Should He Stay or Should He Go?

We've had a visitor in our barn almost every night for the past couple of months.  He's leaving his calling card - piles of poop all over the hay.  It looked like possum poop to me.  Funny thing is, there were no chickens missing.  Possums kill chickens.  When they do, they leave most of the carcass behind.  It's always frustrated me because I think, "If you're gonna kill my chickens, eat them.  Clean your plate.  Don't kill them and leave most of the body behind.  That's very wasteful."

So our culprit was not killing our laying hens, but was in the barn.  Why was he coming in the barn?  I got to thinking about it and discussing it with Tricia and we both noticed that we haven't seen ANY rats in the barn.  We researched and found that possums DO eat rats.  So perhaps this possum is doing us a favor and cleaning out the rats.  But there's another variable.  We know that there is also a big rat snake in the barn taking care of the rats, too.  We were' leaving him (or her) alone until it goes in the henhouse, then it must die.

In the photo below, you can see the hole that the possum has made to enter into the corner of the northwest corner of the barn.  If you zoom in, you can see several of the many piles of possum poo.

What to do?  In the words of a song by The Clash back in the 80's, "Should he stay or should he go?"  If he goes, then our rat problem will rebound, especially with wintertime coming and the snake won't be hunting until it warms up.  If he stays, there will come a time when the rat population is diminished (like it is now) and the possum will shift his prey to one of the laying hens in the hen house.  We can't have that.

So with that decision made, I baited up my cage trap with some Pedigree Dog food.  Possums are the easiest animal to catch.  In two days, I had a big, hissing possum in the cage.

Benjamin was home, so I had him grab his rifle and go put him down and compost him.  We will keep an eye on the rat population in the barn.  Hopefully, in the possum's absence, we won't see a population explosion.  Possums poop on the hay and the animals don't like that on the hay.  I wouldn't either!  However, rats poop and pee on the hay and the animals don't like that either.  It's tough to balance these things out!

Dream Weaver – Tomato Edition

When I think of the phrase “Florida Weave,” it reminds me of a hairdo you might get on a beach vacation to Florida.  Actually, it has nothing to do with hair care and everything to do with supporting indeterminate tomato varieties using a trellising technique.  In the past I’ve used various methods including staking and tomato cages with little to no success.

Since stumbling upon the Florida Weave trellising technique on the Internet, I’ve never been tempted to even try another method.  Before I learned of this method, my tomato vines were unruly, falling on the ground, and hard to find the fruit, much less pick it.  The Florida Weave solved all those problems and I’m thankful to whoever came up with this idea.

Every year I post how to do it in the hopes of sharing the technique with someone who doesn’t know about it.  All you need is some T-posts and baling twine.  It is a small investment that yields immediate results and pays for itself quickly.  Fortunately, I always have both T-posts and baling twine on hand.

The very first thing you want to do is get your t-posts and sledge hammer (or t-post banger) and drive a t-post on either end of your tomato rows.  My rows are 24 feet long so for extra support, in addition to having t-posts on either end, I drive a post right in the middle of the row also.

Driving in the t-posts to create the skeleton of the Florida Weave

Then about six inches off of ground level, I anchor some baling twine to the t-post on one end and weave the twine in and out of all of the tomatoes on the row in serpentine fashion.  In other words, after tying off at one end, you’d pass the twine around the left side of the first tomato plant and then around the right side of the second tomato plant, and so on and so forth until you get to the end of the row.

Then, you would alternate sides coming back to the original t-post you started from, passing the twine on the opposite side of the tomato plant that you placed the twine on the first pass.  It is important to keep the twine pulled very tight.  The twine hugs the tomato plant tightly on either side, creating a supporting structure that keeps the vining plant upright and off the ground.

Baling Twin hugs the tomato plant and keeps it upright and erect

Pardon all the weeds that are in the garden.  These will be covered with a thick mat of mulch soon.  I wanted you to see an example of the support structure of the Florida weave after the first level.

A look at the Florida Weave after the first level of twine is in place

Your work is not done, though.  Keep a close eye on your tomatoes as soon it will be time to put in the second level of trellising.  After a few days, your tomato plants will have grown another six inches and it will be time to repeat the process, only six inches (or whatever desired length) up from the first level.  I’ve shown the second level of trellising below.  Note the tautness of the twine and how I’ve wrapped the twine tightly around the t-posts.  As your plant grows and puts on fruit, it will be heavy and require a firmly fastened support structure, sort of like the cables on the Golden Gate Bridge.

The Second Level of Twine

As you can see below the tomatoes continue to grow and it will soon be time to put the third level of trellising up.  You just keep repeating the process as the tomato grows.

Almost ready for level #3!

Sooner or later, though, the height of your tomato plant will exceed the height of your t-posts and the top of the vine will spill over into the row, making it hard to walk and harvest tomatoes.  In using this technique a few years, a friend suggested an expensive, easy solution to this problem.   Using lengths of rebar or ¾ inch conduit and hose clamps to fasten it down to the t-post, you simply extend the height of the t-post upward by several feet to accommodate the additional growth, adding more levels of baling twine.

Florida Weave.  I give this technique a 5 star recommendation and two thumbs up! Compared to other techniques, the Florida Weave is a dream.