Trellis ideas?

[desertgirl]

We do all of our gardening in raised square bed gardens, but ran into problems last year with climbing plants (we have the kind with the "lid" that goes over-see photo). Anyone have any ideas? If push comes to shove I might just conatiner garden the climbers, but wanted to see wht you clever folks come up with first!

 

[Ridgerunner]

At first glance, I wondered how stable those are in the wind, but if they are filled with dirt, probably very stable. If you go up higher, you'll add more wind area and raise the overturning forces, but that dirt is probably so heavy it won't matter. I'll mention it anyway in case it is not as stable as I think it is.

I've put in posts and put cattle panels across them for a large permanent trellis. I'm trying one for hops this year and one for scarlet runner beans, trying to shade a small building. I've also set wooden fence posts in my garden and put up fencing as a trellis for pole beans and tomatoes. One mistake I made for the tomatoes was using 2" x 4" plastic coated welded wire fencing. It seemed that half my black krim, which makes a huge tomato, tried to grow inside those 2" x 4" openings. The other large tomatoes behaved a lot better, but not the black krim. If you are using this for tomatoes, use fencing with bigger openings.

I don't think my specific method will work for you, but maybe some variation. I don't know how tall you want to go or how permanent you want to make it. I'll assume not permanent. Maybe use 2" x 4"'s as posts at the end of your planter, set it in the ground pretty shallow to take the weight and anchored maybe with big rock so it cannot move sideways, then fasten it to the ends of your planter which should stabilize it. You can run wire, either a welded wire or single strands of wire, maybe a lattice, maybe string, even 1" x 2" strips of wood, between these "posts" for your plants to climb on.

There will be two different directions of force acting on this. Both will try to rotate your uprights and knock them over. One is the wind hitting your trellis. It will try to rotate your uprights around your top support to the planter. The best way to counter that is to anchor the bottom of your uprights at ground level so they cannot move. The other force is the weight of your plants on the trellis if your trellis is not rigid. If your trellis can bend, and it will probably be able to, the wind will add to this force. Your uprights will try to bend in toward the center of your planter. You can counter this a couple of ways. One is to anchor your uprights at the top of the ground so they cannot move in line with your planter. Maybe big rocks, maybe run a wire or a 2" x 4" under your planter and connect the bottoms of your uprights so they cannot separate. Another way is to put a rigid support at the top of your uprights so they cannot move toward each other, maybe a 2x4?

If the uprights break from the side wind, it will probably be at the top connection to the planter. If they break due to the weight of the plants on the trellis plus wind, it would most likely be at the top of the planter. I'm mentioning this because if you use 2x4 uprights, watch how bad the knots are and where they go. This post is long enough. I'll not tell you how I know knots can seriously weaken a 2x4. It was just a little bump!

I know I've probably gone into a lot more detail than I need to for you. If you are keeping those covers on, there will probably be no effective wind on the trellis. Maybe you don't have that much wind anyway. Depending on what your are growing, maybe you could just stick tree limbs in your planter and let stuff climb that if there is no wind on it. Maybe put 2x4s inside your planter at the ends, with the bottom of the 2x4's pushed down into your planter and fastened at the top to your planter, then stretch wire across. A simple way to fasten them at the top may be to use wire around what looks like our 2x4 top.

I doubt you will do anything exactly as I said, but maybe it will give you some ideas. You usually have a pretty good imagination.

Good luck!!

 

[desertcat]

Cattle panels are good, but not real pleasing to look at. I used some of the plastic lattice panels from Lowe's last summer and they are holding up well. Easy to cut to fit and not too expensive. Actually, I got them to roof my indoor chicken coop with and overbought...now the extras are going to make my garden pretty!

 

[aquarose]

Last year my 12 yr old son just used twine to lash together whatever big sticks he could find in the yard to form a grid. It is about 6' x 6' over all with about 8-10" spaces. we just prop it up in the raised be and last summer we had great cucumbers growing on it! it still looks fine and we will use it again this summer. Eventually the twine will rot, or the sticks. But we have tons of sticks always.

 

[digitS']

Tomato cages from Walmart for climbing things that aren't tomatoes . . .

RidgeRunner talking about his tomatoes reminds me that I've never quite understood how tomatoes fit well into square foot gardening. They often require quite a bit more support than those cages Walmart sells for them provide. I've used those cages for other plants, however.

