Tom I'll be bumming trimmed bamboo next time you thin out your stands! :)

I cut these canes a few weeks ago, just waiting for you ;-) What length do you want them? Tell me how many more you want and I'll cut some more....

I'm off this week, I'll be setting my tomato seedlings Tuesday and Wednesday and sowing pole bean and cucumber seeds Thursday :-)

Tom

Last nite I hung a similar string trellis vertically to support my Black Krim tomatoes in containers.....(purchased from the hydroponics store $9.95)

I stretched the string trellis tightly on an existing pipe/wood frame.....secured using plenty of plastic tie-wraps and screws....

I used the container LIDS under the bins to avoid the tree roots from invading my containers this season.....doug

Hi Tina
It looks really nice, but I'm thinking you need to get Tom's longest stakes and secure them from the ground up to the top,
like every 3-4' to support the netting.

I get the impression the weight of the plants and tomatoes will cause saggin towards the middle. Then you'd have a
big jumbled jungle and be unable to walk inside to harvest.

And - thanks for the seedlings, by the way.....they are 10 days in their new bigger pots and boy, do they look happy and healthy!

Love ya
Susie

Hi Tom! 10' is a good size....I think I can transport that safely and my posts are 5' apart-ish. I can come over and help you cut it if you'd like a visit. And would you guys like to pay us a visit maybe the weekend of the 21st? I think the evenings are cooler now. Nick has horseriding Friday night, but Sat and Sun evenings are free.

Hi Doug! That looks great! My netting came with that design plan too...but I had too many tomatoes and decided to make the tent. I will try your design for the plum tomatoes I started recently. I still have one hot pepper you gave me producing in the garden. My husband eats them on everything...he's kinda nuts in a sweet way. You'll have to tell me your secret to starting hot peppers, bells are easy...but the hots continue to confound me.

Hi Susie! I'm glad the tomatoes are doing well! Mine have been out of the screen room less than a week and I can see some leaf puckering from thrips and saw a small cloud of whiteflies today...I sprayed the hell out of them. They'll problably glow in the dark tonight. Good idea on stakes to support the sides of the trellis netting. The bamboo will work for that too. Did you guys ever make the antique car meeting?

Tina
What do you spray for whiteflies? They seem to bring me the virus that ruins my tomato foliage and I was hoping they were done for the summer.

We haven't been able to get to the car meetings yet, but we did trade the Corolla in for a new RAV-4. Now to get that acreage out in the country! And maybe a horse or two . . . but a job might be needed first off.

Doug, I was just studying your set-up. How did you get your string trellis down inside your buckets? And great idea putting the tops on the bottoms!

And is that a plant tray to the left attached to the post?

Susie

Hi Susie....Chokoloskee WOW!

The string is TIE-WRAPPED to the bins (and pipe)....I drilled holes for the plastic ties.....They make the whole thing work....They are like one-way ratcheting straps..... (Ace hardware etc.) There's a bunch of them on my trellis... every intersection of string/string to pipe ....plus screws where they contact the wood frame.....AND the string is pulled tight.

The green thing is for my peppers.....A table to keep them off the ground.....around waist high....I'm an olde-guy ....easier to tend....and less bugs.....

Two 4x4 posts in the ground with a "box" around them....On one side.... buckets with rims are supported by their rims.....On the other side a shelf holds odd sizes

A new table (not shown) is built from pressure-treated lumber and holds 14 Kitty-Litter buckets.....

Hey Tina...Thanks....Do you remember which variety hubby likes ?

I do wish I had a pepper secret ! We'll continue that pepper chat again...

doug

The thing that I would be worried about with an a-frame would be one part shading another. Probably, the wider the angle, the better? I made a trellis for my sweet 100s like the one above with the electrical conduit frame. However, I hung painted concrete reinforcement panels with zip ties instead of the nylon. That way, they will be sturdy enough for possibly heavy things, like melons. They can be disassembled at anytime. My spacing was way too close from the start (I knew this and made the classic gardening mistake of doing it anyway). I do think that the trellis design had a negative effect on air circulation though. It might have been better if I had used a pruning type method. Based on my experience, I would say to space even more than you normally would.

