Cattle panel arch trellis

[bigbear]

I'm planning on putting up a few of these this spring.  I like the idea of vertical gardening combined with using the 'dead' space over the walkways. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXOX1nzCnaQ 

Does anyone have experience or lessons learned from arch trellising?  How is harvesting (say beans) and pest control from that type of height? 

Thinking mostly beans, tomato, cucumbers, spaghetti squash and a couple of flowering vines/climbers.

[Stwood]

I've never used them that way, but have seen them in a commercial greenhouse.
They were doing cucumbers on them.

[DDJ]

[urlhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/jimisod/26729124558/in/dateposted-public/][/url]

Sorry I currently do not have any pictures of the trellis I have in my Garden, but we have been using one for about 4 years and are currently have 2.  The way we created them was to make pair raised beds separated by a path.  We chose the separation distance on 2 factors:
1) getting the mower through with plants growing up the trellis
2) Getting an arch that I could walk under at  6 foot 1 inch.

They have held up great we even moved the panels from one house to another 2 years ago.

We have done 2 things for mounting. We made sure to tie the panels to the inside of the arch pushing out on the raised bed sides.  I am trying to say keep the force to bend the panel pushing against the wood and then secure it with (secret weapon) electrical staples.  The staples are strong enough to keep the cattle panel from lifting and the side of the raised bed keep it from going back to the straight again.  They also are easy to remove if you wan to move those crops to another bed next year as you rotate crops.

If you work the panel over the bed then you can grow more shade friendly crops under it.  Currently we have the panel over the path between the 2 beds.  This turns a path into a growing space.  Tomatoes and cucumbers grew there last year as I remember.  They grew fine up the panel the fruit hung down on the inside (so watch your head as you drive the lawn mower under that tomato to the face and glasses (nuf said).  It kept the fruit high enough that the dig did not eat too many so I am sure it kept them out of the reach of rabbits.  I never saw a deer in there either but face level browsing might be appealing if they like your yard.

I would recommend this to anyone who is looking to add a trellis.  I have even used cattle panels as the roof structure of my green house (that is what the linked picture is to) I skimped on the plastic and watched it fail in high wind (twice now) but the cattle panel is not moving.

Cattle panels get a big thumbs up from me.  I am even looking at making a cattle panel wood shed this year. 

I want to capture a state of the garden/yard/food forest pictures and videos before we get too far into 2019, but time and weather are not right yet.

[bigbear]

1) getting the mower through with plants growing up the trellis
2) Getting an arch that I could walk under at  6 foot 1 inch.

If you work the panel over the bed then you can grow more shade friendly crops under it.  Currently we have the panel over the path between the 2 beds. 

Cattle panels get a big thumbs up from me.  I am even looking at making a cattle panel wood shed this year. 

Nice!  Thanks for the feedback.

We used the "does the mower fit?" method to measure the path between our beds too.  I'll be using similar "math" for the height of the arch too ("do I fit?").  But you've opened up a new train of thought about not just the vertical growth, but using it to shade for alternative veggies.  I can probably use that to get a jump on a fall planting of peas using an arch for shade.