Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

In my day, never was longer.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Let there be snark.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

Giving up is unforgivable.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

This really is a full service blog.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

You are here: Home / Garden Chats / Open Thread

Reader Interactions

60Comments

  5. 5.

    jibeaux

    No idea. But Gardener’s Supply Co. is a good place for that kind of thing. I like their tomato ladders, because they’re sturdy as all hell and will probably outlive me, but they have a lot of trellis options. I’ve never found anything like the choices in any stores.

  7. 7.

    Nutella

    I have no tomato-related advice either but since this is an open thread: McArdle opines on Groupon. She does not approve of their discount deals on Lasik surgery. Commercial competition for medical services? That’s crazy!

    She likes commercial competition when it comes to talk about HCR or the public option, though, doesn’t she?

  8. 8.

    Anne Laurie

    Willow trellises? Garden maypole?

    I’ve decided I really like these, with late-season assistance from these, but my ‘garden’ (random variety of planters, mostly standing on/around a strip of asphalt) is a lot more, shall we say, shabby-chic than your Germanic sense of order can probably tolerate, John…

  11. 11.

    Maude

    woodtomatocages.com has a hollow square tallish cage made out of cedar.
    There are a lot of sites on how to make your own, I didn’t include any for obvious reasons.

  12. 12.

    Peter

    FWIW, here’s what I do:

    Drive tall (8′) stakes (I use 2x4s ripped down the middle and sharpened at one end) into each corner of the bed. Screw shorter lengths across the two short sides of the bed up as high as you can reach. Lie longer pieces lengthwise on top of those, making a rectangle about 7′ high that mimics the outline of your bed. Tie twine to each long piece over every tomato plant, letting it dangle down to roughly ground level. As the tomatoes grow, wind the main stalk (pinching suckers) around the string. Just keep winding as they grow and you’ll have them trained straight up for easy access and great ventilation. And it’s essentially free if you have any scrap lumber in your garage.

  13. 13.

    Cassidy

    Ooh ooh ooh….can we see some more self important fucker’s bitch and moan about ABL because she won’t validate them!

  14. 14.

    opal

    Somewhere in here.

    I’ve been meaning to do porch tomatoes, but The Man* won’t let me.

    *Condo Association

  22. 22.

    bkny

    another reason to despise goldman sachs. you don’t need another one to hate the cowboys and yankees:

    Legends Hospitality, the concessionaire co-owned by the New York Yankees, the Dallas Cowboys, and Goldman Sachs, allegedly pockets the 20 percent service fee attached to food and drink in violation of New York law, according to a class-action lawsuit filed against the company by three Yankee Stadium servers this week.

  24. 24.

    Roger Moore

    @Peter:

    Use duct tape instead of screws.

    Somehow, I’m imagining John trying this and having no hair left on his arms or legs by the time he was finished. I’m thinking he should lash the thing together with bailing wire and twine.

  26. 26.

    pattonbt

    Blog overlord, quick favor to ask. Is there a point to having posts on this site where comments are barred? The comments (including some of the bitching back and forth) are a large part of what makes this site great (at least in my opinion). But it gets diminished when posts are made with comments closed like “LA LA LA LA LA LA LA I’m not listening to you. I’m rubber and I’m glue”, etc.

    EDIT – this comment has nothing to do with the posters content or the current blog meltdown with it, just that closed comments are really a drag and detract greatly from the site. If the post isn’t worth comments it’s not worth posting.

  27. 27.

    pattonbt

    Oh, obligatory “I hate ABL”. Or was that “I love ABL”? I can’t remember what day it is so I don’t know if it’s love or hate day.

  28. 28.

    KANFSU

    @KANFSU: And the best part about JeffreyW’s flikr is no matter if you go forward or back, it’s an amazing trip through food, kitties, puppies, hummingbird moths… and hummingbirds!!

    Thanks jeff!

  30. 30.

    pattonbt

    And it is glorious day here in Perth. Unfortunately it will be spent inside cat sitting our two new kitteh adoptees Puffin and Flounder.

  31. 31.

    kdaug

    Stay away from the saws, Cole. We know how you are.

    Instead, I recommend splitting your logs into trellis-sized twigs with grenades or a high-caliber rifle, and wrap the whole thing with razor wire.

    Make sure you put it on your roof, too. Tomatoes love that.

  32. 32.

    Lurleen

    Don’t buy the cages. They are made by people who jump off of buildings.

    Make your own — c’mon Cole it ain’t so hard.

    After weathering the total scourge of stink bugs last summer, nice red tomatoes here we come! this summer.

    Don’t buy those damned Chinese cages. Build your own and use your own damn mind.

  33. 33.

