You can find easy designs on trellises all over the Internet. Being the "getting back to hippy roots" type of person, I really like Mother Earth News and Grit magazine sites. They have awesome do-it-yourself articles, videos, and instructions. The trellis to the left holds about 20-30 snap bean vines. This is from the Grit article found at: http://www.grit.com/Do-It-Yourself/Garden-Trellis-Design-and-Construction.aspx. This photo doesn't show the trellis design. That will come later.
Trellises can be purchased, kits built, they can be simple and functional or elegant. Many garden centers have some sort of trellis or vertical growing apparatus. You can also, use 2 or 3 -1" x 2" x 10 ft boards nailed to the back of a sheet of lattice burying 2 ft of the 10 ft board in the ground for support (or nailing them to the side of your raised bed.
In addition a really cool design using the same
idea as above is the frame and rope or frame and twine trellis. These are great because you can get quite a few plants on the same trellis. Not only that but you can use the top of the trellis to frame out a "cold frame" or plastic crop cover to protect your garden from cold weather.
As I said earlier, I would show some of my repurposed trellises. I found the main part of this trellis in the back acreage of our property when we started a clean up project. it's an old bed spring (sort of beat up) but the vines are loving it!!! In this photo they you don't see them growing but it's nearly covered now. You'll see a large branch makes up the "frame" of the bed. We have a lot of health thinning on the back property so, we will have lots of wood. Why not use it for this?Mesquite trees are known to leech or use more water than other plants so they aren't the best thing in the pasture. So, we took down the mesquite saplings. Some are used
to reinforce barbed wire fencing. I saved a few for a special trellis. I made a tipi and wove twine in a net. This was the beginning. later my husband took the twine off and put old chicken wire (poultry netting) around it (with one side open as an entrance). The idea is to have the vines climb up the outside and close in the tipi. It's a fun place for kids to play or if you don't have kids, you can grow some sensitive plants in there that could use a little bit of shade. As a master gardener said at a program a few weeks ago, "When the seed packet says 'full sun' I don't think they had the blazing Texas sun in mind!". Some plants that in most parts of the country can handle full sun might need a little shade to keep from burning up!Trellises save space, keep the garden space neat, and make harvesting a whole lot easier!!
Join me for the next blog on organic additives..