In my rather lame way, here's an idea for tomatoes. I'm sorry if it isn't useful for you DG but maybe others will benefit.

A cattle panel is laid horizontally over the bed, supported by posts. I thought it was pretty clever, in a simple way. The panel can be used to support a protective covering early in the season. Obviously, it works well for this gardener (click here).

Steve

 

[Catalina]

I'm not sure if this will work in your situation, but this is what I use
http://dustbathladies.blogspot.com/2009/09/tomato-walls-and-me.html

It's 2 EMT conduits bent with a pipe bender and connected with a couple 3/4" connectors. Then I used plastic netting. Very cheap and easy! It was about $5 a trellis.

 

[lesa]

Holy Garden, Catalina!! Those are the most beautiful tomatoes I have ever seen! Tell me more about those trellis- they are so full, I can't tell what's what! What is this "plastic netting"? Is it like fencing? Did you kind of build a wall, or is it a classic trellis shape? Thanks!

 

[vfem]

Holy Garden, Catalina!! Those are the most beautiful tomatoes I have ever seen! Tell me more about those trellis- they are so full, I can't tell what's what! What is this "plastic netting"? Is it like fencing? Did you kind of build a wall, or is it a classic trellis shape? Thanks!

Holy agreed!!!!! Those are huge. My daughter would go nuts playing hide and seek with those.

I am using bamboo for trellising... I'm cheap!

 

[krazynoklahoma]

I Agree those are Beautiful tomatoes. Tell me what you think.. Do you sopose steel fence posts and chicken wire would hold up for trellising tomatoes.
I got a book at the library about trellising plants, this will be my first time trying it. Maybe you can give me some suggestions for what would be best to use for squash, cuccumbers and possibly canalope. I would hate to go to all the work and it fall apart if it got to heavy.

Thanks
Melissa

 

[Ridgerunner]

There are all kinds of different ways to trellis or stake plants. We all have different conditions and techniques. I like your approach of coming up with a specific technique and asking about it rather than a broad question with limitless answers.

The chicken wire will hold up from a strength perspective. I'd go with a wire with bigger openings for two reasons. Last year I used wire with 2" x 4"openings. I had some tomatoes grow inside those openings. The wire cut them apart as they grew. I could not remove them after they ripened without cutting or tearing them apart and it also opened up areas for disease and insect damage. The other reason is that with the larger openings you can sort of weave your plants through the openings as they grow so you don't have to tie them up as much. I still had to tie them to get them started, but they were more or less self-supporting after a while.

The metal posts will be strong enough but it is hard to anchor any posts so they are stable with all that weight from the vines and the wind. They tend to bend in toward the middle. I cannot imagine anywhere in Oklahoma you don't get a lot of wind to contend with. Your book probably gives you different examples, but I would brace the end posts some way. With metal end posts, probably wire or heavy cord (somethng that is not stretchy) tied back to two stakes at each end.

Trellising as opposed to caging tomatoes reminded me something else. When you trellis, you are working basically in two dimensions, on a flat surface. I had to trim a lot of suckers off the plants and only allow a few branches to grow because there was not enough physical room for them all to fit on the trellis. That is fine with indeterminates, but it can hurt your yield with determinates. I won't go into a detailed explanation, but I prefer caging determinates as opposed to trellissing.

Summer squash, the yellow ones and zucchini, do not need to be trellissed. Not with their growth habit. Winter squash and cantaloupe you can, but I don't. They do take up a lot of room, even the "bush" types. Depends on your preference and set-up.

My cucumbers did well on the 2" x 4" welded wire trellis, but I grew the smaller Edmundson pickling cucumber, not the huge field cucumbers. With my luck, I'd expect a lot of the cucumbers to try to grow inside the openings in the chicken wire, especially if the cukes grow big enough to be damaged by doing that. There may be some varieties that are small enough that would not be a problem, but I'd suggest something with larger holes. Cucumbers will send out a lot of secondary vines and will grow to long lengths, depending on variety. Bush types obviously not as much. Don't crowd your cucumbers by planting a lot in a hill. (I left two plants per hill with hills about 3-1/2 feet apart and it was plenty crowded.) I little extra height gives them more room too. I put a 2"x2" strip of wood on posts and ran strings down to the plants for the vines to climb up tothe support. I'll space the plants a little further apart this year and probably make my to support a little higher too to increase the growing area.

Hope this helps some.