Now...everyone grows beans and peas on trellises, and you can find tomato cages and pepper cages...but I found most commercially available support structures to be...lacking. Perfectly fine for flowers, or ivy, or beans...but not up to the task of supporting cucumbers, or winter squash. I'm not doing hubbard squash, or anything like that...but the Fairy Squash I am doing still get to 2-2.5 pounds. The last thing I want is the quarter-round and staples based trellising they sell at Home Depot to collapse in Mid-August.
So...since I was at Home Depot to run down their trellising, I did some shopping, and some sawing, and some screwing. And some head scratching. And then some more screwing, all resulting in these monstrosities:
Yup...got some 1 X 4's, and 2 x 2's, and a bunch of 1 X 2 furring for the cross-hatching. With a bunch of 2 inch decking screws holding it together...they might not be pretty, but I think they are going to be plenty sturdy.
I know...I know they don't look like much...but I'm not much of a handy guy. The fact that I managed to draw up a basic plan, buy the right amount of wood in one trip, and assemble it all without a trip to the ER is quite an achievement.
Tomorrow, the plan is painting them, and getting all my garden hoses laid out.
You will thank yourself later if you stain them instead of painting them. Actually, a great finish for that sort of thing is Tung oil. It is completely food safe (Tung oil is technically an edible oil though I wouldn't want to try it) will do a good job of protecting the trellises from the elements and can be reapplied each year if you like. A bit expensive. You will probably need at least a quart for each trellis. I buy it online, several places you can buy it a gallon at a time for around $40. Linseed oil also works fine, but boiled linseed oil is not technically foodsafe- though you won't actually be eating off it, so I wouldn't be concerned about that, the worst that can happen is that you end up with some fruit touching it, and you won't be eating the skin of a squash anyway, I don't suppose. Linseed oil is about $20 a gallon. Very nice work. Those should last you forever properly maintained.
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