I’ve been looking for an inexpensive trellis for some future melons. After thinking about the time I would spend cobbling together a trellis versus the simplicity of buying one, I reluctantly decided I would buy one at some point. In some catalogs, they cost about $60. Ugh.
Tonight, I was looking around the web and found a fellow DC-area gardener who shared how he built a vegetable garden trellis on his blog, The Rusted Garden. This process looks so simple that I think even I—possibly the least handy person on the planet or, at least, in Zone 6/7—could create this vegetable trellis. I am so excited that I am going to call up my furniture designer/architect friend and tell her what I am going to build.
Before I send you over to the instructions, you might wonder why you need a trellis in the first place. They serve a number of purposes.
A trellis works well for tomatoes, peas, cucumbers, melons and other veggies that climb or need support (like tomatoes do).
Makes Space
For the urban organic gardener, space is always an issue. A vegetable trellis creates a vertical garden. As your garden goes up and up, you have more ground space for additional veggies.
Prevents Disease
A trellis helps to prevent moisture from causing rot. Learn from a mistake I made many years ago. One year, I grew loads of watermelons. I had so many that I could have opened a watermelon store. Lucky for me, they grew all over the grass and flourished there. The next year, I was not so fortunate with my watermelon crop. The melons rotted in damp grass that they’d flourished in the year before.
So, build a trellis if you want to prevent disease and have more room in your garden.
With some chicken wire, bamboo poles, and a minimum of elbow grease, you can have a trellis for under $20.
Have you used a homemade or store-bought trellis before? If so, how did it work out for you?
