I get #12 bamboo skewers at the grocery store to keep seedling vines from twining into each other, package of 100 very inexpensive.

I use bamboo skewers aswell for vines

Yup, shish kabab skewers here too!

Ditto! They are SOOOOO cheap. You can get 100 for about 50 cts or a dollar. Go to the Dollar Store, too, and check them out. Toothpicks would also work (the longer ones). I've also used drinking straws as well. I save mine, rinse them out, stick them in the top drawer of the dishwasher, and reuse them for plants.

Susan

Oh, I am almost disappointed - it is so unanimous and easy. :) I don'teven have to go to the grocery, I already have them in the kitchen drawer.

Thanks for the advice -- I'm singing, "Tonight's the Niiiiight", I almost sound like Rod Stewart.

Lime

When you use the skewers how do you get your plants close enough to grow lights with the skewers sticking up? I have some sweet peas that are groing too fast and I can't put them outside but they are getting their tendrils and want to start climbing.
Karen

That's an excellent question, Karyn. Frst time I started vines inside I wound up having to relegate one entire light fixture just for their growth because I ran into just the same problem. Pity since at that time I only had maybe three or four different vines going and felt like I was wasting precious "light space". But at least now I'm doing more than a few vines at a time so I don't feel so badly.

When I transplant them from cells (or plugs) into 3" pots I'll stick the skewer (yeah, I use them too) all the way down to the bottom of the pot and raise it as the vine grows. As long as the top of the vine is no more than 2-3" away from the light source, they're fine. When the skewer is lengthened as high as possible w/o tipping over, then it's generally time to move them out to the greenhouse where I'll carefully insert another, taller skewer and attach it with a sliver of of old panty hose.

If you can't do that, then you may have to do what I did and just relegate one light source for just the vines alone.

Linda

"Oh, I am almost disappointed - it is so unanimous and easy. :) "

I climb Mt. McKinley at the first sign of snowfall and look for the elusive stick weed plant (Absconditus spucatumtaurium). I pluck a single perfectly straight stick from each one and kiln dry it for 3 months before whittling out climbing notches and staining it with linseed oil.

Happy now :P

LOL! Okay, well, that would be a little overboard, but I was truly expecting some major get up hanging from the lights or something. Something like a huge tower of fencing which would then be cut apart at planting time.

The babies are doing well. They'd like to be planted out, but the weather is turning downright cold from the recent Caribbean-like weather we've had in the last 2 weeks.

My giant and beautiful pink Magnolia should bloom just in time for the whole thing to turn brown and I have a number of trees that cannot take the slightest bit of frost on their new growth, so that will be gone, too. So sad. I'm already wearing my black armband.

Lime

OMG scottamuss, glad I wasn't drinking anything and that I am the only one in this office. I laughed right out loud after reading your post. Too funny. Thanks for the day brightener.

Bonny

Plastic chopstick make good stakes too. You can buy big packs of them from restaurant supply stores or in Chinatown.

HID lights work pretty well on vine seedlings ....

{{gwi:217478}}

Wow! That is quite a picture! Did you start them all from seeds? Doesn't matter, LOL! Mine will never look that good :)

Lime

Yes, all were started from seed. In that picture they were a few months old. The walls of my plant room started to look like a little jungle! And the plants did very well outside.

You could also try letting the plants grow horizontally (with no stake) under a fluorescent shop light, starting one or two plants at each end. While they're getting started, you could use the middle for flowers like pansies and violas that can go out sooner.

Here's an indoor-grown sweet pea, about five feet tall, with vines climbing up to the ceiling in the background ....

{{gwi:217480}}

Along the lines of staking up baby vines how do you stake them in your garden? I have Purple Hyacinth beans that I grew last year & used fishing line & the got too heavy. Would you suggest a trellace? I have a garden that is about 10 feet long and about 2 feet wide and it is on the side of the house so I could attach it to the side of the house & let them grow up it. What do you think?

Rebecca...