Trellis Netting and New Picket Fence

Hi All. I'm putting in a white picket fence around my kitchen garden. On one side I'll be putting 8' foot wide x 6' high trelis'. Just wondering what you think:

1. Is 8' too wide?

2. I don't want to hide the new 4' picket fence. Can I prune the vines so they start spreading above that the fence.

3. If so, should I attach the trellis netting starting about four feet up and just use vertical leaders to get the vines up that high.

4. When I did this before I did it the old fashion way with twine. This time I'd like to buy the netting. I see you can buy 5' by 30' packages on Amazon. I'm assuming you just trim it to the desired width and attach it. Or would you recommend another method.


Thanks and Happy Spring Everyone!!!!!

How much your fence will be hidden depends on how productive and lush is your crop. If you don't want it completely hidden, with peas and beans plant the seeds further apart so you have fewer vines crowding in front of it. For tomatoes, plant every other square or every 3rd square.

Thanks for the reply. The goal is to have it very thick above the fence and not so much below.

gardengrl63!

1) It depends on how many squares are in front of the trellis. If you are only reaching over 2 squares in the center, it should work fine. But if you have to reach over 4 squares to get to the trellis, that would be kind of hard in the center....

2) Wow - pruning up 4 feet would be kind of difficult with some plants I would think. Try to do a search for Acara's trellis last year or the year before, as he did a really strict pruning job on his tomatoes and fanned them out, but even then I'm not sure if you could prune 4 feet up. you would expect some growth in that 4 feet so you'd want to follow the advice about spacing them farther apart.

3) I can't really answer that. To me, that depends on the look you want to achieve....do you want just two feet of netting at the top? Do you have plants you will have to tie to the leaders?

4) I have used the netting last year and had no trouble with it. Yes, the piece I bought (from a local hardware store on the tomato ties rack), made two trellises for me. I simply cut it to fit and since I had some flexibility with how wide my trellis was, I actually threaded the poles in and out through the trellis netting weave (there was a thread last year where a member did that in her dining room...lol) so didn't have to tie as much.

I'm assuming you would have a 6' high trellis and would put the 5' netting on it so the netting would begin about a foot off the ground...

Are you using SFG at all? Have you read the All New Square Foot Gardening book yet? Keep us posted on your progress as your kitchen garden sounds lovely with its picket fence!

Hi There and thanks for the welcome. I just dragged out my old 1/2" conduit that I used for the trellis over a decade ago. I managed to get the test piece of rebar stuck in the bottom of it already. I bought a four foot piece, which I think is too long. Do people use half inch conduit and, if yes, are there advantages to this?

I can see this is going to take some trial and error (doesn't everything!). From what I can see 8 feet is a bit too much of a span (the beds themselves along the fence will only be about two feet wide so the reaching over won't be a problem.) Perhaps I can put a center support with the curved pipes at the corners. Lawn is on a slope so that presents another set of challenges.

BTW, has anyone ever spray painted their conduit with the textured spray paint for out doors. This'll be in my front yard so I'm trying to spruce it up a bit.

First things first tho, I have to concentrate on getting the beds in (and getting rid of the front lawn yeah!)

BTW, what would you say is the most leafy, trellis covering crop?

Thanks!

Hey, thanks for suggesting I buy the book; I was somewhat skeptical, but it's great with all the color pics and updates.

Back to ripping out the lawn, ugh!

Nothing spruces up a trellis like having it covered with productive vines!