Old Timer's Habits: Alternative plant poles

I love gardening! It's exciting to watch a plant sprout and gain strength. My family loves eating the fruits and vegetables more them watching them grow. The down side to gardening is the expense. A few dollars here and a few dollars there and there is only so much money to go around.

Last fall I was planting peas and wondering how I was going to stake them? I was out of poles for the peas to climb. As I was thinking about this need I was looking at our yard and I noticed some of our flowers. We have these plants that have long stems that bloom flowers all along the stem and I thought those stems are as straight as dowels you buy at the store.

I started wondering if I cut these stems off the plant after they were done flowering if they would be strong enough for a plant to train or curl up them. What did I have to loose, cutting off the stems wouldn't hurt the plant and if it worked I would have the poles I needed for free.

So we took our tree lopper and cut a whole bunch of these stems after they were done flowering and laid them flat to dry. It took about a month and a half . And sure enough the heavier stems were sturdy enough to use as poles for the plants to climb up. Now I don't have to keep buying these. I can just cut and dry them out every year and I will always have plenty of poles for our plants without spending any money on it.

Step#1

Cut stem after all flowering has stopped and lay on a flat dry surface to dry out.