Sturdy Garden Trellis for Cucumbers

We enjoy growing fresh cucumbers for our salads and as a side on the plate, but after several disappointing seasons where the shade from surrounding trees, the voracious rabbits and moles, and the constantly-digging squirrels stunted or outright destroyed our harvest I was prepared to abandon that crop.

In one of our pond-side brainstorming sessions Shawn and I hit upon a possible solution. Why not put the cucumber hills in the center of her cut-flower garden which is surrounded by rabbit-proof fencing and grow those green wonders vertically on a suitable trellis?

Why not indeed?

I am happy to report that homegrown cucumbers adorned our table last summer and the vines sprouted up to completely cover the 5-foot obelisk I used as a trellis. The vines then turned east and marched across that side of the cut-flower garden as they sun-starved the cosmos struggling below.

I added additional supports, tied the cucumbers up as best I could, and the tendrils surged forward like Christmas shoppers on Black Friday. Though we searched diligently nearly each day we missed a few cucumbers hidden among the dense foliage during the season. Left on the vine cucumbers grow to gargantuan sizes and become bitter-tasting.

We are happy to stamp the experiment as a success, but the field trials indicate that a sturdier and taller trellis will be required for the 2023 season. And solving that problem, while maintaining Shawn’s visually pleasing cut-flower efforts, falls to me.

Zowie! I’m a licensed professional engineer. How hard can it be?

Well, I also maintain the budget and a sturdy trellis in the seven-foot-height range can be quite expensive in this inflationary time of ten-dollar 2×4’s. I’ve been browsing for ideas all winter, and found a few that looked promising. In the end I took a piece of this design and a dab of that design and created a custom solution using off-the-shelf parts. The cost was reasonable, and Shawn marveled at the invisible nature of her new trellis. We have to look for it to see it in the garden.

What I used:

• (2)  0.5-in x 10-ft Gray Steel #4 Rebar
• (1) 4-ft x 7-ft Steel Wire Mesh Sheet
• (1) Grip-Rite 100-Pack Steel Rebar Ties
• (1) QLT by Marshalltown Wire Twister

I loaded my treasures into Clifford’s short bed. (Clifford? What else would you name a red pickup?) With suitable tie-downs to prevent load-shifting and a green waving flag to alert certain drivers to tailgate me as closely as possible, I headed for the shop.

I have not framed and poured much concrete and had no idea what a wire twister might do or how much time it might save on this trellis job. I watched a professional using such a tool on a YouTube video to prepare mesh and rebar for a pour and that sold me.

I give thanks often for my flat driveway which extends straight out from the shop (aka garage). Plenty of elbow room. And here’s the idea for the trellis.

Using zip-ties I attached the top and bottom of the mesh to the rebar to hold things in place while I twisted the wires. Note that I left three inches of rebar above the mesh because I will pound three feet of the ten feet of rebar into the ground swinging a big hammer from the top of an eight-foot step ladder.

I messed up a few twists before I figured out how to criss-cross. And I snapped a few because I twisted them too tightly. With 100 in the bag, though, I had the learning curve covered.

These two shots look across the cut-flower garden and through the trellis from two directions.

The same images with the uprights of the trellis highlighted.

The structure does sway a tad and may serve as a wind-sail once it is loaded with vines and a North Carolina thunderstorm bathes the garden. We will see what we will see and make adjustments as needed.

Shawn is delighted.