Will this work as a trellis?

[elizaaabeth]

I've been lurking around here for a few weeks now, and seeing as I sowed my cukes today, I thought I better ask this one. This is my first year getting a bit serious about my vegetable garden (I mean, rather than just sticking some seeds in the ground and hoping for the best ) and so I'm trying to utlilize my space the best. I was thinking of doing cukes, watermelon, rockmelon and maybe pumpkins in pots and growing them up the fence. However the fence poles are pretty thick, maybe 2-3cms in diameter. I was thinking of putting some garden twine up horizontally...will this work or will I have problems?

[img]https://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u3/berru_photos/2011-08-25171045.jpg[/img]

Also, today I realized the truth in the idea that tomatoes will grow just about anywhere...whilst pottering round the garden this afternoon I saw something sticking out of the lawn. I wandered over, and lo and behold, there were maybe half a dozen tomato seedlings, the tallest standing about 15cm and not looking all too unhealthy. The 'lawn' is maybe 2 by 6m and pretty much dedicated to the dogs waste. I have 2 medium size dogs...so there's a fair bit of it. I occasionally give them the tops of tomatoes when they're bugging me in the kitchen, so I figure these must have gone in one end and out the other...and they're doing better than the lawn [img]https://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u3/berru_photos/2011-08-25171004.jpg[/img]

[Gary350]

Painted square tubing is fairly slippery I'm not sure the vines can climb that without slidings down. Vines will not climb bamboo and other slippery things. You might need to buy some himp twine at the garden center tie it to the top rail then twist it around several 2 or 3 square tubing then tie it to the bottom rail so the vines have something to hang on too while they climb.

[Fig3825]

And keep in mind that cucumber vines can exceed 10' in length. Mine are trellised, my trellis is 7' tall and they are growing off the top of it - all three varieties.

For a 4' high fence, you may want to consider training your plants to grow horizontally. You could easily grow 5 plants horizontally in each direction. Keep in simple, just grow them to the top and then lay them horizontally and put the vines in "S" hooks every so often or something like that.

[garden5]

What you could do is buy a panel of fencing like chicken wire or dog-fence as some call it (it has 2in. boxes and is stiffer than chicken wire) and put it in front of the railing. You could easily do that with some zip-ties or even string!

This would make it much easier for the cucumbers to climb.

[Fig3825]

Also note I learned the hard way with bamboo stakes that bamboo, while sturdy, it is slick like your fencing there. I had nice tall lima beans for a long time, and then it rained and weighted the plants down. The next day I came out and found all of my lima beans had slipped down the bamboo and were pretty much in a pile at the bottom of the stake. Not a huge deal as nothing really broke. I pulled them all back up the poles and secured them with some elastic plant tie tape type stuff - it's green and plastic, but it stretches as well. I just tied the main lines above each node on the bamboo stakes.

[elizaaabeth]

Oh I hadn't even thought of the problem of them being slippery! And I doubt even if I had I would have thought of tying string around them to avert this Also I'm glad you said I can train them to grow horizontally, because I was worried about the height as well. So I think I'll give it a try and hope for the best! Thanks guys

[Fig3825]

Incidentally, I have a friend who lives there in Brisbane. He name is Reta Jurgenson - she's Estonian. I also have another buddy who cooks for the Swedish Ambassador to Australia - he's only a few miles south of you. About 750 to be exact - he's in Canberra.