Fiberglass rebar for garden stakes?

[jyoutz]

Best tomato support I've ever used is a heavy duty metal cage shaped like a cone. I've made round cages out of field fence, but they don't nest together for storage in the winter like the cone shaped ones.

That would be best. I have tomato cages made from field fence, 4’ high. I fasten them to the ground with 4’ high pieces of 1/2” rebar with about 4” bent to an L.

 

[LouNY]

We use the sunguard 3/8 smooth fiberglass post for rotational grazing from TSC.

Sometimes they get hit and brake off the bottom 5" or so.

I cut them off and sharpen them on a belt sander and handle them without worry of splinters on the top section. We use these in the garden to mark rows and tie up plants all the time.

If the ground is soft and I have my carhartt on I just use my shoulder against the top while gripping and shoving down with bare hands to put them in the ground.

Otherwise we only use a rubber mallet to put them in the ground if its hard or frozen. Some of them have to be over a dozen years old now. Use a metal hammer one time and you will always be getting splinters.

Hasn't been our experience after a few years they start giving splinters when handling without gloves.

 

[USMC43]

Hasn't been our experience after a few years they start giving splinters when handling without gloves.

Do you use a hammer or rubber mallet?

 

[bigtiller]

Do you use a hammer or rubber mallet?

This is what I made for fiberglass driveway markers. It is a 42" by half inch pipe with a 48" by 3/8" steel rod that slides into the pipe. One end of the pipe is welded closed so it can hammer the metal rod into the ground, making a hole in hard/rocky ground for the 48" reflective marker to fit into.

With soft ground the 3/8" steel rod is not needed.

Maybe something like this would work for fiberglass garden stakes and cause less stress-splinters on the stakes.

 

[USMC43]

This is what I made for fiberglass driveway markers. It is a 42" by half inch pipe with a 48" by 3/8" steel rod that slides into the pipe. One end of the pipe is welded closed so it can hammer the metal rod into the ground, making a hole in hard/rocky ground for the 48" reflective marker to fit into.

With soft ground the 3/8" steel rod is not needed.

Maybe something like this would work for fiberglass garden stakes and cause less stress-splinters on the stakes.
View attachment 853085

I have been contemplating making a 3/8 diameter rod with a side hammer on the top section 6” above the waist.

So you can walk along and pound in the steel rod and back out to make a nice hole and drop in the fiberglass rod.

I think it will be nice for frozen ground. Know I just need to remember to build it before next winter

 

[LouNY]

Do you use a hammer or rubber mallet?

We push them in after making a pilot hole with a piece of rebar, the ground is too hard most of the time to drive them in.

 

[ruffdog]

I made a mini post pounder to pound in the fiberglass sticks. As other's have said, when they get fuzzy, your hands suffer.

 

[JJT]

Late fall/early winter - I use a cordless hammer drill to drill 1/2" x 8" holes to set my 40 - 50 driveway markers. In the spring the garden is soft enough to simply push the stakes into the ground 8"+

 

[ning]

I avoid fiberglass as much as possible; it seems really nice when new but then rapidly becomes a disaster.

I use steel rebar for a lot of things. Bent into a J it makes a great hold-down for deer cages put around young trees. I mostly bend it in my truck's (empty) receiver hitch; tight bends by putting it in the hitch pin hole and wider bends just in the end.

I was requested to make these for the tomato beds, rebar was cheap and easy to use for it.

 

[newbury]

If it's legal where the OP is bamboo is great.

Years ago I planted a small stand of bamboo that I could contain by mowing around it. Bamboo makes great garden stakes and tomato cages.

If you can contain it.
In the DC area there is usually someone begging to give it away.