Bamboo Poles in the Garden

[basjoos]

Not the bamboo plant, just the poles. If you have access to a bamboo grove, it can be a source of free 100% natural and biodegradable, vertical support for your vegetables that can be either chipped or placed in the bottom of your compost pile to decay after they finally wear or rot out after a number of years. Giant cane (Arundo) canes can also be used, although they are thinner-walled and nowhere near as strong or durable as bamboo poles but can be used in light duty applications (I mainly use them for vertical bean poles if I run out of bamboo)

The first place I use bamboo poles is for pea sticks. For this I cut off the top 3 to 8 feet (depending on the size of your pea cultivars) from a cane, leaving all of the branches in place except for the lowermost set, so I can push the bottom of the pole into the ground next to the pea plants.

If you cut off 3 to 4 feet from the lower unbranched part of a bamboo cane, you can take 3 of them and press them vertically into the ground in a triangular pattern centered and about 6 inches away from a young summer squash plant. Then as the squash grows, keep its new growth centered between the 3 poles so it grows straight up between them. Not only will your squash fruit be dirt free and easier to spot, it will also reduce the number of places that squash bugs can hide under the plant.

To make a bamboo tomato cage, collect some canes from a Phyllostachys bamboo. This is the largest and most commonly found cold-hardy bamboo and grows its branches in pairs on alternating sides of the cane. Cut a 4 to 6 foot section from the lower portion of the branched part of the cane, then cut off all of the branches on one side of the cane, leaving only the paired branches on every other node on the remaining side. Take 3 or 4 of these pruned canes and place them around your tomato plant so that the diverging paired branches of each cane overlap and rest on the branches of the adjacent cane, thus forming a cage of bamboo branches around the tomato plant. An advantage to a bamboo tomato cage is that it can be easily customized on the spot to the potential size for each tomato cultivar. It is also easy to expand the diameter or height of the cage later on in the season if it looks like you underestimated your tomato plant's growth potential.

Then of course there is the traditional bean pole that can be used with pole, runner, lima, yard-long, and asparagus beans. The simplest of these is a tipi of poles lashed together at their upper ends and placed over the bean bed (this bamboo tipi is also useful for supporting sheets placed over small fruit trees to protect them from late frosts).

For long raised beds, plant the beans in a parallel double row about 3 to 4 feet apart. At each end of the row build a 6 foot high tripod of 3 poles lashed together about a foot below the upper ends of the poles so the poles diverge above the lashed point tipi-style. Then lay a stout pole horizontally across the tops of the 2 tripods and lash it down on the tripods. Then place vertical poles every 1 or 2 feet apart with their bases in the ground next to the bean plants and their tops leaning against the horizontal ridge pole. After all of the vertical poles are in place, tie them to the ridge pole using a daisy chained series of knots running down the length of the ridge pole.

Bamboo poles can also be threaded vertically through field fencing to extend its height for beans and cucumbers growing up the fence.

These are the main ways that I use bamboo poles in my garden, but many other uses can also be found by the imaginative mind.

[Higgy]

Hey Basjoos, nice post. I've been starting to convert to bamboo polls myself. I used them in part of my pea fence, and I'll be using them again with my tomato plants. I couldn't find four post tomato cages for my self watering tomato plant pot that I'm making, so I'm going to use bamboo instead. It's nice and strong and works well in the garden.