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2 Mar

2011 Garden Trellis Design for my Raised Beds

Posted March 2, 2011 by Jimmy Cracked-Corn in garden, raised bed.

I have tried many types of trellis in my garden…more than I care to count. This year is no exception. I am building semi-permanent trellises on 5 of my raised beds.  It might be easier to let the pictures do the talking:

A little over a week ago I got out in the really nice weather took raised bed gardening to a whole new level.

I got one trellis built while doing a general yard and garage clean-up at the same time. It is strung with cheap clothesline. If it sags too much after one season I’ll either plan to re-string it with cheap twine each year or just use parachute (550) cord and not have to worry about it for 10 years.

I was going to fill it THIS past weekend, but mother nature filled it with snow, so that plan was postponed.

Maybe I’ll get back out there this Sunday. Time will tell.

30 responses to this post.

  1. Posted by goffcouture on March 3, 2011 at 9:07 am

    Looks like a great design!

  2. Posted by ashevilleyardfarmer on March 11, 2011 at 8:55 am

    Looks awesome! What are you going to trellis?

    • Posted by Jimmy Cracked-Corn on March 11, 2011 at 10:25 am

      The plan for this year includes five 2 x 8 foot trellis beds containing:

      1: Honeydew and Cantaloupe
      2: Cucumbers
      3: Early snow peas followed by Pole Beans
      4: Acorn Squash and another variety of cucumber
      5: Butternut Squash and Sugar Baby Watermelon.

  3. Posted by Gymgirl on January 19, 2012 at 2:43 pm

    Could you post some construction instructions?

  4. Posted by Gymgirl on January 19, 2012 at 2:54 pm

    What mat’ls did you use?

    • Posted by Jimmy Cracked-Corn on January 19, 2012 at 2:58 pm

      I just used 2x4s for the trellis pieces, with holes drilled in them every 6 inches or so. I threaded the clothesline through the holes and pulled it tight. Basically there’s nothing to it, but I could take some more pictures when the weather gets a bit warmer so you could see things more closely!

  5. Posted by Rhonda on March 10, 2012 at 6:55 pm

    What an excellent idea. I’m surfing the internet looking for ideas for trellis for my heirloom tomatoes, squash & cukes. This looks like it will work.

  6. Posted by healingmagichands on March 13, 2012 at 2:07 pm

    that’s a great design. We are lazy here at The Havens. The way I make trellises for peas, pole beans, melons and cucumbers and other things that like to climb is to run down to my local farm supply store and buy a piece of cattle panel. This is extremely heavy gauge steel and comes in 10 foot lengths, which is perfect for my 20 foot raised beds. I do one of two things. Leave them whole and pound metal fence posts at the proper place in the bed and wire the panel to that. This is very easily removed and moved when you have raised beds because your soil is so loose and beautiful. the other thing we do is measure halfway down the pane, and then cut it in half vertically, in the middle of one of the blocks. Wire the two uncut ends ends together with baling wire and you have an a frame assembly that has built in anchors in the cut end.

    This won’t rot and at the end of the season if I have been plagued with viruses or wilts I can “sterilize” the wire with a propane torch.

    • Posted by Jimmy Cracked-Corn on March 13, 2012 at 2:23 pm

      I would love to use cattle panels in my garden, but in town I don’t have enough good places to store something that big and bulky when I’m not using it. LOL, I don’t even have a way to get any of them home from the farm store. As it is I can only haul a few 8 foot boards at a time in our car.

      • Posted by Healingmagichands on March 14, 2012 at 8:23 am

        That would make it difficult, indeed. I have seen people tie things like that to the roof of their cars, but it never looked like a good idea to me!

        I know you have visited the havens, so you may have noticed the extensive fence around the vegetable garden. That is there in honor of the deer, rabbits turtles, groundhogs, armadillos, etc. the cattle panels store very neatly hung on nails driven into the cedar fence posts. This is a benefit of the fence that we were not aware of until,it was in place. We also hang our cold frames on it during the summer.

        I think it is wonderful that there are so many very good ways to accomplish what needs to be done for our gardens. I wish someone could come up with a foolproof way to eliminate weeds. One that does not require poiSons, of course.

        • Posted by Toes Insand on July 5, 2013 at 12:54 pm

          Re: weeds… Get the initial weeds out (especially the bermuda grass types) then mulch with cardboard or a couple layers of newspaper then straw. I love to see the moist earth but opt for this because it works very well!

          I like your trellis!!

  7. Posted by Jewels on March 29, 2012 at 8:57 am

    These are really nice! I need to figure out what sort of trellis to put in my raised bed for my cucs and peas, but I don’t think I’ll attempt something quite as grand as yours. What are you planning to grow on these?

  8. Posted by mommatango on May 1, 2012 at 8:24 pm

    Looks nice! I might have to have the hubs whip one of those up for our garden this year 🙂

  9. Posted by Sincerely, Emily on May 29, 2012 at 6:36 pm

    Oh that looks fantastic! Nice trellis!

  10. Posted by whosleilani on June 1, 2012 at 10:28 pm

    Would like to have one of these in the old garden. Only problem is the wind here is so strong I fear it would blow over all the time. :/

    • Posted by Jimmy Cracked-Corn on June 2, 2012 at 9:21 am

      After that series of photos I did have one of them topple while full of cucumbers. I added another few scraps of wood in strategic locations and it has held up since then.

  11. Posted by swampcatquilter on July 10, 2012 at 12:14 pm

    You can do the same with PVC pipe. Use 3/4″ pipe over an anchor of re-bar sunk into the ground. Use 90 degree angle PVC corner to join the top to the sides. You can then run wire or cord from the top corner and anchor them to the sides of the raised bed for stability.

    • Posted by Jimmy Cracked-Corn on July 10, 2012 at 4:30 pm

      My first, and original trellis was green PVC. It worked well, but was always difficult to keep upright when loaded with vegetables. I usually ended up adding extra support and staking those out in the lawn. Then I would accidentally run over the support cords when I mowed! It was a hassle, at least. So, this.

  12. Posted by alliumstozinnias on July 11, 2012 at 7:51 pm

    Looks fantastic. We’ve gone for trellis frames made of PVC, but if we decide they don’t work, we’ll have to think about copying you.

  13. Posted by Marsha on February 7, 2013 at 11:12 am

    PVC has so many chemicals!!! I love the idea of uncured/untreated wood so that my food is not being permeated with toxic grossness! So gonna do a few of these trellis’ for my tomates and green beans. Thanks for the simple, yet sturdy design idea!!!

  14. Posted by Dan Kramer on April 6, 2013 at 8:22 am

    So I want to try growing vegetables using the trellis system, but I’ve never done it before. My question is, do the vines naturally seek their way up or do you have to give them a little help once they get long enough to reach the roped section? Any advice would be appreciated.

  15. Posted by Green Peas for Dinner | Mouthful still talking on July 29, 2014 at 4:33 am

    […] and permanent pea support structures (good for all climbers really) and found the one I want in a gardening blog from the US. There are so many different designs – some look as though they would fall over in […]

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