Re: trellis

Dear Carleen, Debbie and Chris,

A trellis is any vertical or semi-vertical structure you put up for a vining
plant to wrap it's tendrils around and do some of its growing in the sky
instead of on the ground. The things that can be trellised are, therefor,
limited pretty much to vining or vining-type plants. Tomatoes, cucumbers,
squash, gourds, beans , peas are a few of the candidates that come to mind.
I have successfully trellised all of the above. It's a highly-desirable
method of growth for many reasons:

1. Takes up much less garden space.

2. Keeps produce up out of the reach of ground-crawlers like sow bugs and
slugs (though slugs can, of course, climb anything, it is easier to arrange
a protective barrier around the bottom of a quarter-inch of stem than around
a sprawling six-foot circle of beans, for example)

3. Keeps produce clean and in the air, less susceptible to mildew and rot

4. Produce forms and colours evenly, not flat or pale where it has lain on
the ground.

5. Brings produce up in easy-to-reach picking range for the convenience of
gardeners who do enough stooping in the spring, thank you.

As to forms of trellises, pretty much anything you erect will be utilized by
vining plants, but you should scale your structure to the weight of the
final fruit. If you are going to have telephone peas, you can just stick
some of your fruit tree (or any kind..) pruned branches in the ground in a
circle and tie together at the top in a teepee formation. Leave all the
branhy twigs, they will help give the vine holding points. These teepees
need to be tall enough to provide growing room for the particular variety
you are using them for, the seed packet should give you and idea of final
height, and add a foot more to puch firmly into the ground to anchor the
thing. This also works fine for pole beans (but they need very tall poles, I
use 12 foot long bamboo canes and they still are too short.) and is an okay
way to deal with cucumbers too, although cukes will need some tying on, they
don't cling by themselves as well.

Cukes and summer squash and smaller winter squash like Delicata can grow on
fishing net (the large-hole, strong string kind the commercial deep-sea
fishers use) hung on and between poles. It's best to use strong poles so the
stuff on the netting doesn't fall down, steel stakes, re-bar, etc. Stretch
the netting tightly between the poles in a line, in a square, or over the
top of a wire stretched tightly from pole to pole (like a pup tent). Then
plant your seeds at the base of the netting and encourage them to climb on
the net by occasionally wrapping their little tendrils around the strands of
the netting or weaving the growing plants carefully through the holes.

I even have grown pumpkins and large sweetmeat Hubbard squash as trellised,
but they grew on my garden fence, which is professionally built, wooden
fence posts and wire fencing and very strong indeed. They didn't need any
slings or anything, their stems were perfectly strong enough to support
them, but to err on the side of caution, I would advise slings, which are
easily fashioned out of a pair of old panty hose, tied to the trellis on
either side of the fruit.

Then there are trellises made of stakes and string, trellises which are
trees, trellisses which are chain-link fence, trellisses which are stone
walls -- pretty much anything a plant can climb will work. Go down to your
local dump or recycler and get plenty of stuff for free, or to your hardware
or farm store for the newer stuff. Just look around and see what will work
best for you in your garden.

Good luck.

Denise McCann Beck
Coastal British Columbia
USDA zone 7 Sunset Zone 4

 Message-----
From: rosenlund <rosenlund@transport.com>
To: Veggie-List <veggie-list@eskimo.com>
Date: Saturday, February 20, 1999 7:40 AM
Subject: Re: trellis


>I'm interested in trellis for cucumbers information too.  Would also
>like to know, if can also grow melons and squash this way some how
>???
>
>Sincerely,
>~Carleen~
>Keeper of Sheep & Old Roses
>Rainier, OR  zone 8
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