# Trellis gardening



## Guest123 (Oct 10, 2006)

If anyone has time could you please post any pics or info you have of using trellis' in your gardens. I am going to be doing a project with our local high school horticulture class here on our farm and their instructor is trying to teach them how to use "vertical gardening techniques". I know I can google this and find some info but I prefer to hear how things have worked for you, and what you may have done differently.


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

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This was very easy, just landscapeing timbers. The cross pieces are timber sections that were split.


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## Guest123 (Oct 10, 2006)

Thanks, I really like the look of that and I can usually find landscape timbers relatively cheap. What do you grow on this trellis if you don't mind me asking?


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## olivehill (Aug 17, 2009)

Not trellising, but still vertical; what about talking to them about growing potatoes in stacks?

I have a wooden ladder from a swing set my kids no longer use that'll be converted to a trellis for something this year. I'm thinking luffah gourds. It's just two 2x4s with about 2inch diameter holes cut every 18 inches or so, and then 2inch thick dowels inserted in those holes for rungs. Simple, cute and inexpensive. You could even put it on four posts and use it for the top of an arbor. 

Livestock panels make great arches, arbors, a-frames and trellises as well. They work well for vining plants with heavier fruits -- squashes, pumpkins, melons -- since you can use old fabric to tie hammocks under the fruits when they set for support.


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

[/url][/IMG]Arctic Kiwi. I also have a trellis, which is stock fencing between steel fence posts, peas are grown on it. Then for the green beans I made 2 sections of lattce, each section has wood on all 4 sides and they are attached to to steel fence posts pounded into the ground, this is for pole beans. Here is another one, but has roses growing on it, it's the entrance to the garden. it could be used to grow any vineing plants. The top part was part of an old dresser, this pic. is a couple years old, the roses have really take it over. The black metal one on the right, in the herb bed has 2 kinds of white grapes on it.


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

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Sinse you are going to have help! I did get help with the rafter boards on this project. There is trumpit vine growing on here, now I regret not planting grapes instead. On the right ,past the enclosed area(for the grill)is growing Jasmine, that also could have had something edable growing there, but it was very packed down, and never expected much to grow there,but it is thriveing.I do plant luffa in an old double wash tub near the enclosed part, but it doesn't do well there.(too hot I suspect)At another place, like olivehill said, I made a nice trellis out of an old swing set, covered the ends and top with lattce, put a wooden swing and planted climbing roses on each end.


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## DoubleD (Jan 28, 2007)

These are vertical grow supports made with electricians 1/2 inch EMT conduit pipe - bent using a pipe bender by my electrican husband and connected at the top center with a single connector. The netting is then just attached using some tie wraps. Been using these for years and they work beautifully.


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## fetch33 (Jan 15, 2010)

started out with cattle panels bent into a trellis. Planted 2 rows along each side using the square-foot gardening method.. 9 pole beans per square foot. The second trellis in the back was planted with tomatoes at 1 plant per square foot. The tomatoes reached the top of the trellis, which was 8 feet.




























I had a great yield for the year... at least 50 lbs of beans for the space. I actually got tired of picking beans and could have gotten more. Next year, I will not plant them as intensively, maybe just 1.5 ft away from trellis instead of 2. It was a bit thick. The good part was I could stand under the tunnel-o-beans in the shade and pick. The bad part was I needed a stepstool!


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

fetch, What kind of beans do you got here?


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## fetch33 (Jan 15, 2010)

Mostly blue lake pole beans, with a few scarlet runner and chinese long beans thrown in. The exotics won't be grown again as we didn't like eating them. They were pretty though!


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## Guest123 (Oct 10, 2006)

Great pics and info, thanks a lot! What kind of tomatoes would grow best on a trellis system? I also use cattle panels mostly for beans. I also use woven wire for gourds and small pumpkins. The instructor of this class is awesome at recycling things for such projects and that is kind of what we are going to do here with this group. A mixture of new materials and old will be used. My brother runs a salvage yard and is great about giving me rolls of fencing, steel fence posts, used conduit, and many other great items. Again, thanks for the info so far!


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## Phantomfyre (Jul 1, 2004)

Indeterminate tomatoes are what I think of as "best" for trellising because they get so much taller than determinate types. Having said that, I've never succeeded trellising tomatoes. It's too much work, and I'm not lazy! I could never keep up with the constant tying and pruning that's needed to "train" them; I'd turn around and BAM! They'd grown out of control and were all over the place, hopelessly sprawling and tangled. I cage my tomatoes in 6' tall cages I made from 2x4 welded wire fencing. I want to make some more cages this year, and am going to try 5' concrete reinforcing mesh because it's cheaper and I won't have to cut "hand holes" for harvesting.

I don't have a picture of my trellis, but I've used rolls of chain link fence tied to t-posts and it worked fine. You can't easily reach through holes that size, though, so you have to have access to both sides of the fence to harvest. I've used that for pole beans, peas and cucumbers. 

I've become a big fan of trellising cucumbers - saves a lot of space, and it's so much easier to find the cucs when you're harvesting than stooped over searching through a tangle of vines on the ground.


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## Phantomfyre (Jul 1, 2004)

fetch, your pictures made me smile - holy bean tunnel, Batman!

7thswan, your place looks so pretty. Love the re-purposed dresser top!


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## salmonslayer91 (Oct 10, 2010)

some of those are amazing i am jealous of your set ups


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## fetch33 (Jan 15, 2010)

I never tied up my tomatoes... just wove them through the spaces as they grew.


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## Kstornado11 (Mar 17, 2006)

Great pictures! Giving me lots of ideas for gardening in my small space!


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## gobug (Dec 10, 2003)

fetch - thanks for the photos. They well illustrate that the cattle panels can support a lot, even when not built to some contractor specifications (if such exist).


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