Garden Architecture - making trellis for vegetables

Making growing spaces for your plants not only helps them produce more, it is also aesthetically pleasing and gives the garden texture and a focal point.  Now I did not design my Community Patch to be a show place.  I am more interested in production, but that does not mean I cannot appreciate that the eye is now drawn to the center of my garden where the tall pole bean pyramid has been located.

Here are some details of the architecture we have now installed in out Community Patch.  We made everything "disposable."  We have to remove everything from the garden at the end of the season, so there is no need to make anything too special.

Raised Bed

For all the details of the raised bed, check out the detailed blog posts I did.  One here on the Community Patch and the other detailing some of the thyme plants on my herbal blog.


Trellis

There are several methods of creating trellis architecture in the garden.  Some are very formal, others not so much.  We have used several different methods.

Cages

We used simple wire cages, which we purchased at the hardware store, to enclose the tomatoes and peppers and give the support when the fruit will later cause the to topple.

Formed wood Trellis

This is a sturdy form entirely of pine that I nailed together to create a diagonal walk up for the cucumber climbers.  We have two cucumbers so I placed the trellis in between each plant has its own side to climb.

String Frame

peas before the frame

Sometimes all a plant needs it s a place to grow upward.  Peas love a bit of string, so i placed two natural wood sticks int eh ground and strung them back and forth with cotton string.  I will add more rows of string as the plants get longer.

 I did not want to string the entire frame up front because sun will degrade the string over time, so adding new for the top branches every week or so will give better support and longer life to the frame.

Pyramid Trellis

This trellis is for the pole beans.  They need rigid support and something tall to grow on.  They are also planted next to the bush beans so we are going to let them grow above the bush beans planted just the right and left of the center support.

We again used cotton string, this time a twisted triple or quadruple length of string which we held tight to the ground with plastic tent stakes.  In the center is the same style pine frame work we used to make the cucumber trellis.

The pine will weather to gray over the summer, which will be a nice touch!

The final look has three strings on each side for the three dominant pole beans that have sprouted from the seed we planted.