Build a Simple Garden Trellis

A Home-Made Trellis

Pole beans grow on a trellis made of EMT conduit
and some 5-foot polypropylene trellis netting

Not everything we plant in our gardens grows up close the ground. Plants like peas, beans, cucumbers and some squash are great climbers. Their advantage is that they let us expand small gardens upward instead of having to spread outward, but the trade-off is that we'll have to provide support for the climbers. A trellis on the side or end of a garden bed is just the ticket for climbers, and dirt-simple to build.

A wooden trellises is heavy and making one requires time and patience, but the widely-available trellis netting is easy to mount, surprisingly strong, and will last for years. If that sounds good to you, head for the local hardware and buy the parts for a frame to support it. Our instructions will make a frame five feet by five feet.

Materials for a Trellis

Dalen Gardeneer Trellis Netting

Plants Grow Up, Not Out

Our current patch of ground in the burbs ca

Pole beans covering a 5' x 5'
section of trellis netting.

me with a yard the size of a postage-stamp; tough enough on two large dogs, but worse for dedicated gardeners. We barely shoehorned in a garden space using the Square Foot Garden method, but hey what are you going to do when the closest farmer's market is forty minute's drive away? Our attempt is meeting with moderate success, although the horrendous heat waves and droughts of the past few years may have influenced that.

One thing we learned from our labors was how to make a homemade trellis from a frame of EMT conduit set on rebar pegs. Instead of a a wood or metal mesh, our reference said to use trellis netting… what? Never heard of it… until we found it at a nearby garden supply shop. We've since seen it even at our local BigBox hardwares.