I planted cucumbers and snap peas this evening. I left a corner spot for potentially a melon of sorts. I could use the other side of the trellis, but am too worm out to do anything for tilling. I think a raised bed on that side would be considerably easier to create.. possibly all the way to the rear of my stockade fence. For now I may just put potted tomato plants there and train them up that side.

Please let me know what you all think.

tangerine_z6: the T-posts are 5' long. About a foot from the bottom of each post, it is shaped like a 'T' such that you bury it deep enough so that this triangular part is below the ground. It prevents the post from twisting. The trellis is probably 8' tall, but my back yard is so tiny I needed to make the most of it, so I went vertical. :)
The folks at Tractor Supply Co. made the arch for me simply by loading the cattle panel on its side in the back bed of my pickup truck. They automatically arched it to make it fit for me to take home, so I roped it so the two sides would keep the panel bent. I test fitted the panel (roped) within the posts as I set them up many times to make sure I was on target for a good fit. The arch is probably at least 8' tall in the middle. I am 6'2" and walk through effortlessly.

I'll definitely get an updated pic. I think the vegetation is really starting to highlight the arch. I just can't wait til the plants 'decide' to start growing up it.

I had to dust the beans with Sevin-5% to get the hoards of Japanese Beetles to go away. It worked!

Thanks for your help and for sharing all the great pics.

Rosie

Seraki

Here's July 25th

Then a week of thick, moist, uncomfortably hot air..
Here is August 3rd

Glad you all are enjoying the arch as much as I am. I am anxious to see those cucumber vines make it to the top. On the other side I have a yellow baby watermelon that shall soon reach up onto the apparatus. Some peas are already stretching up that side.

I may go crazy in late winter and try to cover the trellis with plastic to see if I can make it into a greenhouse.

Love the set-up. Thanks so much for the quality pictures. You too pjintheozarks.

I will definitely try a cattle panel set-up. A bit expensive, but not crazy.

I guess I could bend it in half in the TSC parking lot and strap it into my truck, but how does everyone else get a 16' panel home? Does bending crack the zinc plating used to rust proof?

Also, about the T-posts... this won't help with rocks, but when I want a T-post in the ground and am afraid of puncturing gas, cable, electric, etc, I just jet a hole into the ground with my garden hose, then just slip the post in and back fill. The water helps pack the dirt in and it is nice and tight once the water drains.

Thanks again.

I'm starting to think Spring and looking around for inspirations. :-)
Thank you for sharing.

Thanks mydream! I am changing up my garden this year. I was actually out in the rain today completely taking down the trellis and erecting it back up much closer to the house. The reasoning? ... The house is north and I want to allow more sun into the rest of the garden. It made sense to go through the trouble to move the arch (maybe not in the rain, but I simply wanted to do it today.. I was driven.. lol). I'm sore right now, but at least hammering in the T-posts was easier than last year because the new location's soil was conditioned by a couple years of working it. The raised bed you see in my photos is now dismantled and the soil + compost fill has been spread wide. I intend to use those bricks to border the new expanded garden. I can't wait! :)

The bale of straw in the back is aged from last fall and I have been fertilizing it with 10-10-10 fertilizer. I intend to try growing 3 tomato plants in the bale and the rest inside and outside the perimeter of the arch. Should be interesting in that so much more light will be available to plants growing to the right of the arch.

I was saying the only reason the t-posts are so deep in the new location is that the panel was moved to the original garden location where the soil had been worked for 2 prior seasons and is incredibly soft and deep (which was intentional in the original design given that my house may as well have been built into solid bedrock... the super heavy clay/rocky and pathetic construction landscaping effort left it that way). I could push the t-posts 6" deep in the 'old' garden area with a single thumb and it would have been incredibly unstable due to the nice friability of soil I created in that spot the last 2 years. I hammered deep to ensure the arch would stay put. I don't plan to take it down (again) (at least not anytime soon).

