My $15 trellis experiment beat the $60 one by accident

I was sure those cheap bamboo teepee trellises would snap under my tomato vines, but I threw one together last May anyway. Three months later, the fancy metal one I bought from the garden center twisted and sagged, while the bamboo held up through two storms. The trick was tying it with old pantyhose strips instead of twine, they stretch and don't cut the stems. Have you guys had luck with homemade supports over store-bought ones, or am I just lucky?

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tylerw9217d ago

Three months is a pretty short test period, honestly. Your bamboo survived two storms, but what about the third year, or the fourth? Those cheap poles rot from the inside out once the soil stays wet, and pantyhose breaks down after a full season of UV exposure. Meanwhile that $60 metal one probably just needs a better stake in the ground, not a redesign of your whole setup. I've seen cheap stuff win the first round plenty of times, then it's firewood by the next spring. You might be lucky, but "experiment" implies you'd actually compare them under the same conditions, not just replace one with the other.