Subject: treated wood

From: Joann Calabrese <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 8 May 1999 10:43:25 -0700 (PDT)

Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions on substitutes for treated
wood. We are making an arbor for grapes and kiwi and are looking for
something sturdy that will lasat for a number of years.   Thanks.
Joann
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From: "Lee Flier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 8 May 1999 13:54:04 -0400

>something sturdy that will lasat for a number of years.   Thanks.

Well, cedar or locust wood will last a long time without being treated.
Personally, I'm using bamboo for my arbors.  I can't vouch for how long they
will last because I just built them, but from what I understand if the
bamboo doesn't come into direct contact with the ground and you use hemp
twine to hold it together it should last a long time.  You can knock out the
membrane in the bamboo joints easily with a screwdriver or chisel, and use
metal anchor posts stuck in the bottom of the bamboo to actually stake it in
the ground.

--Lee

***********************************
Lee A. Flier
[email-masked]
Atlanta and Ellijay, Georgia
http://lflier.home.mindspring.com

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 8 May 1999 14:56:36 EDT

I'd have to agree with Lee on prefering rot-resistant species to treated 
lumber.  Not everything called "locust" is rot-resistant.  Go for Black 
Locust (Robinia psuedoacacia).  Not all bamboos are created equally, either, 
and you want a structural bamboo.  Generally, you want a 6-year-old culm for 
the best combination of lignification and elasticity.  You really need to 
know your stuff to build with bamboo to hold heavy loads of grape.  Bamboo is 
strong enough, properly harvested and properly aged, but construction 
techniques are important.  Lashing is ok, but limited to the strength of the 
lashing material and the skill of the knot-tier.  Pipe joints are very good.  
Lee's idea of jamming the bamboo over imbeded rebar is very nice.  For really 
heavy crops such as Actinidia, I'd set the rebar in concrete.  I'll use that 
idea though.

	Meanwhile, this inquiry comes up as I am investigating sources of 
plastic lumber.  We need dimensional lumber to re-roof a mobile home 
preparatory to setting up a roof catchment sytem.  (The damn place has no 
overhangs!)  We are in termite heaven here and it makes sense to use 
something that isn't food for termites.  Plastic lumber, being made from 
recycled plastic, is a reasonable choice.  We have three sources listed in 
the Permaculture Supplier List, but we want to do as complete a survey as 
possible before making a choice.  Naturally we are interested in quality as 
well.  (Some of this lumber is reinforced with fiberglass.  Hell on saws, I 
suppose, but it has to greatly improve shear strength. 
	Any  leads would be much appreciated. We are particularly interested 
in sources in Florida or at least the USA Southeast.

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From: Kirk Hanson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 9 May 1999 08:49:31 -0700

If you're planning to build a grape or kiwi arbor I would highly encourage 
to consider using materials that will endure for the long term.  Grapes and 
kiwis can live well up to 100 years and grow to massive proportions putting 
on hundreds of pounds of food annually.  Personally, I wouldn't use any 
type of organic material for the trellis; no wood, no bamboo, etc.  They 
may last 10-20 years but inevitably they will lose integrity and collapse. 
 Nothing nastier than trying to put a trellis back up under an enormous 
vining plant.  I would opt for metal myself.  2" galvanized pipe and/or 
welded angle iron can be made to look elegant if you turn an artistic eye 
towards the design.
	Just a thought...

Best,
Kirk Hanson
Director, Permaculture West
72 Mattson Rd.
Oakville, WA 98568
ph/fx: (360) 273-7117
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 9 May 1999 12:32:08 EDT

In a message dated 5/9/99 4:45:44 PM, you wrote:

<<	If you're planning to build a grape or kiwi arbor I would highly 
encourage 

Best,
Kirk Hanson
[email-masked]>>

This is more or less correct.  However black locust will last 100 years or 
maybe more.  The sapwood is not so durable, but the hartwood endures.  

The first time that I visited New Zealand I was taken to see the very first 
kiwifruit vine planted in the country.  The trellis was long gone, but the 
vine had taken over a few trees and was doing fine.   I blush to admit that I 
don't recall the tree species.  Of course most of the crop was now borne well 
out of reach of anything except birds, but the vine had done its work.  The 
base of the vine itself was as thick as a tree trunk.  

Permaculture design involves locating elements so that they are mutually 
supporting and tending toward self-management.  Putting crops that evolved 
climbing on the forest edge in the middle of a field and then constructing 
substitute supports is kind if anti-permaculture.  In my view, vines are 
something that you install if you have the correct edge for them.  I'm not 
very interested in grapes as a matter of personal taste.  Our kiwis and kudzu 
(yes, I cultivate kudzu) are either on naturally occuring trellises or on 
poultry netting stapeled to poultry netting.  We are in very early stages of 
establishment.  By the time it is needed, we will string taut heavy wires 
(salvaged from fences used to enclose horse pasture here) stretched between 
the living trees that are the fence posts.  Most of the fence post trees are 
palms, which do not increase in circumfrence and can't be girdled.  Frankly, 
if we didn't have the place for the vines, we wouldn't have obtained the 
vines.  Permaculture works with existing conditions, making best use of 
available resources, changing as little as possible, integrating systems to 
the fullest possible extent, and bringing resource-intensive materials (such 
as steel posts our our poultry netting) to the minimum degree practical.  
When they are brought into the design, as many functions are stacked on them 
as reasonable to recover the imbedded energy if we can.  (Our electric fence 
is a nuisance in this regard as you can't trellis anything to it.  If I had 
it to do over, I'd use barbed wire, which is more energy intensive to 
produce, but works just as well when covered with vines as when bare.)  
	We utilize all manner of vines here, from annuals such as garden 
legumes, garden curcubits, perennials such as  basella (annual if killed by 
frost), apios, fo-ti, clematis, various ipomea and related food and 
ornamental crops, various passiflora (native and exotic), chayote, etc.  
Every vertical stem or surface is a design opportunity for the right vine.  
We also trellis trailing crops such as blackberry, of course.  I should not 
forget jicama.  Kiwifruit and kudzu are the only woody vines we cultivate, 
presently, though we have to deal with ubiquitous wild grape that is a bit of 
a weed.  (I do let it run up various surfaces because it is so beautiful.)  
Fortunately, our chickens eat grape leaves so we have only to cult vines low 
where chickens forage to discourage the grapes.  We have some ancient vines 
that have to be way more than 100 years old that we are protecting, though, 
because they have earned the right to be here.

