This is John Kohler from growingyourgreens.com and in another exciting episode for you today
we are outside Friedman's home improvement, this is a local home improvement store like
a hardware store, but they also carry some farm supplies out in their yard.
So what I'm gonna do today is go into their yard and show you some of the specific, specifically
some of the things they're selling in the farm supply area, that can help you grow more
food at home.
One of the things I'm going to be sure to cover is trellising.
Now I use many kinds of trellising, from bamboo trellises, string trellises, nylon string
trellises, welded wire trellises and even utility panels and prior few other things
I'm not thinking of, tree branches, there’s many things you can use and what I'm gonna
show you guys today is galvanised stock panels, or also called utility panels, that are probably
in my opinion, right at the top of of the list, because they are very long lasting,
durable, and will provide you with many years of service and also work well.
So in any case, let's go ahead and head in to the yard and show you some of these cool
things, that can help you grow more food at home.
Now we’re gonna go to the Express yard and they may have some different things out in
the Express yard than they normally have in a regular hardware store and let's see if
they have those utility panels.
So here are the hog panels, also called stock panels or utility panels, now I’m lucky
the hardware store here carries and what most hardware stores may not, and you may have
to go to like a farm and ranch supplies store, maybe a tractor supplies store.
And they have like four different kinds here, so we’re gonna quickly go over each one.
This one's called a hog panel, and this one is $26,99 and 16ft by 34'' and you can see,
lift this up, this thing is quite long and the thing about this panel is as you get closer
to the bottom you can see that spacing is a lot closer.
So, you know, this may be good for hogs or little small animals which can't get through
the smaller spacing and as it gets, you know, higher up on a panel, this fencing get bigger.
You know, well, this will work for plants because they don't care, I'd much rather have
a uniform look, so I'd rather use those over here, so what I use in my trellis, is a 4''
by 4'', a high five panel, and this is 16ft by 5ft so this is actually quite long, so
strap this onto the jeep to get it home, and I can pick this guy up and this one is actually
nice and uniform, a four inch square on the size of the holes and this is one large sheet,
so you know, well, this is $50 you can cut this down into several smaller pieces to make
a nice trellis that literally gonna last a long time in your garden without any additional
support, you know you may need some N-rails depending on how tall you wanna get.
This one is about $50.
Let's say check out the other side and see the other two panels that they have available
here.
Here are the last two panels, they have a what's called the combo panel thirteen line,
now when they were fertile lines, that means that how many basically wires or bars are
going down, so I'm gona count these, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen.
So you can see here, once again, this panel has the small ones on the bottom and then
as you go up, they progressively get wider, going out, this panel is 16ft by about 50''
and that is $37.99.
You know, I don't see too much of a functionality for growing plants with that one, but what
I actually prefer, if you are on a really tight budget, instead of a nice 4x4 stock
panel, try and go with this one.
This is a ten line, 50'' wide by 16ft line, this one is $23.99, so this is definitely
the best deal, and you know, most of these spacing on the holes here are pretty uniform,
which is definitely really good, except maybe down to the the last two, it gets a little
bit smaller.
And that being said, the spacing on these panels, you know it is a little bit larger
between there, that, I don't know, approximately, from looking, 6''x8'', so I much rather prefer
the 4''x4'' spacing, altough that panel is, you know, double the price it is and it's
just a little bit larger.
Hope you've enjoyed seeing those stocked panels, also called utility panels, here, at Friedman
brothers, they may be available near you and by far, those are my favourite ways to trellis
plants up in the garden, You’re gonna invest a little bit of money in them as an one time
investment, but they're gonna basically be around for years and years and years and I'm
wanna encourage you to buy things which are gonna last a long time, instead of try and
live in a disposable society, where so many things are disposable.
So buy something once and keep it for a long time.
That being said , because these panels are quite large and you can bring some bullcutters
with you and shave them down if you know the size that you need in your garden, so when
you transport them back to your house, they'd actually be smaller to fit in your car or
a vehicle.
Next we’re gonna go over to another area, where I some other few more things that a
home gardener could use.
In this area, they have a welded wire fencing and this stuff definitely can get expensive,
much less expensive than the stock panels, if you are using this for trellising, depending
on what you're putting on there, you may want to frame it out in some wood, or not, I definitely
would encourage you to get the ones with the largest hole size if possible, much of the
hole sizes on these guys are maybe 2'' by 4'', something like that and that’s, that's
kind of small for tomatoes and things like that, unless they're cherries, you can't really
reach your hand through the little holes in there, to pull out like a nice large tomato.
So these may not be optimal and I'd much rather you'd get the utility panels that we just
looked at.
So in this area they got some poultry netting, also known as a chicken wire on rolls, these
are some small rolls here and you know what, if you’re into gardening, I'd pretty much
to say save the poultry netting unless you want to keep a poultry out of your garden,
you know you don't wanna be using that for any garden type uses, gauge of the wire is
just too thin and it's not gonna be too effective.
