#trellises

Sharon Sprung, "Morning Glories", Oil on Panel. American painter based in Brooklyn, New York.

The artist eye works for anything, even flower arrangements

Solbacka Scenery, October the 2nd, 2020

I use multiple types of trellises in my own garden. I live in a very sunny, very hot environment that’s very windy (so I can’t use shade cloth) so I have a trellis wall for peas and climbing beans that’s made with 8 foot tall 4x4s (dug down two feet) and 10 foot long dowels. I bought 6000 feet of gardening twine off ebay and I made a trellis that runs up and down every 4 inches along the whole length, with the bottom being 2.5 feet away from the bottom of the posts. So from the side it looks like a triangle. The angle these trellises are set up means that morning sun enters beneath the trellis, then as the sun goes about its day and sets, the beans and peas provide shade for the broccoli, cauliflower, and bok choy I grow beneath them. Because there is so much sun and heat where I live, without the shade, the brassica veggies flower too soon, so the shade helps keep them from doing so as quickly. Beans and peas climb these in the spring and early summer when it’s still marginally cool (only in the 70s-80s during the high). When the peas and beans begin producing, I can begin harvesting- underneath there are 3 little walkways between plants where I can get to the plants. In addition, the two trellises are parallel to each other. On the trellis towards the east I have peas and on the trellis towards the west I have beans. Beans take the sun better in my experience than do peas here, so the bean trellis provides a little bit of shade from about 4 oclock on for the peas.  I also use more traditional vertical trellises (can be bought at like home depot - made of 1/2 to 3/4 inch metal) for tomatillos and decorative tiny pumpkins. The weight of these fruits means they need something stronger to support the plant than just string. I use gardening twine to train vines/branches to the trellis. I also have never tried it but some summer squashes (scallop, desi, lemon, cucumber) are small enough they might be good to try on a metal trellis. Additionally, Jenny melons (or any melon under 2 pounds) can be trellises as long as you support the melon, usually with a sling of some sort. For tomatoes, I have t-posts I put at the ends of all rows and I run gardening twine back and forth between the posts, raising up about 6 inches every time. I use this rather than traditional tomato cages because I can get more tomato plants in a row AND more rows in a bed. I plant my tomatoes every 12 inches on drip tape and do three rows together between paths (the middle row is offset 6 inches from the first and third rows). This string method allows you to almost espalier the tomatoes as well as encourage vertical growth (by weaving them between the strings) rather than bushy growth. This makes it easier to harvest tomatoes as well because they’re easier to see.  I plan to put in hardy kiwis this fall and those will be trellised up a fence. My dad has three table grape vines on a trellis but we kind of let those go wild and the trellis is really too tall. It’s based on an umbrella pruning system but we don’t do that.  Does that answer you question? 

Confederate Jasmine Summer

Opa’s Garden in July