Vertical Supports - Your creative ideas

[Zapatay]

I want to keep my eyes open for things that might do the trick on my attempt to grow vertical this year.

How did you make your vertical supports? or ideas on what you need to make a vertical support?


My idea so far - I have a tail-gaiting shade canopy that broke last year, I'm hoping to assemble it in a way that I can run some twine back and forth and have it work as a support .... not quite sure how to keep it standing though .... Ideas?

[elementfiftyfour]

I'm lucky enough to live where TONS AND TONS of reeds grow so I just go out to the lake and take a bunch of them. They work great since they are about 10' tall and by the end of the season they are breaking down. They did their job so I just take the whole mess of reeds and vines and toss it all in the compost.

[TZ -OH6]

I pulled up a section of old broken down stock fencing, cut it into 10 ft sections and ran an electrical conduit pipe through each section. The conduit is supported on each end by cut saplings or 2x2s bound onto T posts driven into the soil.

[Jbest]

This is my trellis made from two sections of hog panel. John
[img]https://www.jbest123.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/t621.jpg[/img]

[garden5]

There's always good ole' chicken wire and 2x2s. It looks kind of junky, but hey, it's cheap if you are on a tight budget. Old galvanized fencing works good too. If you talk to some farmers, they may have some scraps lying around that you could score for free .

[tedln]

I pulled up a section of old broken down stock fencing, cut it into 10 ft sections and ran an electrical conduit pipe through each section. The conduit is supported on each end by cut saplings or 2x2s bound onto T posts driven into the soil.

I think the T posts and hog wire fencing are a gardeners best friend when you want to do anything vertical. The posts are fairly inexpensive at farm supply stores and come in lengths from four feet to eight feet. They are fairly easy to drive into the ground and can be removed when you want to redecorate the garden. They are super strong since they are made from steel. Combined with the fencing material or wire or string, you can construct anything vertical your mind can imagine. I don't know how much the fencing costs because I inherited four large rolls of it from a guy who was tossing it out. Without the fencing, I would simply be driving the posts in and running string between the posts for stuff to grow up.

I have also used the wood lattice panels which come in 4' X 8' panels. They are much more expensive now than when I used them, but they work well when mounted vertically on posts. I've seen many people use them for vining plants to grow up the side of brick walls for decorative purposes.

John's hog panel is probably the best solution for portability and longevity, but they cost from $40.00 to $60.00 each where I live. We use a lot of them for temporary corral's for cattle or any other large farm animal.

Ted

Ted

[runfox]

I am growing pole beans and was about to make the whole trellis, deal to support them as I have seen so many people do. But then I read somewhere here about the three sisters, the native indians way of planting the corn, then the beans next to the corn and training the pole beans to grow around the corn. And then the squash at the base of all this. I havnt ever tried it before, but it makes sense. Thats what I'm going to try this year. I figure the Indians grew corn and beans long before we got here and they would have figured out the easiest way to do it.

[tedln]

I am growing pole beans and was about to make the whole trellis, deal to support them as I have seen so many people do. But then I read somewhere here about the three sisters, the native indians way of planting the corn, then the beans next to the corn and training the pole beans to grow around the corn. And then the squash at the base of all this. I havnt ever tried it before, but it makes sense. Thats what I'm going to try this year. I figure the Indians grew corn and beans long before we got here and they would have figured out the easiest way to do it.

runfox,

I admire your effort to try something different. I love to try things like that. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't, but when it's over I know a little more than I would if I didn't try.

I plant intensively (crowded) and produce a lot from small places. A couple of things you may want to consider is possibly spacing the corn out more than you normally would. Since the corn grows fast and tall, it could shade out the beans and sqaush. Since you will be producing more plant and fruit in a small space, it will probably require more nutrition in the soil than would be required only for the corn. You probably will need to monitor the soil moisture closely because plants planted close really suck the moisture from the soil fast. You might also consider planting your rows of corn facing a direction that will allow the sun light to penetrate the rows as the sun goes across the sky. If you plant where the sun is only hitting the front row and the tops of the other rows, many of the plants growing down low will not get enough sun.

Good luck! keep us educated on how your garden is doing. Maybe post a few photos when all is growing.


Ted