When I was gardening in a serious way, a long time ago, I used the concrete reinforcing mesh, of metal,that they use under concrete driveways... from HD, and cut it in maybe 20' lengths, propped it up in the middle so I could walk underneath, and used it for pole beans, cukes, melons, 'maters, anything that climbed or got tall...the openings are maybe 4" so you can reach in easily.... it never drooped, or rotted, or tipped over, and lasted eons..and was cheap...cheap is good....sally

grow cukes and asparagus beans on this, great results, and i'm no veggie gardener......

Thank you all for the tips. Your set-ups are inspirational! The trellis has a north-south alignment so one side will get all morning sun and the other side afternoon, so I hope it works out. I didn't know about electrical conduit and concrete reinforcing mesh, but I will look at that on my next HD trip.

Susie I used Permethrin on the whiteflies but I know that doesn't wipe out the eggs.

Doug I don't know the variety...just little skinny point peppers that are HOT. :)

derbyka I am trying to copy your trellis design. Where did you get the concrete reinforcing wire? The stuff at Lowes is $109 for a roll of 5' high wire and its rusty.

You all have very nice set set ups! I am experiencing both embarrasment of my rigged up area and inspiration to make it better.

Tina do you have pictures of tbe bamboo set up? I have lots of bamboo.

You all have very nice set set ups! I am experiencing both embarrasment of my rigged up area and inspiration to make it better.

Tina do you have pictures of tbe bamboo set up? I have lots of bamboo.

Tina all the CRW is rusty.....

Instead of a rolled product look for the panels.....the CRW will be a flat panel about 3 1/2' by 7'....if you buy the rolled product you need to build a strong frame to keep it flat....doug

Tina,
I got the concrete reinforcement wire panels at Home Depot - 4 all together (for two trellises). The sheets were back in the area near the re-bar and lumber. I bought 6 pieces of electrical conduit. These come in 10 ft lengths. They cut all six down for me so that they were all about 7.5 feet or however long the long side of the CR panels were. The panels were starting to rust. I tried to find ones with as little rust as possible. Then I primed them with rustoleum primer and painted them with rustoleum paint. I did the same for the electrical conduit. I would highly recommend using brush on paint instead of spray paint because I ended up wasting a lot in the air and 50% of the cost of the project ended up being paint. I think I would have paid less overall by not doing spray cans. This is especially true if doing more than one trellis. I found the elbow joints for attaching the electrical conduit right near where the pieces were in the electrical section. I did not paint these, but instead, attached them once the other pieces were dry. I also bought 4 4ft lengths of rebar. O These were hammered into the ground and the conduit fits right over them. Once the frame was in place, I used zip ties to attache the panels. ne thing I would say is that if the pieces of conduit were half an inch or so shorter, I could have made the panels a little more taut.The paint/CR set up is probably not as great long term as the cattle panel that so many here like. However, I wanted something that I could transport by car (was able to put them on the roof on a blanket) and could easily disassemble and reassemble since it was for my plot in a community garden which was scheduled to get rebuilt. The whole project for the two trellises cost me around $100, $120 max. A significant, unnecessary part of this was the paint. In this picture, you can see how the zipties are used to attach the panels to the frame and two each other. These things have held up great in the summer storms. Like I said above, the main problem is spacing and making sure the plants have enough circulation. Mildew was more of a problem that it is on my damp shady patio. I will definitely try to do better with that the next time. I feel like your a-frame might be easier because it is somewhat horizontal. Gravity will do a lot of the securing work. With these trellises, I had to do a lot of weaving and, when the plants got bigger, tying.

Hi Tom! 10' is a good size....I think I can transport that safely and my posts are 5' apart-ish. I can come over and help you cut it if you'd like a visit. And would you guys like to pay us a visit maybe the weekend of the 21st? I think the evenings are cooler now. Nick has horseriding Friday night, but Sat and Sun evenings are free.

Sorry I missed this post Tina. If you decide you want some bamboo let me know. The next few weeks will be hectic for us, perhaps mid-October....

Tom

Thank you Doug and Derbyka! I reinforced the tomato trellis and put one up for peas:

Robin I don't have a photo...I did ask my friend but they didn't take any of the garden.

Tom No Problem....so far I haven't needed the bamboo so waiting is fine. See you in October!

Tina

Hey Tina - that's awesome!
Now all ya need to do is paint it all purple - that color of Talking Head's necklace!

Susie

Tina those head planters are great! Where did you find them? The only place I have seen them wants a fortune for the one they have and its small.

I got them from this lady in Sarasota....stonefacecreations@earthlink.net

Here is a link that might be useful: Stoneface Creations