Use Simple Trellises to Grow More Food

Gardeners, whether you’re tight on gardening space or not, growing on trellises can increase yields, make harvesting easier, and allow you to grow more food in a given space.

Many people always use cages and stakes for growing tomatoes (the plants would be a sore sight if not), but you can use vertical gardening techniques for loads of crops. One of my favorite crops to grow on trellises is actually cucumbers. Doing so is much more efficient and leads to better fruits than letting the cukes vine out from a mound on the ground.

To grow vining crops such as cucumbers and melons vertically, a great trellis option is a livestock panel. The panels are sturdy and have large holes so you can get your hand through for harvesting. The cucumbers grow right up the panel, meaning that the fruits aren’t lying on the ground—so they won’t get that yellowish coloring on their undersides. You’ll be amazed at how little space it takes to grow a bumper crop of cukes.

Beans and peas are also great crops to support with trellises. My preferred option for growing pole beans is to create tipis out of tall bamboo stakes. Pound the ends of each stake into the ground first (I use six poles per tipi), then tie the tops of the stakes together with twine. If you’re into reusing and repurposing materials like me, you can also make teepees out of downed tree branches.

For many more tips on growing vertically in your garden, check out these resources, all of which provide advice on building different kinds of trellises and supports for your crops:

If you have any ideas for homemade trellises that you’ve used in your garden, please share them with everyone in the comments section. Happy gardening!

Related Care2 articles that help you get the most out of your growing space:

Photo by Elayne Sears

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Carol M.

7:57PM PDT on Apr 2, 2012

Great ideas thanks

send a green star

Marie W.

11:54PM PDT on Mar 29, 2012

Branches- good idea.

Debbie C.

3:47AM PST on Mar 7, 2012

I'm going to have my husband build some of the 'Indestructible Tomato Cages.' We have the typical 'Tomato Cages' and they are not strong enough.

I'd also like to get a piece of the livestock panel for our cucumbers. The trellis we used last year didn't hold them up.

Thanks Shelley for the article.

Donna H.

10:29AM PST on Feb 29, 2012

Thanks for posting.

Debbie L.

7:39PM PST on Feb 28, 2012

Thanks!

Carmen S.

11:25AM PST on Feb 18, 2012

thanks for sharing these great ideas

Laura M.

11:46PM PST on Feb 16, 2012

Kim C.

2:19PM PST on Feb 16, 2012

awesome ideas thank you.

Lika S.

1:41AM PST on Feb 13, 2012

Cool. I'll have to try some of this.

Maija S.

1:12PM PST on Feb 10, 2012

Oh... what a great idea! We've had ice storms this winter that have pulled down a huge portion of my weeping willow. I'm going to look for nifty branches to grow beans on! Thank you!