Trellis ideas

13 years ago

Along the back of my lot, and adjacent to my garden, I have 190 feet of regular old 4-foot dog-eared cedar fence. I am looking at putting it to use this year as a basis for trellising about any vegetables for which it will work.

The fence runs directly east and west. I really don't want anything sticking very much above it, if at all. On the other side there is 15 feet of grass, including a sidewalk, and then the street.

From a design perspective, I was thinking about just taking 48 inch or higher wire fence, staking it to the ground a couple of feet from the fence, and then bending it back toward the cedar fence, and attaching it at or near the top of the cedar fence's treated 4x4 fence posts. The cedar pickets would then be 8 inches or more above the top of the trellis, and it should be fairly hidden from the other side.

Any thoughts about the design, and what would grow well under these conditions? Cucumbers are what got me started on this concept. Looking for vegetable ideas, because I grow my raspberries, grapes, etc., in other places.

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Comments (5)

Ohiofem 6a/5b Southwest Ohio
13 years ago
It could work. Cucumbers love to climb. But two things I would be concerned about would be whether the fence would block sun or ventilation. I assume you would be planting on the south side of the fence? Will young plants get enough hours of sun? Also cucumbers are susceptible to powdery mildew. Will there be enough air circulation?
Creek-side
Original Author
13 years ago
The trellis would be on the north side, but I'm not concerned about sunlight since after the spring equinox the sun rises north of due east. I hadn't thought about disease, because I pretty much just live with that, and deal with it by planting multiple generations of a lot of things.

But it did occur to me that it may be dificult to pick some of the cucumbers if they are on the underside of the trellis.
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SneakyP86
13 years ago
The way I did mine was to build a raised bed box 3' wide. Than I sunk some 8' landscape timber about 3' in the ground. I strung some livestock fencing between the 2 posts about 1' above the ground and it worked great for my cucumbers and small cantaloupe and sugar baby watermelon. I would keed it about 3' from your fence to make harvesting and mowing any grass behind the box easier.
memo3
13 years ago
I have a similar situation that I tried to deal with last year except instead of a fence I had a shrub row to contend with. There was too much shade about 5-6 feet on the north side of the shrubs to really grow much. My cantaloupe were just at the edge of the shady area and did okay but should have produced much more for the number of plants I had but my cucumbers were in full shade most of the day. I only got about 30 cucumbers from 10 plants. I would strongly suggest that you have the top of your wire fence at least 6 feet from the cedar fence which should give your plants decent sun and give you plenty of working room from the back side to pic the cucumbers that drop down from the fencing to grow on the lower side. If you are going to move things away from the cedar fence then I would be more inclined to build and A frame wire fence structure that you can get through the middle of for picking. It wouldn't take up that much more space going from one side of the box to the other. This would also be a great set up for string beans, planting only on one side and letting them grow up one side and down the other. Are you in an HOA or something that doesn't allow you to garden unless no one else can see it? Good luck.
foolishpleasure
13 years ago
I train my cucumber to climb on my 4 feet chainlink fence andit works fine