Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Holding Stuff Together With Baling Twine

There is an old, tired line about holding stuff together with duct tape, chewing gum, and baling twine.  Sometimes, it's true, and is exactly what we do use to fix things.  When the cows are just about finished with a round bale of hay, I'll go out to the bale with my pocketknife and will cut the twine into manageable pieces.  I roll it together neatly and put it aside.  You never can tell when you'll need it.

Just so happens I needed it the other day.  With our "summer in late December" gifting us with days in the 80's, our garden is growing by leaps and bounds.  In fact the crop of cilantro is bolting right now.  You can see it on the bottom left of the photo below.  The other thing you can see is our Sugar Snap Peas growing on the trellis.  It is growing so fast and so lush and heavy, that it is causing us some problems.


The vines normally wrap their tendrils around the trellis and creep upward.  Some have done so, but others are so heavy, they are either breaking loose or they haven't firmly attached themselves to the trellis and are pulling down the other peas.  It's a mess and will be very difficult to harvest them.  Harvest won't be many days away.  The vines are full of blooms and little pods are already forming.

But, here's where the baling twine comes in.  I had wifey help me.  I strung out the baling twine from one end of the trellis to the other.

And then I pulled it tight and tied it up.  The twine pulled the vines back up to the trellis where, hopefully, the tendrils will wrap themselves against the cattle panels and hold this time.  

I'm thinking that next week I'll have to add another layer of twine a couple of feet higher.  I also use the twine for the "Florida Weave Tomato Trellis" method that we use every year.  Save your twine.  You never know what it'll come in handy for.

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