DIY trellis
We had plans this year to create a new trellis out of PVC pipe like this one. We bought the materials but just hadn’t gotten around to building it because the cucumbers and squash that we were going to have climb up it weren’t big enough yet anyway. In the meantime, one of our friends out at the Project Eden Gardens had bought some steel remesh (just like this) and made a cheap and easy trellis out of that. That sounded much easier than our original PVC idea, plus it would be sturdier and not as obvious too.
For the trellis for the cucumbers, we stood it vertically to give the cucumbers nearly eight feet to climb (Grant is really optimistic about this year’s cucumbers!). We bought a ten foot piece of rebar (like this) and asked a friend with bolt cutters to cut it in half for us, which he said took him all of about 20 seconds. Grant ran each five foot section about eight inches into the ground to brace either side, and then he tied the rebar to the remesh together with nylon ties.
For the trellis in the other bed with lots of squashes, we laid it horizontally so that it took up almost the entire bed down the middle. We used four foot section of rebar (like this) on either end and attached them with nylon ties just like the first one.
We’re hopeful that these will last a long, long time. Once stuff starts growing, I plan to train up the cucs and squashes with some velcro plant tape
(Click on any of the pictures for larger versions).
