What material you used for a grid ? ?

I tried to make a grid of 7 mm round wood today, but it kept breaking where it shouldn't.
I tried this because I like to keep the grid small in diameter. 7 mm was obviously too small for my carpenter's abilities...

How did you make your grid?? What material did you use and how did you construct it??

No raccoons in Europe. So that makes life a bit easier for me.
Mice and birds (especially pigeons are a pest) are the worst I get.
But I really hope to get a good tip for the grid material itself. I was thinking of some 2nd hand "luxaflex". The small ones would be OK i guess.
Does anyone has experience?

Hoi,

ik heb gewoon de goedkoopste latjes gehaald bij de bouwmarkt, en aan elkaar geniet met een electrische tacker. Daarna het geheel gelakt zodat het wat langer meegaat, hopelijk
Je zou ook geimpregneerde latjes kunnen nemen natuurlijk, maar dat wordt al gauw duurder.

Ik denk dat ik voor bamboe-stokken ga, die ook gebruikt worden als plantensteun. Dan op de juiste plaatsen een plat kantje eraan maken en met een nylontouwtje met elkaar verbinden.
Ik zou liefst geen geïmprigneerde dingen willen gebruiken i.v.m. de giftige stoffen die daar voor gebruikt worden.

Duct tape.

I have those black plastic grow beds from Gardeners.com and duct tape seems to do the trick. They sell pre-made grids but I'm sticking with my tape for now.

People throw them away all the time, so you might get lucky and be able to scavenge some for free. You can buy a new set of cheap blinds for about $10. With luck, they'll already be the exact size you need, but if your boxes are not quite as long as the blinds, you can cut the slats with scissors easy enough.

Get some plastic snap rivets, which you can find at a computer supply store. They are small little plastic pins that "snap" together to hold things in place in a computer enclosure. Cheap and durable and you don't need tools to install them.

Cut the string on the blinds to liberate the slats, storing the extras in the box they came in as backup or replacement parts. Put the extra snap rivets in the box too, so you'll be able to find them 2 years from now when you need to replace a slat or something.

Cut the slats to size for your boxes, and divide the length by 4 and mark them for drilling a little hole. For example, for a perfect 4'x4' bed, you'd buy 48" blinds and then make a mark every 12". If your boxes are perfectly square, take 6 slats, hold them together and drill your first hole. Put one of the snap rivets into the hold to hold them together while you drill the remaining 3 holes. If you box is not perfectly square, you'll do 3 slats at a time, measuring each direction and dividing by 4. In this case, be sure to keep the slats separate and identified so you don't get confused when you go to assemble your grid.

Assemble into a grid, insert the snap rivets at each "intersection". The resulting structure can be "folded" together for moving it around or storage at the end of the season. It makes a really nice grid that will last a good long time, and if it does get damaged, you've got that box of spare parts. If you can remember where you stashed it!

String! String! String!

1/2" wide x 1/4" thick pieces of wood that I ripped on the table saw. I'll probably use string(or steel wire if I can find it cheap enough) for my next series of boxes though. I don't think anyone could garrote themselves on the steel wire set as a grid. If they do, then it probably wasn't going to be their day anyway.

I used 3/8" rebar for my grid.

Howdy Fellow Gardeners:

At work we get pallets of material that is strapped to the pallet. Normally the straps are thrown away so I gather them up and use them to make trellis and grid material. They are strong, strong, strong. Most are white but some are different. One bed we made with bright yellow strap. Looks so cool against the green spinach and carrot tops.

God Bless, Ward and Mary.

We used hot pink nylon twine! I used a staple gun to staple it to the inside of the bed, and then my mom tied the string to the staple. We did draw the twine too tight, as I'll have a length pull out occasionally. I untie it, tap the staple back in, and retie it. Next time, I know not to draw it so tight, since it'll tighten on its own.

I like it, as it takes up virtually no space!

Awesome idea, with the pallet strapping! And being able to make trellis with it, too!

I love using string. It's nylon and comes in different colors at home depot on the rope aisle. Works like a charm!

I use wood lath strips joined at each intersection with a small nut and bolt. Because there are a lot of cats in my neighborhood and my boxes are such inviting litterboxes, I cut 1 foot squares of chicken wire to sit over each square when the seedlings are coming up.

i hada whole grocery bag fulla yellow nilon rope from a place i worked so i cut it to lenth used screws and flat washers to secure it to the top of the boxs



https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/gallery/Personal-album-of-boog1/pict0017-pic_2046.htm

I use 3/4" screen molding and clear plastic "nuts & bolts".

We happened to have a lot of bamboo canes on hand. A nice set of loppers was able to cut them to the lengths we needed, and they're just placed in the bed. I may choose to lash the grid together at some point, but am pretty happy with it as it is for now.

We're to the point of needing a trellis now for the peas and cukes, and are contemplating using more canes. Our beds are only 2' wide, so we're thinking that bamboo could hold such a trellis adequately. We'll put rebar sticks in the ground and put the canes over them.

But, if that doesn't work, metal conduit is cheap!

Enjoy!

White nylon string, cheap, easy, takes no space, and looks good too.

I just used twine. So far it is working fine. It doesn't lie directly on the soil but that hasn't been a problem yet.

I used 16 gauge galvanized wire.

I was going to use wood but I liked the idea of the wire not taking up really any room.

You can see pics in "My garden layout" topic.

cachecrashers4 wrote:I used 3/8" rebar for my grid.

I'm kinda diggin this. How are your bars held together? Are they heavy enough after they are stuck into the square position your able to just lay them down and not attach to the box? Looks very cool!

Kim, did you find out from your biz partner where he got the little plastic rivet things? I'm thinking about using someone's idea of metal venetian blind slats since I have one that one of my dogs tried to 'see' through.

krazikandiland wrote:

cachecrashers4 wrote:I used 3/8" rebar for my grid.

I'm kinda diggin this. How are your bars held together? Are they heavy enough after they are stuck into the square position your able to just lay them down and not attach to the box? Looks very cool!

I measured and marked the boxes at 1' increments. I then laid the rebar on the marks and wire tied at the intersections. The grid is heavy enough to just lay on top of the box, but I can easily remove the grid if I need to. I really like the look of the cold metal bars against the warmth of the wood and plants.

I'm sorry, but no he didn't.

BUT here's the link I put on the other post:
http://www.merchandisinginventives.com/VS_1_Viking_Screw_with_Locking_Nut_p/vs-1.htm