trellis factory

the weather has been warm and sunny---good for pruning fruit trees.  i pruned all the trees that i'm going to keep small and bushy (mainly stone fruits) but i'm going to grow some trees as espaliers (pears, apples, and a couple figs) and i hadn't got trellising up for them yet.  so i've spent the last few days building bamboo trellises.

the first one took the most time to build because i was designing as i was building.  i think what i ended up with is pretty neat and will be functional.  i used the 2 ft pieces that i cut off the horizontals as bracing---and a little style---i ended up having no waste this way too.

i got pretty fast at building them.

i was pretty close to finishing the last one (i built eight) when the battery in my drill exploded.  it sounded like a .22 being fired---a bit startling.  fortunately the case that holds the battery cells is quite tough (i'm assuming they're designed to handle this sort of thing) so the explosion was safely contained and there were no injuries (zane was a little nervous for a while after).  i put a spare battery pack in and the drill was functioning normally so i went back to work and got things finished up.

we're due to get a few days of rain starting tomorrow so i think i'll wait for the ground to soften up and then i'll put in some metal fence posts to anchor the trellises to and when things dry out again i'll get the espaliers pruned and tied up.