Last year I did a webby-looking twine support for my green beans - it worked really well, plus it was entertaining to look at while waiting for the beans to grow. When the season was over and I took down the dead vines, the twine had rotted and came right down, too. This year I decided to make my supports out of wire. I found a bunch of Cat-5 wire at the RE Store; Cat-5 has eight strands of wire (four twisted pairs) in an insulation jacket. I tried the usual wire stripping technique - cutting the circumference of the insulation at intervals and pulling it off the end, like you’d do for a smaller wire - but it didn’t work for the group of wires, plus the length was about 65 feet. Kaden suggested I split the insulation lengthwise for about 6 inches, then pull the wires and insulation away from each other - it worked like a charm. It’s still hard on the hands, though; I couldn’t have done it without wearing my cat-herding gloves.

I used the twisted pairs to make a new web for the beans - it was harder to use than the twine was because it had no give and tangled REALLY easily, but I hope it will last longer, even though it’s not as cute as the twine web was. Maybe I’ll add a spider.

While I was at it, I put up some horizontal wires for the peas to climb. I still have several hundred feet of wire left, and the two trellises cost me about a dollar each.