Easy Durable Raised Bed Trellising

Climbing towards the sun.

Many of our favorite vegetables in the Beekman Heirloom Vegetable Garden require some sort of trellising – tomatoes, beans, peas, melons, cucumbers. When we put in our raised garden two years ago, we were determined to devise a trellising system that was easy to assemble, and would last for years. We were sick of weaving together bamboo sticks, and snapping together plastic cages. We learned that if something was cheap, it wouldn’t last more than a month, and if it had any sort of moving parts, it wouldn’t last more than a week. (If we could figure it out in the first place.)

We think we’ve perfected the perfect solution – and it’s relatively inexpensive to boot. (especially considering that we haven’t had to replace anything in three years.)

Our secret weapon? Livestock panels.

These lengths of panels are 12′ long, and come in a variety of heights. Made of thick welded galvanized steel, they don’t get rusty or bent out of shape very easily. (If only the same could be said for us.) How do we use them? In many different ways…

Our most ingenious discovery was that if we inserted one end of the panel into the soil on one end of the bed, and then bent it over, we could insert the other end of the panel into the opposite end of the bed. This forms a sort of “hoop” over the bed. We call it our “Calistoga Wagon Trellis.”

By mid-summer, this trellis is covered with bean vines.

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