How to Make Trellises for Your Vegetable Garden

We were honored to recently have Gary Pilarchik of the The Rusted Garden try out his skills with our bypass pruning shears and ratchet pruners. In this video, he talks about how to make inexpensive or even free trellises for your vegetable garden using only branches and twine:

Making Trellises For Pennies on the Dollar

Here's what you'll need:

Wood for stakes (see below)
Twine
A mallet
Chicken wire (if desired), or garden tape/staking ties
Pruning/cutting tools

1. Collect free wood. There's no easier way to save money than "free"! Gary recommends pruning your own trees and bushes to make stakes.

2. Start pruning. In the video, Gary prunes his 9-year-old fig tree to use as wood. He get some nice, long branches to make into stakes. You need to prune anyway, so why not repurpose the pruned pieces?

3. Use Ratchet Shears for larger diameter branches and Pruning Shears for more slender branches. Gary points out that the squeeze on these tools are extremely easy and can be done one-handed for someone of average strength.

4. After you have your branches, cut points at the bottom.

Now it's time to stake your plants. Push the stakes into the garden using the techniques Gary outlines in the video. Be sure you set up your stakes so that as the plants get larger, they don't cast a shadow over the plants next to them. This is particularly true if you are planting veggies or flowers that require full sun.

Attach chicken wire if you'd like. This gives something "grabby" for your plants to climb. You can also gently train plants upward by using garden twists, leaving room for the branch itself to grow in thickness.

Trellis planting as outlined in the video included:

Peas

Bush beans

Bush cucumbers

Tomatoes

Small trees/saplings

Ready? Then grab some great tools and get trellising! You're going to love the results - and the great yield you can get with the vertical surface area. Enjoy, fellow gardeners!

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