Nifty Arbor

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This isn't a question, just something I think a few readers might find interesting: While driving through the University of Nebraska's ag research station, I saw a slick idea for gardeners. Someone there had taken a welded wire cattle panel, maybe 16-foot by 4-foot, bent it into an arch, and anchored the ends so it formed an upsidedown "U". It was planted with flowering vines and used as an entryway to a flower garden, but I'd guess it could work just as well as a grape arbor. Maybe this is an old idea that I'm the last to discover, but I thought it was pretty nifty!

-- Rog (flanders@probe.net), April 12, 2000

Answers

Here's one for you...I passed an old satelite dish turned over and made into a gazebo roof. It looked neat and I thought it was a really great idea! What else can you do with them after the break beyond repair? Jennifer

-- Jennifer (jkmills@freewwweb.com), April 12, 2000.

For those old exercise bikes that we have in barns,closets and garages--you know--the ones you can't give away at a yard sale: Mount your Corona grain mills on the handle bars--replace the crank handle with a 10 tooth sprocket and run the chain from the pedals up to it. This makes grinding wheat like a Sunday ride in the park !

-- Joel Rosen (Joel681@webtv.net), April 12, 2000.

Thanks for the good idea for the exercise bike and the grain mill! I've started having trouble with my elbow, and have been wondering what I could do about it short of getting an electric grain mill. I'm not sure your idea would work with the mill I have (it's a little Back to Basics), but buying a new Corona would be less expensive than a new electric, and we have an old exercise bike in the attic.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), April 12, 2000.

Hadn't thought of a gazebo.......I've been threatening to turn our two derelict satellite dishes into a tiered fish pond! Hmmm - maybe a combination gazebo/grape arbor....

-- Polly (tigger@moultrie.com), April 12, 2000.

Hah! Beat ya to it! My new old arbor is four posts (barn scrap) cut with pointed tops, and three layers of rusty old field fencing bent into the curve, and then some thin wood slats across the bottom to train vines to. Gonna slap some paint on it and get something to grow! This is for wind break by the side door, mostly. See, all us homesteaders think alike!

-- Rachel (rldk@hotmail.com), April 13, 2000.


Interesting, Rog! I have been using that system for several years now for both peas and beans. I anchor the two "bottoms" with a "tent stake" made of rebar. You can also use the hog panel on a slant, long side on the ground, facing south and supported by stakes for cucumbers. The panels are more expensive than the 6" x 6" concrete reinforcing wire I used to use, but they will last long enough to hand down to the great grandchildren. Here's another cool idea (not mine): Take a hanging pot, say 10", and plant cucumbers early. Don't put it outside until weather stabilizes, and you'll have the earliest cucumbers. Have fun & good luck!

-- Brad (homefixer@mix-net.net), April 13, 2000.

Shame on you people stashing exercise bikes in the attic! They make such great clothes hangers!! :)

-- Sue Landress (Sulandherb@aol.com), April 14, 2000.

LOL!! Mine is in the attic (which is also where our clothes are kept) because there just isn't room for it anyplace else. Sometimes I ride it when I take clothes upstairs to put away -- our bedroom doesn't have a closet. I hung heavy eight-foot dowels from the sloping sides of the ceiling on each side of one end of the attic and that is where all our clothes are, like a big walk-in but not so convenient!

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), April 14, 2000.

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