Pat, Not all of my tomato plants are that big, but most of the cherries make big plants and Tess's Land Race which is a currant size is normally a huge plant. My largest plant this year is a greek tomato called Santorini, (thanks Lynn for the seed) but makes a small tomato. I am 5'6", and it is way over my head already. It seems to me that when I lived in southern Oklahoma the prevailing wind was normally from the SW and when we saw a storm brewing in Texas in Montague County we prepared for the worst because it always seemed to come straight for us. The big tornado they had there seemed to follow that same logic. In my area now, the wind seems to come from the south, although Kansas does share a few storms with us, but high wind is not the norm for us here, . I also live in a rather congested lake community and have a lot of buildings near my garden, both mine and neighbors. Since I live on a slight curve, I pretty well have a building providing protection from all directions, plus tall trees everywhere. So when I mounted my arch, my thought process went to sunshine availability rather than protection from the wind. At the time, it was the gateway to my garden so I just angled it so both sides got sunshine. After extending my garden and putting in a walkway, I decided to move it. Since nothing could be planted under it because of dense foliage, it just made sense to me to put it over the walkway. This does limit the sunshine a little, but shade doesn't seem to be a bad thing this year. It is hard to know what to plan for since my Spring weather is normally very wet. I have a few raised beds which I had planned to use for spring crops because of the excessive Spring rain keeping my garden too wet to plant, but changed my mine and planted asparagus in one and strawberries in another. The third will probably be used for onions next year, since mine had to tread water for a few weeks this Spring. However, when the rain stops and the heat is excessive those raised bed dry out too fast and require more water. I can't win. If I had a tomato henge like Diane and Steve have built, I would probably have welded a ring to the top of each post and run cable from one pole to the other across the length of the row and have those rings with a clip on them on the cables. When conditions were normal I would have nothing on the clips, but for hail threats, I would clip on a big tarp (probably many sewn together), and for excessive heat I would have fabric ready to go on. I wouldn't worry about it being shade cloth since sheets sown together from the thrift shop would serve the same purpose. I would probably hit the thrift shops all winter so I could find all white ones. Of course I don't know how I can fix mine. Maybe I need to hire Steve to weld me four posts like his for my outside rows and I can use my cages in between. LOL Diane tried to pass it off as someone elses idea, but I have compared the two and I would easily choose Diane's. I am laughing as I type this because I am trying to improve on an already great system which is always what I accuse my husband of doing. He always waits until I have finished something then tells me how I could have done it better. Even his friends ask for his advice after they finish something, then sometimes make the changes. I tell him that he is one of the best managers that I have ever known but that he never had an original idea in his life. (grin) At our house the garden is mine, but Al does seem to enjoy playing with it a little in the Spring when the weather is still cool. He will till, move trellis, pick up compost, shovel it all out of the truck and put it where I want it, all those things to get the garden ready, but each year he SUGGESTS that I put things like trellis and such in a permanent place and run irrigation to it. Maybe...some year. With old age creeping up on me (not here yet of course), I know that would be a good idea.

Thank you for posting the garden tower directions. I have room for as much garden as I could possibly use, but it would be so nice to build some of these to put on my raised deck for lettuces. We have so much wildlife and at least it would keep the lettuce away from the rabbits although I did have to chase off some wild turkeys one year from a flat box of greens on the deck. Hm-m-m, maybe some strawberries, too.

I'll echo the sentiment that beeziboy's pvc work is inspiring. (I actually was browsing the forum looking for ideas on the best ways to support flowering vines for a hummingbird area -- having taken one person's advice to "think vertical" -- and now am contemplating the advantages of PVC over wood, metal and wire. Thin black PVC pipes could actually make a nice contrast in front of the adobe-colored shed, and would never rust or rot or need painting...) And my respects to someone who served in the Solomon Islands in WWII. From what I've read, it's the kind of environment where you're lucky if the plants and insects (and occasional giant lizard) don't eat YOU, much less introducing new food crops there!

Yes DivalnTheGarden, everything is moveable. In fact, I'm going to rearrange it in the spring. The swing set just picks up and moves (with help). The pole bean trellises have metal stakes that I just pull out of the ground and hammer them in somewhere else and then push the piping into the ground next to the metal stakes and use a couple bungees to hold them together. It's pretty easy to move everything. And I use concrete reinforcing wire for everything to grow up in the trellises and also have cages made out of that wire for the tomatoes. I leave everything out over winter too.........not a problem.