Cutting Walking Sticks, Questions

[Pleater]

I checked - it was actually a form of giant cabbage - they were grown over a period of about a year - seeds planted in August and then the lower leaves were cut off as it grew, leaving a 'top knot'. The plant eventually grew several yards high.

Some were grown with the handle preformed by turning the plant pot on its side before planting out, so the shoot turned and grew at right angles to the root.

The process was labour intensive and the giant cabbage is now only seen in a few gardens - mostly for feeding to rabbits.

The plants would originally have been used as fodder for sheep - though it could also have gone to beef cattle - not to dairy as for most people cabbage flavoured milk is a novelty too far, I think.

The results, when the stalk had been dried and laquered looked a lot like bamboo, and my granddad used to bring the one he had out to puzzle people. I think it had been deliberately made to look as much like bamboo as possible, but the basic structure of a hollow tube with rings did lend itself to the error being made.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[Lallans]

The process was labour intensive and the giant cabbage is now only seen in a few gardens - mostly for feeding to rabbits.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

Were-rabbits, I assume? [This will be understood only by fans of Wallace and Grommit.]