With the varieties of peas that I've tried, 5' would be enough. But then you won't be able to reuse the trellis for beans, tomatoes, etc.

I'm a fan of moving the trellis in to the center of the square, for the same reason as you.

That is interesting. I had not thought of moving the support right to the centre of the square. I put mine about 6 inches in from the edge so that I could plant my tomatoes, peas etc on the outside of the support. If it is right in the middle, do you have any problems with it shading its neighbours?

I still feel like I am missing something because the book specifies that they go on the corners of the square. Everything seems to be so well thought out in the book.

Sorry, I didn't explain it well... I meant center of the 1' square, not the whole box.

Alex - thanks for clarifying :).

Could anyone think of any reasons why it might be better to put it on the outside corners instead? I am getting ready to re-do a fallen vertical support and want this one to be somewhat permanent. TIA!

I put up 2 trellises on each 4x4. Each upright is 1ft in from EACH side, so there is 2ft between the 2 trellises. Each trellis covers 2 rows.

Not sure if I explained that clearly so....
T= Trellis
X= Square

X X X X
T...... .T 1ft mark
X X X X

X X X X
T...... .T 1ft mark
X X X X

Does that make sense?

ps. I have used 1x2's for the upright but 2x2's work better. Or cut a 2x4 right down the middle lengthwise. 1x2's work fine for the crossbeam. It's just the 1x2's are much easier to screw through.

Hi Gumby- I have lots of stuff I want to trellis so that may work well- you don't have shading issues though within the box? Do you grow say all tomatoes in that box?
Thanks!

That's a good approach. If you did all vertical crops in there, each support works for 2 rows.

I guess the only issue would be shading if you had say basil or carrots with tomatoes.

That would be interesting to do an all vertical crop box.

I grow carrots in a separate box I made - 3in Wide by 6ft Long.

I did have some shading problems with basil last year but still had more than enough Basil. I like to plant basil between each tomato plant. My problem was I only planted 6 tomatoes and 6 basil but let the volunteers that sprouted grow where they were. I had six 4x4 frames filled with tomatoes which grew Ok but the bear was trying to harvest. One bed, I am sure had more than 40 plants. Yea, they were pretty much a jungle but still had way more tomatoes than I could use. Most were small but great for freezing. In fact, just made spaghetti sauce from last years frozen tomatoes :-)

The key to shading is to keep your smaller plants at the south side of the bed and the taller plants (including vines) at the north end. Keep in mind the sun is moving East to West. So if you keep the taller plants on the North side going E-W, it works fine.

But yea, the two trellises cover two rows each. I used to let my cukes grow up the corn and except for shading the corn, it wasn't bad. Oh and string beans down below. The cukes grow straighter when trellised and are much easier to harvest. Last year I trellised cukes (N-side) with tomatoes and it worked fine.

I have one bed that is longer, 4x13ft, I use for vining squash another about 4x10 for melons. I have never used a sling for the melons. Picture another frame, the inside dimensions of the bed frame, raised up 3ft. I used 1x2's for the upper frame and set the crossbeams for whatever you want. If you cut extra crossbeams you can add more when you need them.

Melons can be hard to tell when they are ripe, so if you make it only 2-3ft high and they fall off the vine, it is no big deal. Just having the fruit up off the ground keeps some bugs from getting at the fruit.

Good Luck,
Gumby_CT

Gumby:

If you ever have a chance, I would love to see a picture of your garden.

What do you mean by "if you keep the taller plants on the North side going E-W, it works fine."

Here's what my 1/2" copper pipe looks like now. The wind has actually bent it over.

Yea, copper is way too soft.

Not a very good pic, but shows what I mentioned about cukes & tomatoes. The cukes are at the north end. You are looking east. In the background you can see some other supports. They are different heights because that is what I had. But go no higher than you can reach, if that is 5ft, so be it.

Note the way the 1x2 crossbeams are, if you go the other way, they will warp & bend. I see the skinny cross looks like an old tomato stake (1x1). You can see the strings wrapped at the top. If you use something that will compost or is easy to cut, it sure helps with clean-up. I used jute twine.

Yes the crossbeams are going north-south, I want to change that to east-west. My frames are not an exact 4x4 but 2in shorter on 2sides so that affects my crossbeams which are 4ft. So I will have to rotate the frames :-(

Directly behind the cukes is the squash bed which I trellis up 3ft. The overview below shows it all, well most of it. Hope that helps. Any other questions, let me know.

Cuke close-up this is what they looked like, nice & straight

Good Luck,
Gumby_CT

Oh the cukes are right at eye level too which makes for an easy harvest. I start off tying string to vine then using a vecro strap to keep the growing tips with the string. As the plant grows I move the velcro strap wherever it is needed.

Below is a link to a goal post not pictured above. I made it by adding a 4ft piece of 2x2 on to a 6ft upright. My thinking at the time was to add another crossbeam at the top so when the tomatoes kept growing I could support them. I made it so the 4ft piece would swivel down for easy storage. Yea right!!

After getting it together, I looked at it and thought how the sam hill could I reach up there to get a tomato? So I never added the 2nd cross and just let the tomatoes grow back down the other side, ha.

Oh I added the pic to the garden web cuz with all the changes I made here lately, the upload button doesn't show up on Photobucket anymore. Maybe something is blocking the script? Who knows but I got tired of looking for a button that was NOT there.

Here is a link that might be useful: Gumby's Goal Post Trellis

Gumby:

Your garden looks wonderful! It is really big - must keep you busy. Thank you for taking the time to post your pics. Wish I could bite into the cuc right now!

I see what you mean about the taller plants on the north side of the bed.