As you may or may not know yet, you’ll be at a decided advantage with your vegetable gardening if you put in the time upfront to put up a trellis or staking system for certain plants. It’s just a plain fact that some vegetables do much better when they have a chance to grow off the ground. If you use a trellis or staking system, you’ll avoid much of the mildew and rot that you would have otherwise been plagued with in the case of these vegetables. Plus, harvesting them when the time comes will be much less back-breaking. Let’s survey the types of trellis, netting, and staking systems that you can design for gardening excellence.
Trellis and Staking for plants that grow off the ground
Cucumbers and zucchini are vegetables that do very well when they grow off the ground. You can purchase white nylon netting with 6 inch openings and hang this netting on an appropriate frame. Anything will do for a frame. You can use a custom-made frame designed for such plants or fashion your own out of pieces of wood, bamboo or small branches. You can even use old window or picture frames to support the netting.
The most common plant that gardeners elevate for growing is the tomato. To read more about caring for tomatoes read Tips for Tomatoes.
Trellis and Staking for climbing plants
For climbing and runner beans and snow and snap peas, you can use either a trellis and netting system or you can use staking for these vegetables. For the former, follow the advice I’ve given for cucumbers and zucchini, but substitute the white nylon netting for green plastic mesh. If you want to stake your vegetables instead, make a tepee-like structure with scrap pieces of wood, bamboo, or tree branches. Use six stakes, evenly spaced, to make your tepee and tie them with string or twine. Plant 4-6 seeds around each stake for best results.
Check out this video where John shows how he has made the most of his back yard fence. First he added reed fencing to make it look more pleasant, and then he used nylon net trellis material to grow winter squash, summer squash, cucumbers and melons.
Finally
No matter what type of trellis and staking system you choose, make sure you put it in place before your plants have established themselves in the soil. Any staking or trellising you do after you plant the seeds or transplant the seedlings could disturb you plants.
