OK, I assume at least some of the people here have read the Dec/Jan issue of OG magazine, with the images of the bamboo stake gazebo featured on the cover (in the background), and a couple of detailed shots without vines covering it in the article about potager gardens.

I just bought enough stakes (I hope) to build a small version of that bamboo gazebo, and I wanted to know if anyone else has tried to do the same. And if so, could they hold my hand while I try to figure out how to get this thing to stand up and support squash vines? Got plans drawn up that you're willing to share?

I don't want to do the regular teepee thing for beans and such, or a flat trellis, or just a box... Last year my community garden plot was very boring, mostly because I got off to a late start, and partly because I had to sift rocks out of the soil, because there was ZERO compost available to build up. I want to make up for it this year.

I can't have any permanent structures in the garden, for such arcane reasons as tilling, no insurance over the winter, and we're still trying to work out the "fairness" of some gardeners who are along the edge of the garden getting to opt out of the spring plough, while other gardeners who didn't think of it can't have no-till because their plots are in the middle of the garden space. ;\ So, bamboo is the way to go.

I gather no one wants to touch this with a ten-foot bamboo pole? ;\

*LOL* I know that bamboo is very long lasting, so you will have to take it down at the end of the season, so use connectors that don't drive you crazy.

You could drill holes in the ends of them and use those plastic electrical cord tighteners to connect them, the white ones that have the little "box" you pull the plastic end through, then clip them at the end of the season to disconnect.


My Sunset magazine shows a gazebo with 6 uprights, and a roof that has spokes coming out of a 6-sided center peak bracket, 8" on each side. If you made a center bracket out of PVC pipe and 45 degree elbows, you could drill through it, and insert the bamboo poles into it in a spoke fashion.

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This would make your bottom decking take up a 9'8" square (but 6-sided decking with 4 foot sides)

If you want it smaller, just keep the ratio of roof bracket to bottom decking in proportion.

These are really cute:

http://www.mastergardenproducts.com/bamboogazebo.htm

Hmmm, the diagram didn't work, but it was a 6-sided thingie!

Gazebos are cool. My inlaws live in northern California and have a creek/river at the back end of their property with some bamboo growing there. My kids have helped build hut things with it... kindof of rickety but shade making shack with lots of leafed branches on top for shade....reminescent of jungle dwellings....

I haven't read the article you mention, but it sounds promising! If you get wind, be sure to anchor it somehow to the ground...

Thanks for the link, Sweetpea. It's not exactly what I was looking for, as the OG article (about potager gardens, I think) used it for a trellis, with no more than 30 poles, I'm sure. I wish there'd been online pictures of this thing here, because it was a truly inspired way to connect one raised bed to another, and it could very easily be taken down for the winter -- another plus in a community garden where permanent structures are not allowed. But they are really nice structures, in that link.

"Eye contact, please, stop staring at my gazebos..."

:^O