What to use as for pea sticks

[bario1]

I use last year's raspberry canes, keeps the pigeons at bay too.

[Penellype]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]54602[/ATTACH]I thought upright branches plus canes to support the netting that I spotted at Doddington Hall Kitchen Garden recently was quite a neat solution.....

How do you get at the peas to harvest them?

[Penellype]

I use the 2 inch square netting tied to stakes with cable ties, but as I tend to grow the peas against a fence they do lean forwards sometimes and need extra support. I tried currant prunings last year but they seemed to rot very quickly and provided little support, so I have kept back some buddleia prunings this time.

[Zelenina]

Canes and string would work if you can make a grid-like structure out of them. But a pea plant doesn't climb by twining like a bean, so it won't go up a single cane or string. It needs something to wrap its tendrils around. That orange netting in the piccie you linked to would probably do the job. Or any other kind of wire or plastic netting with biggish gaps. Or if you're a crafty type you could make organic netting from string. What I used last year was plastic stuff labelled as cucumber netting. Worked fine for the peas, and the cukes liked it better than trailing on the ground.

[janzbro]

Hi, I have a chicken run made from Heras security fencing and I am going to try growing runners and climbing french beans up the sides of the run this year (new to all this so we will see how I fair), only problem is its on the side of a hill and very exposed , wind almost had the run down a few days ago!!!

[Nicos]

Hi there...nice to see you again!
Do you still have chooks in there?
If so, aren't they going to try and eat the plants?

If no chooks, then you may find that the tendrils are difficult to untwine at the end of the growing season.
I found that using wire mesh did have the very positive benefit that the dried plant could be burnt off rather than spending ages carefully cutting it out plastic netting.( yup- that was a one off experience!)

[janzbro]

Hi , yes the hens are still in the run but I thought I would run some canes to the outside of the fence at about 1 metre high out of reach of the hens then let them find there own way up the outside of the fencing. I have extra mesh all round the bottom metre to help keep foxes and rats out so this should keep most out of harms way of the hens as well but I dont mind if they have a few!

heres the run when it still had grass , sadly no more