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.

[DDJ]

As promised I got pictures posted of the Cattle Panel tomato trellis.   The Mrs and I created a wood shed this weekend out of pallets and cattle panels.  The only thing holding it together is Tee posts and rope.  There is a details description of how we made it in the picture description.

Trellis
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimisod/40494381263/in/dateposted-public/


Wood shed in progress
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimisod/47460315431/in/dateposted-public/

I am planning on getting pictures of the Garden and fledgling food forest in mid season this year and will attempt to post when those are us for anyone watching or finding this thread.

[Stwood]

  Looks good. Thanks for posting that.

[Stwood]

I am planning on getting pictures of the Garden and fledgling food forest in mid season this year and will attempt to post when those are us for anyone watching or finding this thread.

So how are your trellis's doing by now.

[DDJ]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimisod/48458360851/

The trellises worked well this year buy the tomato's on the other hand did not grow.  We are trying to figure pout if it was a water problem (too much or too little) or if it is something in, or more likely not in, the soil.  Which ever we are just not getting a bumper crop of tomatoes or anything else from the garden this year.  N.E. Ohio has been very wet this year.

The sunflowers are "weeds" likely from Chicken feed that they/we mixed with the compost in the coop.

PH is another suspect, but we have not looked too deeply into it, yet.  It could be too that we are just busy this year.

[Stwood]

We also had the too wet problem, but it's kind of worked itself out of that kinda.
Not the best garden we've had.
Tomatoes finally coming around after all the bug problems, and now the stems are dying.
Peppers seem to be here only for a meal. 50 plants are hardly producing what they should be.

So I think there's been a lot of people with poor gardens, due to the too wet spring.

[bigbear]

I only planted cucumbers and spaghetti squash under the trellises.  The cucumbers are still going strong having grown up the trellis and about half way down the other side.  The spaghetti squash started strong, produced a few gourds, then succumbed to the vine borer.  No support was needed for the produce either.  Made it really easy for seeing and picking the cucumbers. 

I did use the shaded space under the trellis for carrots, beans, and lettuce.  That worked out well.  I put down some beets, carrots, lettuce, and peas for a fall crop in that same spot. 

I did not use the trellis (as I was thinking in the OP) for beans, tomato, flowers, etc. this year.  Garden layout went a little different.  But the arches do come in handy with nearby tomatoes getting too big for their cages.

Another plus:  Birds are always perched on them.  So instead of perching in trees a little ways away, they are in the garden more.  And hopefully doing their job eating bugs and providing fertilizer. 

[Stwood]

Sounds good. I haven't decided to whether I want to try trellis yet or not.
I did put cattle panel up this year for pole beans. That's working ok. Vines are kinda wadded up at the top, then start hanging back down so it takes a little digging to get in there. But it's not much of a problem really.
Being the beans are way up in the air now, it give the japanese beetles a better view of them to land on.  Gotta clean em off 3-4 times a day. Trap bags have gave out after a month or so and not attracting them much now.

[DDJ]

Good luck with the Beatles.  They were not as bad this year at my place.  We are thinking that the Artic blast and then the rain may have froze or drowned them.

For our pole beans. We put the cheep sheet metal fence poses in then stood a 2X2 in the reses ties in with bailing wire.  That gave us 8 foot or so tall posts.  We then tied Para cord post to post at the top middle and bottom (foot or so off the ground).  To the para cord we tied Jute or other fiber string.  The beans then climb the rough jute.  we had great luck with that last year but again this year nothing really produced.

You can see the posts in my building of the Hugle bed pictures.  https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimisod/46883461075/

[Stwood]

Your post (pun?) lol, gave me an idea. You set your string up off the bottom.
I could raise my panels up on the T-posts a couple of feet and probably be ok, since I use 6' posts.

[Stwood]

Thats a good tip on the posts also