighten the wire. Just stop screwing in when the wire is taut!
If you want it really taut you could tension from both end posts.

[iwatkins]

If you've already used vine eyes you've got a ready made tensioning system.
Screw one into the end of the last post, puthe wire through the eye and pull tight and loop around eye. Screw the eye in withte wire around the outside of it and as it screws in it will tighten the wire. Just stop screwing in when the wire is taut!
If you want it really taut you could tension from both end posts.

Snadger, thanks.

The eyes are scrwed into the fence that site behind the fruit trees, I don't have an end post.

[iwatkins]

I use a long nail! Twisted round like a tourniquet.

Jeanied,

Thanks. How did you use the nail? Bring the wire back through the eye, twist the nail into the wire and then keep going?

[iwatkins]

I use some tensioning thingys on the wire - this is a piccie of them Ken Muir Ltd - Gripple Wire Tensioning System - Tree & Cane Accessories - Accessories but I bought just the green plastic bits off ebay pretty cheaply. They work really well and are dead simple to use.

Alison,

Thanks. I'm trying to keep costs down and I already have the wire. How did you find them on Ebay?

[Alison]

Alison,

Thanks. I'm trying to keep costs down and I already have the wire. How did you find them on Ebay?

It's been a few years but assume I just did a search and found them that way. Have checked my records and don't have any of the supplier so can't point anybody in the right direction.

[Jeanied]

The patented Jeanied wire tensioning method! I just got the wire through the vine eye on one side, anchored it by doubling the wire back and twisting it on itself a few times and tightened as much as I could by wrist/ finger strength (so it was a bit loose 'cos I's a wimp) pushed through the opposite vine eye and pulled and twisted round itself again. Then the nail comes in - usually to one side of the vine eye- twist it under and round the wire in a convenient spot - one where it will be held flat so it doesn't helicopter back - twist the nail round as much as you can as the tourniquet. I find the wire slackens over the year so I have to tighten from time to time and sometimes the wire pings and breaks so I know that one needs replacing!
I hope that explains it... It's at this point that I wish I could draw it on the 'puter!