Get your canes in now

[Jenny Green]

If you've got your beds ready and will be putting in canes for climbing beans etc. it's a good idea to get them in now while the ground is still soft from winter rain. Come June it will have dried out somewhat and if you're on clay the canes are harder to get in.
Also, if you have fruit but no fruit cage, you can make a temporary one by putting in 8' canes with jam jars on the top and draping netting over them.
But, as I said, get those canes in now. It's much easier!

[oldherbaceous]

Hello jenny, i'm going now to do my canes .

Kind regards a rushing Old Herbaceous.

Theres no time like the present.

[Garlic_Guy]

Aaahhhh!

That explains why all the old boys on our allotment did this on Good Friday.

Makes sense - thanks for the tip

[Chantal]

I'm a bit torn on this one as last year I put some canes in early and by the time I was able to plant my beans out, loads of weeds had appeared on previously clear soil. It was so difficult trying to weed in and out of the canes that I took the whole lot out and started again. I agree that it can be hard to shove them in the ground later on though, now I don't know what to do.

[richard p]

surely if the grounds too dry to push the canes in it will need a good soaking before the beans go in??

[Jenny Green]

If the ground's a bit dry for the beans I tend to water where the beans go, rather than the whole area. I don't want to have to water where the canes are to go too. Also, to get the canes in firmly they need to go deep. On a clay soil this is much easier to do now than in six weeks' time in my experience, when it has started to firm up.

[Anonymous]

We put up our bean canes in a week or so ago. It was nothing to do with the ease of pushing them in to the soft ground (although this obviously makes sense.

We feed the birds all the year round, and in our small back garden we get the sparrowhawks using our garden as a 'fly through macdonalds'. It just buggers up their flight-path to the nut/seed feeders.

valmarg

[Brenjon]

I must be the odd one out or have too much to do, as i put my canes out when I put my bean plants in . Admittantly I have loose fine soil.
Regards Brenjon

[Allan]

My method is to get a suitable size auger, that's really a wood drill but it works in soil, fit it in a rechargeable cordless drill and thus make hole for the canes. Packets of augers are relatively cheap at DIY and discount shops but make sure that the size you want fits your drill chuck, there are usually bigger ones in the packet that won't fit but as long as you get the right size as well ignore the rest.

[PT]

I don't like using canes, and I don't think the beans do ether. I'm lucky to have excess to as much hazel sticks as I need. As for getting them in the ground I use an iron bar, the type they use at road works for hanging up that orange netting. It's about 3/4" thick with a hook at the top and a point on the bottom.

[Carole B.]

Most of us use canes because they're easy to get hold of,nobody seems to do hazel sticks anymore due I suppose to the sad demise of traditional forestry,but have you ever wondered just how many air miles are on those canes?

[Johnboy]

Hi Carol,
To be thoroughly pedantic! Boats don't fly. Bamboo canes are shipped here not flown but you make the very valid point. I take PT's point but is it relevant. I use both Hazel of which I have a plentiful supply and 10ft Canes. I have actually found over the years that it makes absolutely no difference and have also used Baler Twine and that doesn't make any difference either. The reason why canes were introduced was because my hedging is on a 7 year cycle and in one cycle the poles didn't make the required size.
I have anything from solid rock to four feet of soil that you can push anything in at any time of the year
that has been well worked over many many years by me and my forerfathers before me.

[Carole B.]

O.K.Johnboy swim miles then! When I was a kid my Dad used to have the local farmers permission to gather his bean sticks from the local copse but that option doesn't happen any more.I've planted some hazel on an otherwise useless wet bit of garden they're getting away quite well but it's going to be 3 or 4 years before I get anything useful.
Since I went over to raised hump beds I don't have any problems pushing the sticks in the ground.
My plot neighbour planted out his runner beans last weekend,they look a bit sick now.I haven't even sown mine yet!

[Johnboy]

Hi Carole,
I apologise for having a bit of fun with you. I have masses of Hazel now but it is too late to take it.
I have offered Hazel to local gardeners but they all say they have canes and do not need them.
Earlier on in the year I pleached 100yards of Hazel and I have kept a load of Poles but burnt equally as many. Such a shame. I think we should try and use Hazel where possible as it is a natural rescorce.

[oldherbaceous]

Hello Jonhboy my dear fellow, if you did not live so far away, i would have been up there and helped you with the hazel. I love using hazel for bean poles and pea sticks, i don't think there looks anything nicer than a six foot tall row of peas at full throttle. I might have made a few thatching spars as well just to se if i can remember how to do it.
Do you remember that programme Out of town with Jack Hargreaves. On one of the programmes he took a donkey and cart to the woods and cut a cart load of tall pea sticks, gosh that brings some good memories back. The other thing that hazel has over bamboo, is that you don't get those blooming bamboo splinters in your hands.

Kind regards a reminiscing Old Herbaceous.

I'm a hard man with a soft collar.