In this section there is some aviary netting, so I guess that's even smaller holes, thinner
wire, not too good for gardening either.
So, next we're getting into hardware cloth here, and a hardware cloth can be useful for
use in your garden.
One of the biggest uses is when you're building your raised beds to line the bottom of your
raised beds, with the hardware cloth.
And this is a nice hardware cloth right here, the size, this is a 19 gauge wire, a half
inch spacing on the holes and this will do an excellent job to line the bottom of your
raised beds to keep creatures out, such as the gophers, the moles, and the voles.
And what you wanna remember when buying hardware cloth is, number one, you wanna make sure
that it’s a galvanized hardware cloth, number two, you wanna check the gauge on it.
And you wanna buy the lowest gauge number, they have available at your store.
The lower the gauge number, the thicker the wire is gonna be, so the more resistent to
damage, and you know, it will be.
So this happens to be 19 gauge, I think I saw 28 gauge over there, but if they'd have
18 gauge, that would even be better, but you also wanna check the price, as a gauge goes
down, the wire gets thicker, it also gets more expensive.
Another thing you may want to use is actually very useful for trellis material, is the stuff
right here, this stuff is actually called the remash, and as you can see, this stuff
actually rusts.
So it's actually not galvanized and meant for a lighter duty and definitely gonna last
you a while.
But definitely much less expensive.
And so, that's about a 7x4 ft sheet and that's about $8.
And they have the remash available also in rolls, and as you can see, it’s got the
nice rusted look, that means that they rust and these are holes about 6''x6''.
Once again, you know, I'd encourage you to buy something that’s gonna last for a while
and get the galvanized stock panels, that we just looked at, rather than the remash,
although if you don't have a lot of money, then, you know, these remash mats definitely
gonna work and they do pretty good job as well.
Next, let's talk about stock tanks.
So stock tanks, it's a galvanised tank used for like feeding horses and whatnot, these
guys are excellent for use for a raised bed . So, this guy is about 1ft tall, 2 ft wide
and 4ft long, and these guys are galvanized for a long life and definitely heavy duty.
So this is all you need, basically to just fill this up and you have an instant 4ft by
2ft raised bed.
That one is $80 actually.
An even better deal in my opinion would be this guy right here, it's $109, it's a 6ft
long, 1ft tall and 2ft wide.
So fill up that one with some dirt and you have instant raised bed.
And you do wanna remember the pops and the holes in a bottom for drainage.
The do have a larger sized stock tanks, that just get a lot deeper, but you know, those
aren't really needed and they get actually quite expensive, they even have a round ones
over there as well.
Tha last thing I'm gonna show you guys today and what might be useful here are these tanks,
and these water tanks, these can be very usefull for storing your rainwater, until you're gonna
use it.
So you wanna store a lot of rainwater , maybe in the winter time, when you live here, because
it rains mostly in the winter, and not in the summer, other parts of the country, may,
you know, rain more evenly throughout the year, but here, we need to store a lot of
water, to have it through the dry summer, and so you can get a large tank to store your
water.
Now, before you buy a new tank, I’d encourage you to check out, you know, basically 55 gallons
drums or barrels, that are being re-used or, these other things called totes, I did have
an another episode on the totes, they hold about 300 gallons or so, and are usually about
$150, so much better deal than this, if you’re just storing rainwater, these ones are meant
for maybe storing maybe even pothole water, although I would not want to drink my pothole
water out of a plastic.
Anyway let's take a look on some of these guys, this one’s a 425gallon, and that’s
a$319, but if you get up to a 550 gallon, it's just $10 more, but that's the black plastic.
And then they get a super huge, and super crazy, as you can see over yonder, where you
can store a lots of water.
In addition, you know, they have these small little rain barrels, just to collect the rainwater
and you know, the smaller ones are definitely good if you can get more consistent rain thorough
the year.
You got the money, and you don’t wanna buy one of those black tanks we just saw, they
store a lot of water, next to your house, when you live in a residental area, if you
get one of these tanks, these are just basically slim line tanks, and maybe like 2ft wide,
but they are nice and tall, and will hold lots of water.
And these are specifically designed pretty much for storing water and rainwater.
But these guys can cost a pretty penny.
And these ones happen to be Bushman Tanks.
Look here is that rain barrell we just saw in the back and actually we are in the store
now, it is actually in clearence for $39, so for $39 it's definitely a good deal, so
that you can store your rainwater, and I wanna encourage all my viewers to at least store
part of your rainwater.
I catch some of my rainwater every single year, so I can distribute that back to my
plants, where it should end up, back in nature, to provide water for my garden and give my
plants the best source of water possible, from nature, because when you are using municipal
water, you try putting the chlorine and other things they may be in your water supply.
With the rain water, you don't have that problem.
So hopefully you have enjoyed this episode learning more about what's available at the
Friedman brothers’ yard and what may be available at a hardware or farm store near
you.
Once again, my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
I'll see you next time and keep on growing.