When the stakes are high (literally)

I’ve been putting a lot of new plants into the ground for the past few weeks, in my rush to capitalise on the rainy season. Planting is the easy part; upkeep of the plants and their immediate surrounding would prove to be a high-maintenance game for years to come.

One of my concerns would be to easily identify them in the ground, amidst the lush greenery that is the farm. In due time, grasses would have grown and I would potentially miss the newly planted vegetation. A worker cutting grass who may not know the location of these plants may accidentally damage or kill it. Marking them out with a white PVC pipe or any brightly painted poles would be ideal. However, the key is getting a very large amount of such materials on the cheap.

The stakes are incredibly high when an accident may dearly cost me a plant many months or years down the road due to a careless or forgetful worker (myself included). Eventually, I’ve settled on using biodegradable materials: bamboo stakes. There is a huge supply of them from a neighbouring lot. They are strong, light, highly available in large quantities and most importantly, free!

Cross section of a bamboo stake I'm using to flag out plants in the ground. Note the very thick inner walls it boasts.
Cross section of a bamboo stake I’m using to flag out plants in the ground. Note the very thick inner walls it boasts.

I’m not too sure what bamboo variety is this but all I know is that, these are the thick wall types as seen in the photo above. What this means is that they are incredibly strong with rich mass in build qualities. The volume from their thickness would make them an ideal candidate to make biochar, besides the more common applications as trellises and basic support structures for planting, fences and construction.

Strong, light, cheap and readily available bamboo materials for use.
Strong, light, cheap and readily available bamboo materials for use.

I prepared stakes of varying lengths between 3 to 6 feet, by first cutting them to their desired length with a saw, before splitting them down to their intended widths with a machete. Every single new plant would be accompanied by a stake. The idea is that in one’s rapt attention of cutting grass or working the area, the long pole sticking up from the ground would undeniably suggest the plant’s intended presence, thus inducing an alertness to avoid.

A roughly 3 cm width bamboo stakes used to mark out newly planted vegetation.
A roughly 3 cm width bamboo stakes used to mark out newly planted vegetation.

For a better foolproof method, spray painting the stakes would be ideal but that’s just too much work for me. This will just do for now.

When the stakes are high (literally)

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