My wife has gotten into hydroponic gardening and needed to stake some tomatoes she is growing in 5 gallon buckets. We tried drilling a small hole and sliding a rod in, but it flopped around and wasn't very useful. I am an avid 3D print hobbies always looking for a problem to solve, so I designed a self-tapping stake holder to hold them securely.
To install it, you drill a hole with a hole saw into a bucket lid and then thread the base into the hole. The threads are harder plastic than bucket lids, so they cut matching threads into the hole sides.
At first she found this difficult to do by hand, so I also designed a small wrench that the stake holder snaps into, making it easy to get started and tighten down.
After making my first prototype, I discovered that although the garden stakes she bought were all the same brand and bought at the same time, the diameter of the end cap varied by ~.5 mm which made some very hard to seat in the socket and others to sit loosely in it. To fix this, I added stepped sections to the socket so if the uppermost one is too large, it can be seated in a lower, smaller one.
Overall she is very happy with the results, and her plants seem to be too. I would love some feedback on suggested improvements and also what you have done to secure plant stakes.
by GetOffMyGrassBrats
1 Comment
Ingenious.