I used to use string for my peas in the vegetable patch, but a couple of years ago I tried some birch spray for pea-sticks and was hooked. They work much better and if you use them for flowers like sweet peas they look really good.A good pea-stick is a flat fan-shaped top from Hazel, birch or any other suitable young coppice tree.
They are typically about 4ft 6in high. Cut off any shoots that are lying in the wrong direction and then clean the bottom 12 inches of shoots with the bill hook and put a slanted cut on the end so they push easily into the ground.
In practice they don't have to be fan-shaped or flat and just about any top will do the trick particularly if you are planting in rows or if using them bent flat on flower beds. Old ones can be used to keep cats off fresh beds and eventually as kindling.
Bundled into 10 or 20 they are tied loosely at the base.They can then be weighted on the ground with logs to help them form the flat shape until used.
I put a few bundles together today for this weekend as I am demonstrating pole-lathe at the Weald and Downland museum on Sunday. First show of the season and time to shake off the cobwebs.Unfortunately as I found out today, pea-sticks don't photograph very easily, especially on a woodland background.
But the weather has been great here this week and I was surrounded by brimstone butterflies whilst bundling up the sticks. Suddently a pair of buzzards appeared right over me quite low and then circled catching a thermal and rising until they almost disappeared above me.
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