Hang Baskets on Shepards hooks fall over

I have 2 Shepard's hooks, one that holds a single basket and one that holds 2 hanging baskets. The tines on them seem to be too short and they fall over after a heavy rain.

Has anyone figured out a way to anchor them so they stay upright?

I have one next to my porch so I tied it to the main support. Its not pretty but it stays upright.

I other one I would like to place across the yard and I don't have anything to tie it too. Any ideas on what to do to keep it upright?

It seems like the main thing you need to do is to extend the crossbar that attaches the tine to the upright part. On one of my shephard's hooks I just welded a piece of rebar right to that piece to extend it out an additional 6-8". I didn't add a tine to go into the ground, just extended it parallel to the ground. You could also attach it using a bunch of zip ties too.

Attrill,

Thanks for the reply.

I actually have a friend who owns a welding machine. I will ask if he can make the additions for me.

I could not get my Shepards' hooks to my friend with the welding machine. So instead at the suggestion of yet another clever gardner I looked around my basement/garage and found a 2.5 ft piece of conduit that was just a bit bigger than the middle tine of the Shepards' hook.

We pounded one closed with a hammer. This prevents the conduit or pipe from filling up with dirt. We then pounded the conduit/pipe into the ground with the closed end pointing down. Until the pipe was just below soil level.

Then placed the shepards hook in the ground with the middle tine in the conduit/pipe. It has been standing up right for almost 2 weeks through all the rain last weekend.

what you want to do with welding machine? isn't confusing ?