Adventures in trellising

Here is an aerial view (from the second floor of our home) overlooking our raised bed garden, continually a work in progress. The upper left hand corner is where the pole beans are growing on a home-made trellis designed for the task.

Here is a closer shot of Purple Podded Pole Beans (from Seed Savers Exchange) working their way up the trellis.

The trellis attaches to the back of the bed, slipping into these braces, and can be taken out at the end of the season. (Yeah, I know, I need to do some trimming back there).

The nice thing about this trellis is that it is tall enough (8 feet) for at least the moderate sized pole beans, it is fairly durable (this is the 5th or 6th season), and because the netting part is made of green plastic the whole thing is lightweight and can be folded up and stored during the off season. The disadvantage of using that netting (lesson learned) is that it is a fairly fined grained (the squares are about one inch by one inch) which makes it hard to harvest the very middle of the beans without actually stepping inside the bed. (I have a couple of tall and lightweight family members who do that part for me). The beans do love to climb up this trellis.

Maybe this is a better perspective on the trellis. You can't see the beans but they are beginning to peak out from behind the zinnias. Eventually in another month they will reach the top and the trellis will be invisible. I'll post another photo then if anybody is interested. I'd be interested in seeing what other folks have come up with in their efforts to work with small space, raised bed gardens and trellising. Thanks for looking! :)

I love this. I just put up a Bambi fence around my watermelons and used 100 ft of this. Next year I'm going to put the watermelons inside the fence and won't need it for that. I was wondering what I would do with the 100' of plastic fencing I have. My fencing has holes about 2"x2".

Thank you for showing this very clever idea.

Karen

Thanks Karen!

Looks wonderful. Everything is so neat and well prepared. Nice job!

Your comments are much appreciated, Sequee!

geeze, I'd say it is super neat! I trellised with what I have. Lots of EMT pipe. One piece has old fencing on it. The other 4 used as an arch for beans with a netting of wire on it. Nowhere near as elegant as yours are!

GGG

I got trellis's for mine this year, too. I'd decided they would work well, look nice, and have a very dramatic effect in the winter. Imagine all the barren trees, a huge snow bank and these tall elegant trellis's. I'm hoping to catch some nice shots with high sun casting shadows on the snow, and maybe a sunset or 2. But that's getting way ahead of myself. Right now I'd just like some TOMATOES to ripen!!!

BDale60~ That aerial shot of your garden is beautiful! What a wonderful looking garden. I love it! Thanks for sharing your garden plot with us. I love your ideas on trellising. I to have raised beds and have made trellises for my beans, peas and cucumbers this year. My trellises are not as nice and neat as the ones you have made but so far they have been working out great. I like how yours are so neat and artistically pleasing. Way to go!!

Great trellis design BDale! I love the flexibility of it.
I may take a page from your design book and build a mini fence around my garden beds. We're already having crop theft issues, so the netting will make it more difficult to "grab and go".

Hi GGG, LissyJ, and garden-mermaid. Thanks for the compliments!

BDale,
Yowza! What a smart looking planting! Neat , tidy and thriving... it's entirely awesome!

Ninnian

Hey, Ninnian, thanks a lot! We started with a couple of raised beds and now we are up to eight of them (actually ten, two are in a different part of the yard). It works for us.

I'm right there with ya! I started with a few pots. Then added a few more. Next came the 8'x15' raised bed, folllowed by an 8'x8' extension, a bean tower, and a 4'x6' cinder bed. The following year I added a large container garden and a bean trellis. This year I added 7 4'x4' square foot beds. All this, and I lie alone!!!

Gorgeous and inspiring setup!

there should be a law against gardens looking that neat. yu did a heck of a job. nice going.

Thanks all. Here's a growth update, using roughly the same photo angle as two weeks ago. Some growth in some beds, less in others.

The tallest bean vines have made it to the top of the 8 foot trellis. ("We're bustin' outta here, boys!")

A wider perspective on the bean trellis. Leaves are filling in once the vine has made the climb and "scouted" a path for them.

And still just as neat and organized as when you started. I love the beans take off. They are so adventurous. Did you mention which variety/ies you are growing?

Hi Sequee,

We are doing Purple Podded Pole beans, our first time with this cultivar. So far, so good (although we are still at least a couple weeks from any bean production so I'll update when they are more mature).

Which beans do you like?

Haven't tried alot of them, but of those I have tried, the Helda Bean is my hands down favorite. They are big and tender and very prolific. I pick off enough for dinner every other night, and my neighbor munches on them every time we walk thru...and they just keep coming.

must be niceto have an "open" garden where you don't hve to worry about deer coming up and eating everything yu are trying to grow. LOL

Herbie, yes we are lucky with regard to the deer, as we live right in town. Always a few other critters, however, that manage to find their way to our backyard.

This year our small town has had an unusual number of bears show up in backyards, many drawn by raspberry bushes. (Warren, PA, is on the edge of the Allegheny National Forest).

I guess it is a compliment when the critters show up LOL.

until they eat everything you have . LOL

And step on everything they DON'T eat!

Wonderful pics Bdale, DH wants to do a raised bed garden next year cutting back on the amount of produce we grow as well. He says I grow for everybody and he says it's too big of a task, so we're going to do the raised bed next year, I love the trellis idea. Easy enough too.

Do you have any kind of weed barrier under neath that soil in the beds? How did you prepare the ground before you put down the frame for the beds? Just tilled it up to get the grass out of it?

I really want something that will keep the majority of the grass out so all I have to do is pull something up every now and then, which is why I considered something on the bottom and having a taller raised bed so the roots will have room to grow on top of the barrier. What do you think of this? think it will work?

Thanks for the pictures and ideas.

Kathy Ann,

Thanks. We "double dug" the beds originally (down a couple of feet) with a spade and have added some additional topsoil and a lot of compost to them, At this point the only significant soil preparation we do for the established bed each spring is with a pitchfork, working it over and loosening it up, prior to planting or transplanting (as the case may be). Lots of worms visible when we are doing the pitchfork work in the spring, which we take to be a good sign. Once planted, we mulch. Very minimal and manageable weed growth, sort of as you describe, pulling out some weeds here and there along the way when we are out puttering in the garden but not the massive jungle of weeds I remember as a kid in my parents' garden.

I'm sure there are many ways to do it, and other folks may have some good insights for you as you consider how to construct your beds. You might even want to start a new thread on this forum (or on a related forum) to seek lots of input. Nice to get the ideas before you do it rather than after. Good luck!!

Thanks, your plan sounds like a great one.

Well now, tell us you are an amateur gardener over on dahlias. You may be new to dahlias but certainly not to gardening. Your set-up looks wonderful. And so neat. If I could only convince myself to go smaller and have time to be really neat!!

Snuck over here because I was given some garlic heads and am not sure what to do with them; here was BDale and his green thumb!! Impressive.

Jam, hahaha. I cross my heart, I've never, ever grown dahlias before so I'm a complete amateur when it comes to that. I'm a "mostly amateur" in all other facets of gardening. Just learning as I go, and trying to avoid mistakes by asking questions of the folks who really know what they are doing. :) Happy to see you here on this forum.