Do they make 2-way elbows for trellises?

I think I'm going with L-shaped trellises this summer. But instead of building 2 separate trellises, I'm wondering if they have elbows that have 2 joints (for the electrical conduit), so I can just connect one trellis to the other that way. Anyone know?

I assume you mean the L shape is mapped onto the ground, going around a corner, as it were. That will mean needing a conduit connector with THREE access points--left, right, and down (or up)--because you're going to need a vertical support at the corner. I researched conduit connections fairly heavily last year when getting ready to build my trellises, and I don't remember anything like that, though that's not to say they don't exist.

However... why do you want L-shaped trellises? Anything big enough to need a trellis could be very hard to access when growing in the corner of an L.

Thanks Megan - yup, that would be an elbow to join a vertical conduit with 2 horizontal conduits. I wish they made those...

I have a problem with most of my plants being candidates for trellises, which I really hadn't realized. I suppose I could make 2x8 boxes, but I already bought and had cut my 4x4 box lengths, and I don't feel like doing that part all over again. So I saw a photo in someone's album here where they actually had a trellis on 2 adjoining lengths of their boxes. My sun comes at an angle (unless I want my boxes catty-corner on my slope) so I think I can actually get away with enough sun to grow a trellis on 2 adjoining sides of the box, in an L-shape.

It's either that, or camprn seemed to have a trellis that was between the last 2 rows in her box, so that I think you could put viney plants in front of the trellis and behind it, and get a two-for-one deal. But I was wondering whether there would be enough sunlight on the backside of the trellis.

I got my netting for the trellises, by the way, just have to get the conduits and elbows and rebar now...

edit: OH. I see what you mean now by the access route into the corner. Hmm. Gotta think about that one.

Many of my plants are big ones, too (ha!) and I am going to try to get away without building any more trellises this year. I have two that are 4 feet wide, one 3 ft wide, all 6.5 ft tall. I am (tentatively) going to rely on cages, poles/stakes, and sprawl for the rest.

Sun is an important consideration. My garden last year (in the front yard) was all caterwonky because it was on the north side of the house... but it still did pretty well. Yay for the resilience of plants. By all means try out the L-trellis and let us know how it works out!

You can grow vines on both sides of a trellis, but they do NOT share well. From my experience last year, you are best off thinking of sharing left and right sides of the trellis. Two plants back to back on one section of trellis will not play nicely at all unless they are similar and smallish, and even then.....

Basically, plants on a trellis do not stay on "their side" of the trellis. They grow through.

Edit: This is what can happen. That area to the lower right of the photo used to be a path. There are at least 6 different types of plants in this photo.

Thank you, Megan! You just cut thru about an hour of agonizing decision making for me.

I'm going to try an L-shaped trellis, and to reach that corner I'll just see how far I can get with sticking my hands thru the trellis. If I have to, I may have to cheat and crawl ever-so-lightly to get to whatever is in row #2. (But don't tell Mel.)

If it turns out not to be a good idea, then next year I'll make some 2x8 boxes. I have an idea I'm going to outgrow four 4x4 boxes anyway. (how many boxes can you fit on 10 acres? )

10 acres? Oh, I am SO jealous!!!! (I grew up on a 64-acre farm in Southern NH....)

As for your plan, I say, go for it. It's worth it to experiment, just please let us know how it works out. When I was growing up in NH, we had a saying: "Fix up, patch up, make do or do without"... seems like that is alive and well today!

I think I understand what you mean now! They might make that configuration-it's called a pull box.

What you can do for sure is use a single gang metal utility box like this one
http://www.homedepot.com/Electrical-Electrical-Boxes-Conduit-Fittings-Boxes-Brackets/h_d1/N-5yc1vZbohn/R-202590841/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

You can get a cover with an optional knockout so that you could have conduit coming out all 6 sides. Use the fittings that have threads to attach to the box, and a slip connection for the conduit to slide into.

This may be the cheapest way. Ander did her trellis connections this way last year and saved money over the 90* fittings. She has pictures of it on the forum,someplace!

Thanks Boffer, I knew you'd save the day!

Megan wrote:10 acres? Oh, I am SO jealous!!!!

No need. Soggy rocky slopy soil. Which is why we could (almost) afford it.

64 acres tho, now that would be fun...

boffer - sounds good! I'm heading out to Lowes, I'll look for one of those. (I might have to take an electrician's course to figure out how to build my garden trellises. )

I remember the rocky soil from NH. A far-previous owner had cleared for us though, thank goodness--we had the old fashioned stone "fences" alongside the fields.

I'll see if I can't find some pictures for you regarding conduit.

Basically... conduit is smooth. The elbow connectors tend to be threaded with a set-screw. You can ignore the threading and just rely on the set-screw, but I went whole hog and got the smooth-to-threaded transition pieces as well. They didn't cost that much and I feel better about heavy loads on the trellises.

Here's what I did. There are several elbows and means of connecting them. The way shown below is the most economical for around here, if you insist on flat-to-flat for the conduit, which I did. The piece to the right is the threaded to flat connector.

Pity the poor sales guy who asks me if I need help at Lowes today... Wait till I tell him I need conduit and elbows for my garden trellis, and by the way, does he have any single gang metal utility boxes... I hate this kind of stuff. And do they carry blood meal and bone meal...

Amazing how the old farmers removed those rocks, without modern machinery. I can't imagine. We have rock walls here, but the soil is still filled with rocks. My in-ground garden attempt was pitiful, rows winding around rocks, and then deluged with water anyway... never made it. SFG tho sounds great.

