Plot construction: Making Trellises

Last year I did a post discussing building trellises for crops to climb. 

The preferred method of trellis that I use is to create an A-Frame from poles.  Bamboo is great for this purpose; just be sure to dry it for about 10 days vertically before using it to ensure it doesn't take root.  Lumber works, too.

Helpful hint:

Rather than buying stakes from a hardware store (Home Depot sells 5' stakes for $2.28/ea), buy a 1x4 from a salvage yard and carefully rip it in half with a saw.  My favorite salvage yard, Community Forklift, sells them for 15 cents/foot.  A 90 cent board that's 6' long would give you two two stakes making them 45 cents a piece.  Much better value considering you're going to leave it outdoors exposed to the weather, anyway.

I stick the base of the vertical poles in the soil around 8"  and have them cross at a desired height then lash the spars together where they cross.

Helpful hint:

Give thought to how tall your trellis web will be before you lash the spars together.  Seems like common sense, but I've mistakenly made mine too tall on occasion.  Like this year, for example.

The web for the trellis could be anything that's hatch-worked.  I use both salvaged fencing material as well some plastic fencing as you can see in the picture above.  To attack, you just tie some twine to the corners of the web, then to the "corners" of the frame and tighten.  As I mentioned last year, I use taut light hitches to keep those lines snug.

Helpful hint:

Use synthetic twine for your lashing because it breaks down from the weather slower than natural fiber twine.

I've seen people weave the trellis web in some way.  One of our plot neighbors does that but, unfortunately, he doesn't speak English.  I've yet to figure out how they do that, but I'm sure impressed.

Another way to create the web is to run your twine around some screws or nails.  This really only works well if your trellis (or arbor) is going to be relatively permanent.  I did this with the runner bean arbor.  I used deck screws.  They are installed roughly 4" apart on the vertical and horizontal beams leaving about 3/4" sticking out from the surface.  The web is created by tying the twine in one corner, then weaving it down (or across) in a pattern.

Helpful hint:

I recommend using multiple lengths of twine.  By creating the web in this manner, you don't have to redo all the work if one of the lengths breaks for some reason.  For no particular reason, I generally do 3 segments per piece of twine.

Once your trellis web is attached to the spars, the only thing left to do is to help guide your crops (melons, beans, cucumbers, etc) to the desired parts of the web you want them to follow.