STAKED OUT

My collection of garden stakes has dwindled over the last 40 years...but the ones that are left (mainly redwood) are looking bad after umpteen seasons in the ground holding up beans and tomatoes. So after a good sanding to take off the fungi, a coat of Storm stain in "wet sand" color seemed a good idea. There was a time early on in my gardening life when redwood stakes were the "garden variety" stake of choice, available at any garden center in California for about $3 for a seven footer. Flash forward 40 years, and those stakes (if you can find them) are upwards of $15 per! I guess this is because redwood became the darling of the tree hugging generation and all our redwood supply has dried up. In Oregon, cedar is the wood of choice. Oregonians claim that Port Orford cedar is better than redwood...more resistant to rot and a lot stronger. Hopefully this coat of stain will keep both the redwood survivors and the cedar newbies going for the rest of my gardening life.