It was certainly a challenge putting up the trellis in the location it sat last year though. There's a rock (sub-surface boulder) that extends at least 4' in one direction in the back of my property and it took alot of digging and bashing with a sledge hammer to break off a corner so I could put in one single t-post. That was rough! I even split the spade of a shovel working on that one post. It's a lost effort now since I moved the arch anyway, but I'll be growing vegetables where the arch once stood in the new expanded area I created. It'll take another couple years to get the soil in that area as soft was the old area, but I'll do my best to make it happen (again).

Just a thought once everything grows in a little better - I think it would be pretty covered in cucumbers, and we could just take it down in winter. I don't like that big empty spot back there, and the eye would be directed to the arch and food instead of the gate this way. Oooh I could maybe do this as the chicken run instead of a big rectangle. gotta think about this....

I do have a question, though. Which direction do you face the trellis so that plants on both sides get plenty of sun? Are the openings on the north and south ends?

I need to make labels, so I can pick up all those foam cups (that are labeled with the tomato variety I germinated). The sun is fading off the Sharpie writing and I can't tell them apart as easily.

The cattle panel is oriented so the open sides face east and west while the 'caged' sides face north and south. The tomatoes on the northern outside edge are already comparably smaller because of the house roof line shade and the plants to the south blocking their light as they grow taller. The pole beans on the outside should take off, but some pests keep chewing away the leaves and I haven't figured out what and how to deal with them yet.

I just spent about an hour twining together my bamboo and chicken wire bean supports. It works using free materials, but I look forward to the day when I get motivated enough to switch to cattle panels.
Thanks

Vance

I was considering using this trellis system myself. I do have a question, though. Do tomatoes grow on top of the 8 foot thing that you can't get to? I'd probably not that stop me, but was sure curious.

~Angela

By the way, the tomato plants growing in the rotting straw bale are not growing well at all. They are shadowed the most and I think lack of soil is hindering their growth despite fertilizing the bale.

I encourage others to try the cattle panel if you can find one in your area. Cheap and obviously an effective organizational tool to grow tomatoes and vining crops. I wish I had two. :)

~Angela

9/15/08

From 091508

From 032809

I intend to plant cucumbers and pole beans. I have a great deal of material added in the middle and sides, sloping outward. I think this will give the area a little extra sun earlier in the day for the plants to reach.

Zuni that is too bad about the cattle panels in Canada. Do they have feed stores up there for animals? Perhaps they might sell these panels.

They are 16 feet long. 4 feet tall and come in two sizes of square openings. 4"x4" and another size larger (think 5"x6"). Cost is about $18

Lots of good ways to make an arch trellis:
use stakes
nail to a raised bed

that is a great idea. You could even build a "gazebo" using this technique with climbers all around and a larger central area.

I don't think this will work for the tomatoes as planted but I will certainly be coercing my dairy farmer friend to bring me some panels next year to use as intentional arches in the garden. The thought of big squash growing up there! :)

Judging by how short they are now I would say he cut them off instead of digging them up. :)

I've used one of those heavy duty truck bumper jacks and some nylon strapping to wrap the posts to the jack and just jack them out of the ground. Works great if you don't have a tractor.

If you ever decide to reuse old posts and repaint them, don't paint the white 6" strip at the top. It's there to warn you that your post driver is about to come off the top of the post. Ask me how I know. I liked to died.

So onto this year. The panel is in the same spot as last year and the pole beans and cukes are taking off

From 071009

Tom

The bit about the t-post driver and pulling t-posts was funny. DH and pals have lots of t-posts and a driver and PULLER that they share, depending on who has the need. I don't remember who actually bought the Puller, but it takes two men and that tool to get a t-pole out of the ground, saves messing up wet ground with the tractor. Seems to me it was about $25.00.

How about this idea... setting up the cattle panels so they lean against the chicken run, so the chickens can't reach the veggies, but, the chickens have more shade? And of course whatever scraps get thrown in for them.

How much can you lean one and still get good growth? Chicken run or pen (fence) is 7 ft tall x 21 ft long at that spot. It would not matter if all the peas or cukes at the very top did not get harvested.

How far away from the fence could be bottom of the cattle panel be?

Here's a link to one of my earlier posts on this. To get another idea look at the 01-31-09 9:25 post by tc1ynx, might give you a few more ideas.

Tom