    BR

    OT: In other news, the second and third reactors at Fukushima may have melted down. So not one, but three plants are likely to have a glob of melted/melting radioactive fuel at the bottom of their containment structures. Oh, and the building for reactor four is in bad enough shape that they think it might collapse.

  34. 34.

    Lurleen

    Oh and love ABL. Always have always will.

    Funny, I have always thought she was quite clever in her writing. But then again, I am someone who thought GG was on to something until I realized he was in it for the money.

    I generally don’t have much patiences for converts, except for John. He’s made the real conversion — except that I wish he would retract some of the things he said about John Walker.

  37. 37.

    General Stuck

    Maybe we should only have garden threads, that seem to have flummoxed the trolls on how to destroy it. We could mix it up some maybe with art threads, underwater basketweaving, etc….. To keep a step ahead of the zombie borg recalibrating to our Phaser frequencies.

  38. 38.

    MattMinus

    @Lurleen:

    Are you talking about GG Allin? Because I agree, he completely sold out. I liked the Murder Junkies, but the Texas Nazis were totally commercial.

  42. 42.

    CatHairEverywhere

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Hey, Thanks! I forgot that I posted this! I was just thinking that I should post a picture of my vertical trellises, but I am too lazy to open an account at Flickr or someplace. I have raised beds (2x10s) with the metal corners from Gardener’s Supply. I have tried other methods, and those corners are excellent. The vertical supports are just 2x4s scewed together to form basically a square, upside-down U. I used 2x4x8 for the side supports, so they go about 2 ft. into the ground. Dearest Hub cut a couple of 1x6s with an angle at each end to cover the top decoratively (because I am anal-retentive about stuff like that) and the front of the frame is covered with pig wire. The frames are about 6 ft. wide, and support 3 tomato plants each. I tie the branches to the pig wire with cotton string as needed. The frames stay in year-round and look pretty nice, I think. Last year, I put a path of 12″ cement square pavers all the way around both beds to make access easier (and to make it look prettier)

  43. 43.

    J.W. Hamner

    I’m sort of obsessed with the Modest Mouse song Float On right now. Just thought I’d throw that out there. It’s like a 7 year old song, so I’m not exactly being cutting edge… but I thought I’d share. Yay Internets!

  45. 45.

    Joax

    Best tomato cages evah! Use the re-enforcing screen they use in concrete slabs. Stuff is very heavy duty. It is six feet tall with approx four inch squares so it is easy to stick your hands through to to tie or adjust plants. Just make a cylinder out of the screen with a two or three foot diameter and you are all set. Easy as pie. They last for years.

  49. 49.

    fasteddie9318

    Cole, I’m disappointed. You had an opportunity here to make a bleg but close the comments, which would have to be some kind of apex for trolling your own blog, and you blew it.

  50. 50.

    maven

    Used to be a CA organic/best practice type. Let ’em vine around on the ground; eat the good ones, give the bad ones to the pigs. Eat the pigs.
    burp.

  51. 51.

    jl

    @fasteddie9318:

    Hey, everyone send Cole an email recommending fasteddie9318 for the next addition to the front posters. FE93 has what it takes fer sher for the front page of this here miserable lefty blog.

  52. 52.

    Rihilism

    OT, I find this priceless…

    “As we stand here on this historic site, where 250 years ago today George Washington filed his papers to form his independent expenditures non-connected political action committee, we are also standing at an American crossroads — not to be confused with American Crossroads, the name of Karl Rove’s ‘Super PAC,” Colbert told the crowd. “I mean a metaphorical crossroads, because the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United has proved that unlimited corporate money equals free speech. But by the transitive property of elections, does it not also follow that no corporate money equals silence?”

    “I want to form Colbert Super PAC for all the PAC-less Americans, to give you a voice in the form of my voice,” Colbert said.

    Colbert told the crowd he’d be offering handshakes at $1 a pop and collected fists full of cash as he darted into an awaiting SUV.

  55. 55.

    Dave Trowbridge

    Just get yourself six feet of foundation wire per tomato plant (7′ high, 6″ mesh). Bend it into a 7-foot high cylinder, and keep it from tipping over with one of those 8-foot, 2-inch diameter garden stakes. As the tomato plant grows up inside it, keep pushing the branches back inside. The big mesh makes it easy to pick tomatoes. Ugly, but incredibly effective. And cheap.

    Bonus: at the end of the season you can cover it with transparent plastic film and extend your tomato harvest.

  56. 56.

    hilzoy

    Random link: competitive bunny jumping. With pictures of bunnies looking very determined as they sail over 2′ jumps. Very cute. The video might cause tooth decay. ;)

  59. 59.

    Jebediah

    I have nothing tomato related to offer, but if you look here you can see Otto and Juno enjoying a car ride.

    Having a pretty good night at work, but I’d rather be home with my wife and pups…I’ll have to make do with five balloon juice tabs open.

Comments are closed.