The folks who said to stake the legs down real well are right. Without the stakes, the whole thing can blow over at any time in the future. The idea about horizontal bracing between the legs is also good. You could even use some more bamboo for the braces and lash it on real tight. Braces more rigid than bamboo would probably be best. You simply don't want the flimsy legs flopping around in the wind. I really like the idea about pulling the tension line down from the center. I'm just not sure how much tension on bamboo is good. Ted

LOOK HERE...http://rareseeds.com/seeds/Runner-Beans....Potato Bean An heirloom that was sent to us from a family in Oregon. They had been growing it for many years. It produces huge, fat, white beans that are among the largest I have seen! Great for cooking. Vining plants set good yields. Delicious and hard to find. (20 seeds) Item Code: RB105 $3.00 From Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds 2009 catalog look under "runner beans". I want some of these for myself also.Let me know if you are not able to get the seeds you want and I may be able to help you find another location.?email me at ..cecilburdeshaw@bellsouth.net or wayne_burdeshaw@yahoo.com....wayne

Suebot - don't think i'm going to tell you anything that somebody else hasn't said, but since i've had too much experience with deer & rabbits, i figured i'd concur with the remedies that worked for me. i used to live/learned to garden on nantucket and martha's vineyard, where the deer are at least as unreasonably tame and probably more abundant than they are in ct. i've heard stories of people standing 10 ft away from them yelling at them while they chomp on their hydrangea flower buds. one woman i was talking to claimed she saw the deer attacking her dalmation!! anyway, my first thought about your original message was are you sure all damage is due to deer and not rabbits? - when they stand on their hind legs, they can eat quite high - on a couple of my client's properties on the islands, i had more problems with bunnies than deer, especially with my daylilies & echinacea. so, i also found success with the deer away spray products; i can't remember which one i used, but i believe it had garlic & mint in it and i actually liked the way it smelled. the directions said to spray every couple of weeks (??), but i found that i had to spray every couple of days or so & definitely after a rain. it was pretty time consuming. unfortunately, my other success was fencing in the gardens. i just tried to be decorative about it - i used nice cedar posts with caps, bird netting @ 4' high (you can't really see it, so the garden still looks nice), i hung rope along the top of the netting (for a nautical look...). I did throw netting on top of the gardens in the spring until things grew too tall, but i have to admit, the deer hopped in a couple of times (- that would've been a mess i kind of would have liked to see). i now live in maine and have a large cutting garden in my back yard, a good distance from my house and i use the bird netting as the fencing (simply because it was the only fencing i could find that would be high enough in one piece) and it works (doesn't handle snow load, though). i see deer in the back and they walk right around the garden. chipmunks are now my problem. unfortunately, my true feeling is that if the deer want to get to something, they will. sorry to be so lengthy, good luck. just out of curiosity, do you have phlox and is it being eaten - that always gets destroyed the worst for me. -mara

Today, its a constant drizzle. The last few weather fronts that pass here, tend to swirl around over the Atlantic, and then swing back in for another round the next day. They predict that by Monday we may get a break. I had to put the heat back in here too, as its only in the low 40's outside. Most of my plants are in the greenhouse and luckily, I had just replaced all the broken glass last week. I need to get the tomato plants outside soon, as some are over 3 foot tall and have already toppled in their tiny pots. The 60 tomato plants suck up over a gallon of water almost every day. Today is Sushi making, actually California rolls. I just prepared (sliced thin strips), some pickled jicima (pronounced- hickima) as well as an english cucumber for the filling, along with rehydrating some wood ears with some beef broth. The fillings will also include carrot, scallion, sweet red peppers, and of course imitation crab meat. The real stuff is way too expensive. I have even used the pink colored pickled ginger as a filling in some. Just recently made a big batch of crab rangoon, and shrimp egge rolls too. My rangoon actually had some imitation crab meat in it, along with low fat creamed cheese, and some of my chives (actually a wild onion, I found out). The egg rolls were made using real shrimp, bok choy, onion, cabbage, carrot, and sweet red peppers. Both were deep fried and frozen for later use.