Three seasons of side-by-side trials, one collapsed row, and the cheap string method that finally won.

We used to build cucumber frames out of timber and clip mesh to them — about forty dollars a bed and half a day of work. Then a storm in week 28 took out a whole row and we rebuilt it with baler twine, a top wire and a single stake every three metres. It cost four dollars. Yield came in six per cent higher, mostly because the plants were easier to reach and got picked more often.