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The Stupid Wind or How do you Support your Pepper Plants
- Thread starter Koreansoul
- Start date
The thing about central Virginia, we may not get as brutal a heat as y'all do, but we get everything else and then some. I remember when hurricane Isabel hit Richmond, the James flooded several square miles of southside and downtown Richmond, that was before they had built any floodgates. That also wasn't bad as far as windstorms go, it was just all the rain running off the mountains into the river. The worst here is noreaster winter storms, we get it worse than anywhere else...they'll be talking about a "record" 16 inches in Central Park or whatever and I'm out here in Louisa Co, VA with 30"
and Tornadoes, I've been in two...in a car both times. The second one broke out all my windows from hail and had chewed up the pavement about a half mile up the road. I'm glad I hadn't eaten anything too spicy that day because I would have been sitting in it.
I live in a hollow in the woods, wind shields don't do any good because wind swirls here. It's absolutely mandatory for me to make sure as best I can that I have sturdy, short plants.
You guys can also keep your Burmese python problem, no thanks.
and Tornadoes, I've been in two...in a car both times. The second one broke out all my windows from hail and had chewed up the pavement about a half mile up the road. I'm glad I hadn't eaten anything too spicy that day because I would have been sitting in it.
I live in a hollow in the woods, wind shields don't do any good because wind swirls here. It's absolutely mandatory for me to make sure as best I can that I have sturdy, short plants.
You guys can also keep your Burmese python problem, no thanks.
Im in Southwestern Ontario, and a storm/winds having been tearing through last night and today. I woke up to half the plants in my garden knocked over. My entire garden is pepper plants of various kinds, and all were tied to bamboo stakes. Half the stakes were snapped and the plants were laying on their sides. A lot of other branches were just snapped clean off. I tied them back up to bigger 3/4" diameter bamboo stakes, 20 mins later another plant had a branch snapped off. I can tie the main stem of the plant to the stake, but cant exactly stake each branch. No variety of pepper seemed to be spared....jalapenos, anaheims, pasilla bajios, scotch bonnets, habs, trinidad morugas, ghosts, carolina reapers.....and many of the plants are over 3' high. Its frustrating to grow these things for months and months from seed just to see this happen.
Tomato cages and stakes is what I use. I had a few knocked over a couple weeks ago that weren't staked, now everything is staked. One of my other hobbies is kite building so the easiest stake I had to use was carbon fiber spars. Hi tech spars! 
Even so we had a severe storm warning last night so I took all the plants that were in wally bags and put them in my workshop for the night. That was enough to make it so we had a mild thunderstorm, no wind...
-Alden
Even so we had a severe storm warning last night so I took all the plants that were in wally bags and put them in my workshop for the night. That was enough to make it so we had a mild thunderstorm, no wind...
-Alden
Tomato stakes. I spend too much time, effort and $$ to let those plants get crushed.
Stakes. I salvaged some 2x6 treated decking plank scraps a neighbor had left over and spit them into 3 stakes each on a table saw. Years ago there were harmful chemicals used to treat them but that became illegal over a decade ago. For something taller (depends on how long the scraps were too I suppose) like a tomato I start out with high grade (knotless) 2x4 and split each into two stakes, 8' length so once about a foot is in the ground I'm left with 7' of above ground vertical space... then I tie the heck out of everything with twine as it grows.
In certain cases like tomatoes later in the season I may end up with an imbalanced plant, then if it rains the stake may start to lean to one side a bit. In that case I get a large steel hook similar to a tent stake, drive it in the ground on the opposite side the stake is leaning towards, and tie some poly cord between the plant stake top and makeshift tent stake to provide addt'l support. I try to avoid this last step unless/until a storm with heavy winds is forecast and if the situations warrants I may also use more tent stakes and support cord around a plant.
Obviously this won't work if the plants are on a deck or patio but I don't put any plants that get very tall in such areas. One year I did and ended up supporting a plant using cord and cinder blocks instead of tent stakes... was just too much hassle but I wanted to see how it worked and it did.
As for pots tipping over, some people put a big rock on top to weigh it down, but I've never tried this myself thinking it might sink into my fluffy soil.
In certain cases like tomatoes later in the season I may end up with an imbalanced plant, then if it rains the stake may start to lean to one side a bit. In that case I get a large steel hook similar to a tent stake, drive it in the ground on the opposite side the stake is leaning towards, and tie some poly cord between the plant stake top and makeshift tent stake to provide addt'l support. I try to avoid this last step unless/until a storm with heavy winds is forecast and if the situations warrants I may also use more tent stakes and support cord around a plant.
Obviously this won't work if the plants are on a deck or patio but I don't put any plants that get very tall in such areas. One year I did and ended up supporting a plant using cord and cinder blocks instead of tent stakes... was just too much hassle but I wanted to see how it worked and it did.
As for pots tipping over, some people put a big rock on top to weigh it down, but I've never tried this myself thinking it might sink into my fluffy soil.