Thursday, April 9, 2009

Trellis and hardening off

Built my first trellis out of 2x2's and bolted it to the cleats attached to the beds. Still need to attach the netting. I am still a little concerned whether it's sturdy enough. I'm just picturing a a netting full of vines in a high summer wind snapping the thing off. I still have some time before the trellises come into play, so I'm going to think about it some more.


It was in the 60's today so I had my parsley, broccoli and cauliflower out all day. I'll probably leave the parsley out overnight now that it will be transplanted to the garden in a few days.


UPDATE: Went back to Lowes to brainstorm a bit and came up with another trellis configuration. So I picked up the materials for one prototype and threw it together at home.

This is 1/2" electrical conduit slid over 4 ft rebar pounded halfway into the ground (just like the book says). The key that makes this all an affordable solution is -- rather than using those metal conduit elbows that cost $5/ea., I used cheap 1/2" PVC elbows (threaded on both sides) that cost $0.56/ea. I just hammered them on the ends of the pipe. It seems the threads compress around the pipe when hammered on. I couldn't pull them apart at all once on all the way.

I swear I saw this mentioned on someone's blog someplace, so I can't take credit for it. I was just reminded of it as I walked down the PVC fittings aisle. I did a search but couldn't find the post, but if anyone reading this knows, I'd like to give credit where credit is due.

Time will tell if this will hold up, but I think I'm going to outfit the rest of the boxes with this type of trellis and see how it works out this year. There is some give, but I think that's good/expected. The rebar is 2+ feet into the ground, so I can't envision a situation where they'd pull out. I also like the fact that they're physically less bulky than the 2x2's so probably easier to store as well.

5 comments:

  1. I never thought about combining mediums to get the job done. Let me know how it works...I've always got an expansion project in mind. :)

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  2. Luke - that's pretty interesting. I too, will be keeping up with it's performance. Way to go, dude!

    EG

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  3. We'll see how it holds up for the season. I figure if they start to loosen up, I can always replace them with the "real" elbows as they fail.

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  4. I wish I had read this tip earlier! We just bought 12 steel corners at $6 each. $72 for steel vs. $6 for PVC..... yeesh!

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  5. i want to try this things in my garden . just for a change in my garden themes . i like it to be more on veggies . i guess cucumber is great with this trellis Perfect while my spinning metal wind spinner plays

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