My peas were totally falling over. I should have given them supports a while ago, but I was so busy with other projects that they grew out of control and attached themselves with their little tendrils into a giant heaping mess.
A few weeks ago, I answered an ad on Craigslist for someone who had cut down a cherry tree and had a bunch of the wood laying around. I asked them if they had any of the branches left, and they did. When I went to pick it up, they also had branches from a curling willow they had chopped down. I had wanted to use the cherrywood for the fence trellis, but the curling willow just looked so cool.
The other day I decided it was perfect for some freestyle pea supports. You don’t need a lot to make this happen—just some gloves to protect your hands, something to cut the branches with (loppers and pruners), gardening wire and snips to cut it, and the branches.
The idea is to fashion little teepees in each container, and then secure places where they overlap with the gardening wire. I like to snip mine pretty close to the joint to prevent anyone getting scratched, but you may want to leave yours longer if you want to reuse the wire later.
With the peas, I had let them overgrow too long, and so I had to lift and pull them back into place, separating some of the tendrils in the process. There were also some casualties, as the pea plants snap rather easily, which is also why I should have done this earlier.
The end result makes a nice conversation piece and supports your plants!
