July 2015 Garden Update

I haven't posted a lot about my garden this year. That's mostly because I'm not growing a lot.  I got frustrated last year when most of what I grew sat on the kitchen island until it started to rot.  The chickens ended up eating a lot of it.  As a result I didn't put as much effort into the garden this year.  On top of that I lost several plants and what is left hasn't produced much.

I have gotten a lot of cucumbers.  They are the one thing that has done really well.

We got a hand full of carrots.

My blackberries have done alright.  They never made it into the house.  I need to plant more to increase the quantity that I get.

Growing the cucumber vines up paracord worked really well.

I had a lot of lettuce grow, but we didn't eat it before it bolted.  It's too bitter now to be eaten.

We had a bad thunderstorm come through that took out my trellis.  I was actually kind of surprised that it didn't come down sooner.  I need to come up with a better solution for next year. 

I haven't planted anything or started any seeds.  I don't know that I'll have an update in August. 

Garden Trellis Update

Several months ago I built some trellises in my garden.  They were fairly simple to construct.  I used trees from my woods and lashed them together with square lashings.  The plan was to use them to grow peas and cucumbers.

So how's it working?

The trellis for the peas worked out fairly well.  Below is a picture taken on June 21.  The peas were nearing their end.  I've removed them since this picture was taken.  I saved the few remaining pea pods for seed for next year.

Some of the peas made it to the top of the trellis.

The trellis for the slicing cucumbers still looks pretty good.  This trellis had more vertical support lines which made it have a smaller grid.  I think I made the mistake of planting too many cucumbers.  They starting growing every which way and became a tangled mess.  I had difficulty getting them to climb the trellis.  I've made a note to plant fewer next year.

The trellis for the pickling cucumbers has not done well.  Several pieces of twine running horizontally have broken.  The stuff just wasn't strong enough to hold the weight.

You can see the large grid at the top and the gaping hole in the middle.

This is a closer view of the hole.  There used to be a grid of twine there.

Even with the broken twine these cucumbers have managed to climb.

Next year I'll have to find some stronger twine or maybe even use paracord.  That along with fewer plants should solve the problem.

Here's the first trellis after the peas had been removed.

Garden Trellises

My 2014 garden plan calls for several trellises.  I need one for slicing cucumbers, one for pickling cucumbers and one for peas.  Rather than buying something I thought I'd use what I had around the old homestead. 

I went into the woods and found several straight trees and cut them into 8' lengths.  Then I placed them in the corners of three of my raised beds.

Next I used square lashings to attach 8' long poles horizontally between the vertical poles.

At this point it was getting more difficult to find straight trees to turn into poles.  I did manage to find one 16' in length and used it to connect the trellises in all three beds.  It too was attached with square lashings.  This should add some structural support. 

Since I couldn't find a second 16' pole I just used paracord on the other side.

For the final step I had to create the grid on the trellis itself.  That's the entire point.  The plants have to climb up something.  The first bed is where the peas are going.  I tied twine to the bottom of the post on one side and simply wrapped it around each post until I got to the top.  I tried to leave 4" spaces between each row.  Once I was done with that I tied 3 pieces of twine to the top pole and brought them down vertically.  I wrapped them around the individual rows of twine running horizontally.  I'm hoping that this adds additional support.

The grids on the next two trellises were larger.  Rather than just wrapping the twine back and forth around the posts I cut individual pieces and tied them on each end.  I spaced them 6-8" apart.  Then I ran several pieces of twine vertically from the top pole to form a grid. 

I'm pretty happy with the results.  It cost me less than $4 for the twine.  I just hope that it's strong enough to hold up all of the vegetables I plan to grow on it.