Easy Vegetable Garden Trellis

We've grown a garden for several years, and have experimented with new techniques when we find them.

Last year a friend of our showed us his garden, and how he had implemented Vertical Gardening.  He sunk some 4x4 posts so they were about 5 feet tall, and used Trellis Netting between the posts.

I wanted to try out vertical gardening, but didn't want to spend a Saturday sinking 4 or 6 posts into the ground.

Here's how we accomplished it in our garden.

Materials

This is pretty simple.  We bought Feedlot Panels from Tractor Support.  Also called Cattle Fencing.

• Feedlot Panel, Cattle, 16 ft. L x 50 in. H SKU: 350207799

At the time, they were about $24 dollars. This particular style had 4 inch spaced holes for two rows at the bottom, and 6 inch spaced holes for the remainder.

Assembly

Again, pretty simple.

1. Using Bolt Cutters, we cut the panel in half the long way, so we ended up with two 8 foot panels
2. Using zip ties, we zip tied the two panels together across the top.  (We designated the 6 inch holes as the top, and the 4 inch holes as the bottom).
3. Using the bolt cutters, we cut the bottom bar off.  This left us with a point that is about 4 inches long.
4. Standing it in it's final location, we made a triangle, and pushed the pointed ends into the ground.

That's it.  Now we plant the vegetables (Cucumbers in our case) along the bottom, and train the vine UP the trellis.  This has the advantages of:

• Making the cucumbers easier to reach when harvesting.
• It's also supposed to make the cucumbers easier to see.
• Keeping the vine off the ground to discourage fungus.
• Keep the vine contained so it doesn't grow wild.

We'll see how this works out.