One of the things I very much wanted for my home was a structure that could give me a “head start” on a sukkah each year. Ingrid Martin of Earthly Sites made a garden design for me that included a pergola. Here’s the pergola, after one growing season. There are grape vines at each of the four corners, and they are so far doing nicely, especially the ones in the “back.”
Two problems: one, it’s very windy here. Windy enough that plants have to be chosen carefully (a couple of big sunflowers were blown to bits over the summer.) Sukkah walls were a real issue, because if they too wind resistant they could become unholy missiles that might hurt people. So I made a radical decision: my sukkah “walls” were going to be made of fish net. I purchased 30′ of 7′ wide fishnet, and today we’re going to “hang” the walls with plastic zip ties.
This will also allow those in the sukkah to enjoy the view, which is pretty spectacular. At least, that’s the plan.
I’m still trying to figure out the shkhakh issue. Shkakh is the roof of the sukkah. It’s critical that it offer more shade than sun, but allow one to see the stars. Also, it must be made of something that used to grow out of the ground. Many people use palm fronds or bamboo mats – again, with the winds up here, I am worried about trying to tie anything to the roof, lest it go flying away into the neighbors’ yards. It may not be a completely kosher sukkah this year, by next year the problem will be solved. At their current rate of growth, the grape vines will provide all the cover we need, maybe a little too much.
I figure that part of the point of the holiday is to get us out in nature, playing with greenery, figuring things out, anyway. Some may say, “But it isn’t kosher!” and all I can say to that is that this sukkah, like its owner, is a work in progress.
OK, so we got the fishnet out, and after drinking a lot of ice tea and talking about options, we decided to start in the middle of the back. I had no idea that you could double zip ties – cool. Thank goodness my friend and student Jake is helping me.
We got the walls up, and they need to “relax” a bit. One tricky item is trying not to hurt the grape vines that are creeping up the pergola supports – I can tell that when it’s time to take the net down, we’ll have to be even more careful. Now the walls are hung and the rug is in, and as you can see the sun is getting lower:
Time for some furniture, right? Since I’ll be making kiddush in there in a few hours?
I wish all my readers a joyous Sukkot!
I love it that you sipped iced tea during the building of the sukkah…very southern of you! 😉
joyous!
Thank you for all your wonderful blog posts! Re the bamboo question for the roof, I too live in a windy area, a hilly part of Pittsburgh. We helped our neighbors put their sukkah up this weekend. They had bamboo poles and a couple of bamboo shades. We put 3 poles down long ways, then the bamboo shades laid flat, then the 2 or 3 remaining poles on top, cross ways. The bamboo poles all had holes in the ends and we used zip ties to secure them. That way, nothing (hopefully) will go airborne! Chag sameach!