Bamboo Trellis & Lilikoi

I bought a purple lilikoi vine the other day and want to add it to the main garden area. Lilikoi (aka- passionfruit) grows as a climbing vine, so it needs support of some sort. I have yellow lilikoi growing up a dead tree. But I'm out of dead trees that could be used for another trellis, so I'm making one instead. I thought that entering into the main garden area through a lilikoi tunnel could be cool. So that's where I built the trellis. 

Trellis at the mauka entrance of the main garden. 

Trellises can be built out of all sorts of materials, and in all sorts of ways. For this project, I chose bamboo. I have a bunch readily available. It's easy to work with so I'm told, and it's rot resistant. The bamboo clump I targeted has stems ranging from 1" to 3' in diameter. Just the right size. Picking out the 3+ year old pieces, a chainsaw quickly cuts them down. I didn't trim off all the side branches flush with the trunk because they will add support for the lilikoi vine as it grows. 

Trellis at the makai entrance to the main garden. 

Not knowing exactly what I'm doing, this being my first bamboo project, I had David help put the pieces together. And besides, this bamboo proved to be heavy. We assembled the uprights atop the soil, using t-posts driven into the ground for stability. Rather than screwing it all together right away, we wired it. This way we could make changes as we went along. Once I'm happy with the results, I'll 
go back and screw things in place. 

Both fat and thin bamboo was used. 

While the lilikoi vine is young, it will share the trellis with other temporary crops. Perhaps beans, or maybe peas.

Simple wire temporarily holding things in place. 

Bamboo Garden Stakes

A new blog reader has asked me what I use bamboo for. Previously I had mentioned bamboo but didn't talk about its uses here upon my farms. So.....here is one use:

Garden Stakes

(Above, temporary stakes outline some newly seeded beds until the peas and beans germinate.) 

While everyone automatically thinks of the thicker sturdy canes for using as stakes, I'm thinking more on the line of thin stakes for marking garden beds, marking newly planted items, holding up orchid flowers, etc. Just about everyone I know who is growing and using their bamboo throws away the thin stems. But I find them really useful for lightweight stakes. 

Pluses.....

Biodegradable

Renewal

Non-toxic

Lightweight

Rot resistant

Easy to use

Didn't cost me a penny

Very handy since they grow right here on the farm

Uses:

1- Propping up orchids.

2- Marking the corners of a newly created garden bed.

3- Marking a plant or a pumpkin so that I can see it and find it again. 

4- Holding a temporary garden label.

5- Marking that need special attention, such as pumpkin blossoms that need to be kept treated with dipel. 

I often color code the top of the stakes for one reason or another. Leftover paint makes a good marking system. Green= save seed from this variety. Red = don't save seed. Yellow = evaluate for possible seed saving. 

A bit of bright cloth or tape makes the stake highly visible so that I can relocate the pumpkin, young transplant, whatever. Rather than buying tape, I usually use a bit from discarded clothing that I make into rags. 

I'm sure there will be plenty of more ways to use thin bamboo pieces as I create this homestead. But this is what I'm doing so far. 

Bamboo

Bamboo. I could write a small book about bamboo on my homestead. It's interesting the way it grows. It has scads of uses. And there are dozens of different varieties of bamboo available here in Hawaii. 

One of my bamboo clumps is a variegated type. First of all, it's a clumping variety rather than a running variety. Thus it stays in one spot as opposed to taking over the entire farm. I've seen running bamboo, and while extremely useful on a homestead farm, it could quickly overtake the land if not aggressively managed. A person that I know has running bamboo on his coffee farm and encourages people to come harvest as much as they like. And yet, he still has scads of it everywhere. It's a shame he lives over an hour away it else I'd help myself to a plentiful amount on a regular basis. 

Back to my own bamboo. I don't know the name of this variegated variety, but it's a neat one. Quite tall and beautiful. It must be at least 30 foot high so far, if not 40'.

The stalks are yellow with green stripes. The amount of green varieties considerably from stalk to stalk and even along the individual stalks. 

When the clump was young, the stalks were rather narrow. Perhaps 1 to 1 1/2 inches in diameter. But now that the clump is well established, I was surprised to see stalks being produced that are 3 inches in diameter. Wow, great! Big bamboo is fun to use. 

The new shoots emerge mostly green, though they quickly assume their yellow and green stripes. And they emerge in the thickness that they will be when fully grown. They grow taller but not wider. So if they emerge at two inches wide, that's what they will be. Not more, not less. 

So what can I use bamboo for? Plenty. Some day I'll photograph some of my creations. They include trellises, fencing, house decorations, wind chimes, door handles, towel racks, kitchen utensils, picture frames, and more. I'd like to try my hand at some furniture some day too.