So first be sure you have a place for vines.  If you are puzzeling the 
trellis, you may not have done your design work well.  And if they are in the 
middle of an open area, then it is rather like the freestanding greenouse 
that Mollison is always using as an example of a placement with no design 
consideration at all.  We need to reconsider functional connections.

OK, one more point.  I recall seeing chayote plantations in Mexico where the 
vines were trellised over a raised grid of stretched wire.  It was therefore 
possible to stand in the shade of the vines and harvest.  People were out in 
the hot sun with hoes, keeping the earth bare.  My suggestion was to plant 
legumes and grains as understory--particularly in winter, when vines were 
light and the season dry--and run poultry to harvest.  This could require a 
series of divisions so that successional planting and harvesting could be 
done.  The straw would be light mulch to protect the soil, possibly with a 
Fukuoka-type legume cover as well, and the insects and grain would be 
partially converted to fertilizer.  Supplemental feed ing would be necessary 
at times, resulting in added ferilizer.  Presumably such a system would 
produce meat-birds so that the land could rest a bit after slaughter age 
during periods of low forage.  Pulses are much better to build soil fertility 
than continuous activity.  The poultry would be a valuable crop, produced 
very inexpensively, and so any expense in dividing fields, planting grains, 
etc., would be quickly paid back.  If a Fukuoka system were developed, labor 
costs would be few.  Thus we apply permaculture design principles to a 
non-permaculture situation and make it more efficient, profitable, and 
sustainable.  Similar arrangements could be designed if you are hell-bent on 
putting your vines away from vertical edges and then building the vertical 
edges for them.  If nothing else, at least canopy your vines high enough so 
you can stand in the shade when you harvest.  
	Ok, I get another thought.  I've seen in Catalonia (a country 
occupied by Spain) grapes managed very low to the ground, severly pruned back 
to short trunks that could easily have been hundreds of years old on terraces 
that were surely a few millenia old, at least.  These vines pretty much run 
over the ground, making a low ground cover.  You would want to read up on 
this system of pruning.  I think it was used for specific varieties of grapes 
as they were grown in that region, but I have to admit that it was so 
unnatural that I didn't pay close attention.  I'm trying to remember what the 
climate was in the original post on this question, now.  I wouldn't use this 
technique in a humid climate, as I think it would promote mildew, but this 
district was very dry, due to long-standing deforestation that had dessicated 
the climate. (I suspect that most of the Mediterranean was once a maritime 
warm-temperate to subtropical climate. Then people deforested the region.)	
	Well that should be enough ideas to get the design cogs meshing.

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From: Toby Hemenway <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 9 May 1999 10:55:18 -0700

Joann wrote:

>wood.

I'm glad you're designing an arbor that doesn't use  CCA
(copper/chromium/arsenic) treated wood; we can do without those in our food
and soil. The problem I assume you're hoping to avoid is wood rotting
because of ground contact. I can think of two strategies to deal with the
problem.

1. Use a rot-resistant substance: woods such as cedar, black locust,
redwood (preferably sustainably grown, salvaged, or used), cypress,
mulberry, osage orange, or Pacific yew (there's lots of this in the NW
because of the taxol industry). You could avoid wood altogether on the
ground-touching parts, and use metal, plastic, or concrete posts (if you
don't mind the embodied energy in concrete, Ken Kern's "Owner-Built
Homestead" gives directions for concrete posts; they will outlast
civilization but need months to cure). Traditionally, charring the end of a
non rot-resistant wood post has been used to make it last longer; soil bugs
won't eat charcoal. I've never tried it.

2. Keep the wood off the ground. Set wood posts on a rock foundation; the
rock beneath the post should slope or curve to keep water from pooling (the
wood will rot eventually but much slower than in the ground) or on metal
fence-post connectors set in concrete footings. If you do this, you'll need
to use ample diagonal bracing where the posts connect to the crossbars,
since the post-in-the-ground technique helps stiffen the arbor.

For a kiwi arbor, make it really strong: kiwi vines weight far more than
grapes; I've seen  them break down a convetional grape trellis

I hope this helps.

Toby Hemenway

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From: "Wm Hurrle" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 12:09:15 -0500

Plastic lumber suffers from weak span capacity. It bends under weight much
more than wood. It also doesn't hold fasteners well.

Some folks are using soldered copper tube to make trellises for perennial
flowers. The weight of grapes and kiwi would argue for 1" or larger pipe.
Look at tables for span and strength and use silver solder, no lead. This
embodies energy and would not be inexpensive, but copper lasts.