Are charcoal briquets unburned dangerous in the garden?

Building my frame for shade and trellising during a nice, hot Arizona day... got the frame up which I've made out of PVC pipe. It's basically a giant rectangle suspended 6 ft above the perimeter of the garden.

Up and down lengthwise I've run nylon string down the middle of each row, from which I'll hang nylon down to the plants (tomatoes, peppers, etc) to wrap around plants as the grow to keep them growing up and not out. I wanted to tie the string to something which would be heavy enough as an anchor. Was sitting on the patio thinking when I noticed the bag of charcoal to my left.

Grabbed a briquet and it tied easily to string and when I tied it up so it just barely rested gently on the soil, all looked good.

Of course the briquets are easy-lighting, no fluid required so I'm guessing as I water the garden it'll cause problems. Thoughts? Other suggestions of things lying around the house I could use or purchase expensively?

Here is a link to a recent thread about charcoal ash - from what I've read charcoal probably isn't the best idea.
https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t8578-charcoal-ash-water-useful-in-garden

If you are planning on stringing tomatoes, you will need to tie the string to something pretty solid. I tried that this summer and by the time the tomatoes get up to about 5 ft, they can be pretty heavy.

I've seen people tie to a stake in the garden, to their grids (if they are wood), even to hooks they've screwed into their boxes. I'm sure others will have more ideas for you.

If you are looking for something for weight - maybe some sort of sandbags, large washers???

yep .... pretty confident in telling you "easy light" = not good for garden.



Drop a briquette into a cup of water & the film that comes to the top will answer all your questions about whats leaching into yr garden everytime those get wet ......

You could use small landscape rocks as weight also. We have plenty of those around AZ.

I would use a 1/2 or 3/4 inch nut or as suggested a rock of some sort.

Um...we all know that I'm not a good tomato grower because of my borderline weather from year to year... but if I understand correctly what you're doing, I just tied the bottom of the string to the bottom stem of the tomato plant, near the soil line. It's worked great.

Another option would be to run pvc, or stick(s) of wood across the box, in one direction or another, to tie the strings to.

Boffer - your idea is simple and logical. I'll try that over all the other great suggestions.

In all honesty, I just wanted to see if I could securely try string around a briquet.

I used bricks..I tied the twine through one hole in the brick, ran up over the top bar on my trellis and down through the
second hole.. adding in bricks as necessary. It made the spacing of the lines somewhat adjustable. Right now I have sweet potatoes and a cucumber growing up the lines. It worked very well for one tomato until it died..