Cucumbers On A Trellis

The world around me! My weather guy said it will continue to be 104 to 109 for the next 5 days, but the good news is we have a 10% chance of scattered thunder storms this coming Sunday. Poor windshift69 said “I came in from the garden this afternoon because it was too hot… it’s been 80 degrees give or take a degree or two for the last week. I’m having to water my garden.” I’ll trade my 109 degrees for a few days of 80 something degree days! I only wish I could get an arctic blast and cool me down 25 or 30 degrees into the 80 or so degree days.

Container grown cucumbers on a trellis

Build a PVC cucumber trellis A Cucumber trellis is a must for gardeners that are forced to garden in a limited space or even contained garden and a nice to have item for those that need not be concerned with conserving space.

An image search for cucumber trellis on google came back with 71,000 hits. So there are a lot of pictures available to give you new ideas on how to build and grow cucumbers on a trellis.

For the small gardener, a short section of of field fence, the kind farmers use to fence in cows, sheep and goats and two or three T-post work well. It’s easy to construct and remove when you need to remove or move your trellis and is easy to store during the winter months. Livestock panels also work very well, they are strong and will last 20 or 30 years. Livestock panels (cattle pannel or sometimes called 10 line panels) are 16 feet long and 52 inches tall, easily attached to two T-post, one on each end.

Construction Note I don’t know why, but, planting your vine plants in north / south rows and placing your trellis on the east side of the row causes the vines to climb the trellis without much human intervention. A trellis placed anywhere else may require you to ‘train’ the vine to climb your trellis.

Gardeners growing cucumbers in a container will find that it is not an easy task to build and attach a trellis to their cucumber containers. You have two problems from the start. First it is difficult to attach a trellis to a pot, second thing is a trellis makes your container top heavy and is easily toppled over by wind and sometimes dog, cats and kids. Below is a easy to build and use trellis that is also pleasing to look at.

What ever method you use, remember that cucumbers are fairly heavy feeders and benefit from regular watering and supplemental feeding with a low nitrogen, medium to high phosphorus and potash fertilized.

Keep a close eye out for cucumber beetles and vine bores. They can kill your plants in a few short days if not treated quickly. Cucumber Beetles are not your friend

Why is common sense so uncommon?
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