Conduit comes in 10 foot lengths. As for the elbows, print my picture or take your SFG book with you when you go to electrical. (The nicely rounded corners in the book look great, but cost more.) Building materials will get you the rebar, then ask for garden for the blood/bone meal, if you want to use those.

My dad and I pulled out some enormous boulders and tree stumps by hand in NH and in WA state. Not fun. SFG is much easier!

NHGardener wrote:Pity the poor sales guy who asks me if I need help at Lowes today... Wait till I tell him I need conduit and elbows for my garden trellis, and by the way, does he have any single gang metal utility boxes... I hate this kind of stuff. And do they carry blood meal and bone meal...

Amazing how the old farmers removed those rocks, without modern machinery. I can't imagine. We have rock walls here, but the soil is still filled with rocks. My in-ground garden attempt was pitiful, rows winding around rocks, and then deluged with water anyway... never made it. SFG tho sounds great.

I really work over the sales guys too at times...lol. They think they are answering electrical questions until I tell them I am using this stuff in my garden. Their eyes go really blank when I say it. It's like they were wondering where I was coming from the entire time, and when they got the answer, they didn't think it would be "gardening" and still don't know what to say now or what is coming next.....totally deer in the headlights.

As for moving rocks, I imagine it's why the old-timers passed out at dark, ate lunch as the big meal of the day, and worked all day long. I don't think I'd have made it back then....I'm such a wuss.

Well, I made it to the ag store, which was out of vermiculite and compost (lobster) so I only got peet, bone meal (w/blood meal) and perlite for Johnny's Seeds soil blockers (Miracle Gro brand, I'm afraid it has other stuff in it...). Then I dragged the 10 yr. old off to Lowes and got another bag of peet, 2 cf of cow manure, and found the electrical box thing that boffer mentioned, which looks like it just might work, and it was only $0.87. Megan, I did see your connectors too, and that's the other possibility. So anyway, by that time I was too tired to find someone and ask them to cut the conduit (Saturday, after all) and I also looked for the wood lath that Mel talks about but he said they were only 0.75, and the ones I saw were about $2+, so I didn't get those either. The salespeople were all busy too, or at least looked busy... I'll go some other day.

Phew. Still need to round up 4 other sources of compost and the vermiculite. The good thing is that once this is all done, you don't have to do it again, just use the same soil next year...

And Megan, how did you pull stumps and large rocks like that by hand? Wow. Those things are like impossible to move. If you can do that, I have no doubt you pulled off a successful SFG.

NHGardener wrote:And Megan, how did you pull stumps and large rocks like that by hand? Wow. Those things are like impossible to move. If you can do that, I have no doubt you pulled off a successful SFG.

My father, rest his soul, was a force of nature. Back in the day, for stumps, we dug down around them, then pried the bark off first to reduce the weight. Get as clean as possible. Lever out whole, or cut in pieces and pull out. We got out stumps of mature Douglass pine that way. It took time, though.

Similar for boulders. Railroad bars--maybe not the proper term, it was what my dad called them--6 foot iron bars--good for levering. That and common sense, letting the weight work for us, etc.

Having said all that, I have NO DESIRE whatsoever to extract the fresh tree stump now in my back yard.... lol!!!

I love those salt-of-the-earth types. My grandfather was a homesteader in South Dakota back when the govt. was giving out 160 acre plots, but then the Dust Bowl came and they headed east. Those are skills that have been largely forgotten, and now it's taking me tens of hours to figure out how to grow some vegetables. My 87 y.o. father is amazed that we city folk need "composters" for our compost piles, or that beekeepers wear suits - he said getting stung was just a given.

Ah well. I'm going to grow something edible if it kills me.

We will have to trade stories sometime. My great-great aunt spent her early married life out in SD back when it was the Dakota territories, and learned to speak Lakota and Cree.

I'm glad you are reaching back to your roots. I know I am to mine. But, the good part is that we have a great community here to help one another! And I feel very confident that you will be able to "grow something edible" as you say!

Wow! Maybe we're related!

Here's the photo of our setup to which Boffer referred: (You can knock out the back disk to make your L-shape.)

Yup, that's it! Do you know the name of the part that you affixed the conduit to the connector with?

No more need for 2 complete trellises side by side with this connector. And altho access may be a problem (I may be able to access by pulling up the netting from the ground tho), corner trellises are possible with this too. Or, you could just make 2-row, L-shaped boxes using a corner trellis. Mel will have to put this in his book.

That looks like the threaded-to-flat connector?

My suggestion is to find someone in the electrical department of your local big box store and ask them. If they don't know (and they should!), ask them whom else you could ask. There is usually at least one full fledged electrician working there, for whatever reason, though you may need to come back during their shift. The gentleman I found had been in the trade for over 25 years, and was working part time at the store for extra income and benefits. He had great pride in his work and went out of his way to show me the pros and cons of using the various pieces, once he understood what I was trying to accomplish. Good luck!

NHGardener wrote:Yup, that's it! Do you know the name of the part that you affixed the conduit to the connector with?

Note that the price is for a 50 count package. They are sold individually too.
http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-100211647/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

Thank you!

Using your home depot info, I checked on the lowes site (they're nearest us) and they have a 1/2" ten-pack for 3.82. Knowing what to look for makes it so much easier to get these things. Otherwise, you go into those big stores and just get sensory overload.

If you need it, I can email you a copy of that photo for you to print out and take to the store with you. Sometimes it's easier to show them a picture than try to explain it.

Hubby said he just asked for 1/2" conduit/electrical box connectors.

We connected 16' of trellis using these boxes to connect the conduit. The only problem we had was one piece of conduit which sunk into the ground a few inches, making the top line sag. This year we plan to solve that problem by drilling holes in flat canning lids and putting them over the rebar under each conduit leg.