Saturday, July 16, 2011

Rectangles in Square-Mesh Netting

For the past several weeks I've been working with square mesh netting. Several of the trellises I made were with square meshes rather than diamond meshes. By the time I had finished those trellises, I had the directions for making a square of square-mesh netting written and well tested. This week I have been working with square-mesh netting again - but with rectangles instead of squares. I made four different samples.










Two had an even number of squares across the width.










 






Two had an odd number of squares across the width.















I also made sure that the samples included two with an even number of squares along the length and two with an odd number of squares. I carefully wrote down the directions, for both the width and the length, noting the changes that occurred when an even or odd number of squares was wanted. I thought I had the directions figured out and accurately put into the computer.

I guess it was a good thing I looked at my garden yesterday and noticed that the tomato plants at one end of one garden box were starting to sprawl all over the place. The poor tomato plants were in need of a trellis of their own - the one spot in the garden where I had not already supplied one!

Tomatoes in Square-foot Garden without trellises


We picked up the materials to make the frame, and last night I found some unused seine twine Mason Line to use for the netting. As I was netting the trellis, I found a mistake in the instructions that I thought were all finished and correct. I guess it pays to check and double check the instructions.

Retangular Net Square-mesh Trellis 4 feet by 5 feet with 3" square meshes






And this morning, with the help of my youngest son, we threaded the netting onto the frame.

















The tomato plants are no longer sprawling; they are climbing instead. I even saw a few small, green tomatoes.

Tomato plants climbing up trelllis of square-mesh netting

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