Show me your pea trellis

[digitS']

. . . and easy to see and pick.
If you make your trellis permanent you can easily switch from beans to peas to cukes all on the same trellis at different seasons. . .

Easy to see . . . unless you are looking thru a cell phone camera .

If I was going to use the pea trellis for pole beans, fencing would be a much better choice than what I have there. (Actually, I use teepees for beans and they should be okay for peas, as well.)

Pole beans following peas here would be a little tuff because of the short growing season but probably, doable. Maybe if I could get the peas in early enuf with a little Spring warmth! (I often follow peas with bush beans. That is a standard. )

Even without being permanent, a strong, wire fence would be nice to use for anything that climbs, I suppose.

Steve

 

[Holachicka]

If I were to use a TON of baling twine to make my own netting, what dimension should the squares be? 3"x5"? 2"x2"?

 

[digitS']

Nothing that close, Holachicka. . . .

The vines themselves do a good job of tying the trellis together. They can "reach" 8 inches, easily.

Actually, I use 4' cross boards to tie the posts together - to make the structure stronger. And, I use wire to tie posts to these cross boards. Make it tight . There can be quite a bit of weight on your trellis when the vines are fully grown and loaded with pods. And, the wind puts a lot more pressure on it.

So, there is no webbing - I do that with trellises for things that don't vine. The peas do a fairly good job of tying the horizontal baling twine together.

Now, all that is true of any pea trellis. You don't have to build one like I've shown here. In fact, there are better designs and if you haven't planted a full, 4-foot bed to peas, you would have greater strength in something more vertical and less horizontal .

Some gardeners plant peas in a wide row - say 12". A fence right down the middle may be all that is needed. The fence could be entirely horizontal string - keep it taut! Set those posts in securely, especially if your trellis is of any length.

We used to build trellises in the greenhouse for rosebushes. These trellises were 150 feet long! The steel end posts were set in concrete walls 8" thick , and, there's no wind in a greenhouse! The lesson here is NO WAY should you make a pea trellis, 150 feet long!

Steve

 

[hangin'witthepeeps]

I'm using those "little" round tomato cages in pots. They are looking good and I've got small pea pods!!! One pot has a bamboo tee-pee with string circling it. Both are doing really good. Got to use those tomato cages for something.

You definitely can't use the little cages for big tomatoes, but I do use them for small cherry tomatoes, specifically Husk Cherry Red Tomatoes by Bonnie. I just love the flavor on those and the plant stays small.

 

[jardiniere]

Hoodat, can you tell me more about how you time the planting of pole beans after the peas (using the same trellis). This is exactly what I was hoping to do, but I wasn't sure it'd be possible. I've only ever done bush peas & beans, so this is my first attempt at the pole varieties. My pea plants are about 4" tall right now, it doesn't seem like they'll be ready to come out when it's time to plant the beans--will they?