A Cheap and Easy Garden Trellis

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If you live in an area with plenty of trees you are blessed with adequate building materials for trellises and posts. They may be rustic in appearance but they can function pretty good.  Today I’ll show you my new trellis for my sugar snap peas.  It’s made from 5 pieces of dead wood that fell from our tulip poplar tree.  Every now and then it drops a branch and some of them can be quite sizable.  I took each of the five pieces and cut them to suitable sizes.  One to cross above the peas, two for post supports, and two more for extra support at an angle.  I stripped them of bark, which had mostly separated already.

I attached the pieces together using deck screws I had from a previous project.  I drilled the holes first before screwing because sometimes wood splits if you screw directly into it and I wanted to avoid that problem as much as possible.

Unless the posts were buried into the ground it would need some sort of extra support for stability so I attached two more pieces at diagonal angles. The trellis crosses the 4’x8′ bed at a diagonal angle so each brace is facing the opposite direction of the other.  I may need to add two more smaller pieces for extra stability later but so far the trellis has withstood heavy winds.  Of course that could all change once the peas are growing all over them. More leaf mass means it will catch more wind if you catch my drift!

Here is the finished product minus the peas.  Once the peas emerge I’ll string twine from the top of the structure down to each pea plant and secure them together at the bottom of the trellis with one more line of twine.  The peas can climb the string and where necessary I’ll attach more twine to form a netting or maybe just tie a little loop for the peas to hang onto.  The total cost to me was $0 since I had all the other materials on hand from other projects. I’ll show it in action once there is some action to show.  Of course you can fashion a trellis from the same materials for each individual plant and make a tripod or whatever shape your imagination comes up with and mother nature provides!
  

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10 thoughts on “A Cheap and Easy Garden Trellis”

  1. That is nice looking. I love the rustic look. I need to do some building this summer.

    Down here in NC bamboo grows wild! A friend of mine has a large stand of it back in the woods. She gets to harvest all kinds of great pieces for her landscape.

  2. Great job! I used some sizable crepe myrtle branches that a neighbor left by the road for the trash to make a trellis for cucumbers last year. It took some work since the branches weren’t straight, but I loved how it blended in with the garden, and it worked fine!

  4. flowrgrl1,

    Bamboo works great for things. The trouble is it isn’t supposed to be around here. People have planted quite a bit of it here where they shouldn’t and now we are concerned about runners running everywhere. But that’s cool that you can use it in you garden!

    Ginger,

    Crape myrtles would look really nice for trellises. Especially with those twisty branches, hard to work with but they give you a really nice look. I have some plans for some crape myrtle branches from my parent’s tree. One half of their large tree died in a frost and needs cut out. It would be perfect for another trellis!

  5. I like his idea! We found your blog and article in the Williamson parent. We too are interested in starting a garden with our daughter (13 months) and growing it more and more until she is older. I was going to ask…do you give classes or tours or is most of your information on the blog?

    Thanks, The cordovas
    cordovalee@gmail.com

  6. Mamacordova,

    Thanks for stopping by and commenting! I’m glad you found the article interesting. I really don’t teach any classes or give tours. I’ve written about a lot of subjects here on the blog about gardening and have several posts about gardening and children if you are interested on the blog. If you are looking for ideas you can email me here: thehomegarden@gmail.com with what kind of projects you are interested in. The biggest thing is to get the kids out there digging in the dirt and having fun!

    Here are a few posts I’ve written about gardening with the kids:
    Kids and Gardens
    A Day in the Garden with my Daughter
    Making a Children’s Garden
    A Chore is a Game to a 2 Year Old
    A Weekend Working on the Vegetable Garden

  7. Very timely post. I have to install a pea trellis tomorrow as it is time to plant them for sure. Not sure how I’ll go but this one is very nice and will work great.

  9. Tina,

    I hope so although I’m starting to get concerned about the peas. No sign of peas coming up yet. I may have to start some indoors and transplant.

    Nancy,

    Thanks! It’s ‘Oranges and Lemons’ Gaillardia. A great plant, blooms forever. I think when nature gives you something, you had better use it!

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