Hobo stoves and tying up tomato vines

 

Action shot. Bricks in draft trench to slow heat. Chicken thighs around perimeter of coals to prevent charring of surface.

Off-angle shot showing fire, kindling and fuel.

Photo aligned with trench for the draft.

Southern Belle liked this set-up. The rim of the steel wheel was 4" above ground level and the grill was 4" above that. The inconvenience of bending over and cooking at ground-level was more than made up for by the heat control. Bricks were available to lift the grill another two or four inches if desired.

Tying up tomatoes

Tomato clips are about six cents each and work great. I carry them in a carpenter's apron while puttering about the garden. But sometimes I am out in the tomato patch and either ran-out or misplaced the bag that contains the master supply.

The following method is robust, is quick, does not require exceptional dexterity and is really inexpensive.

Take common baling twine and cut a 15"-to-20" piece. Fold it in half as shown in the picture.

Go to the shoot on the tomato vine that you want to support. Pass the looped end behind the shoot and then pass the cut-ends through the loop. Grasp the cut ends and gently pull out the slack.

It will look something like this.

Go to the "dropper line" that you are using to suspend the tomato shoots. Make a simple slip-knot slightly above where you tied on to the tomato shoot with your short piece. DO NOT TIGHTEN THE SLIP KNOT. leave it loose.

Most folks can make this knot with their eyes closed.

I cunningly used orange line for the dropper line and blue for the line connecting to the tomato line.

Take both cut ends of the connecting line and pass them through the part of the slip-knot on the right side of the knot as photographed.

Take slack out of the blue-line until it looks right, then firmly pull the lines on both sides of the slip knot.

Since the double blue-line is flexible, it does not stay straight but gets pulled through the overhand-knot portion of the slip knot and forms something like a sheet-bend where the simple loop is the double-blue line.

Obviously, this uses much less than 15" of line in the finished product but the amount of line can be finessed as the knot-tier becomes more proficient.

Now I have to try it with my UV resistant rubber bands which I can buy by the pound and are very compact to carry.

My apologies for the blurry photos. I will try to up-grade them.