Cucumbers, like any climbing plants, trying to be caressed by the sun's rays, entwining with their thin stems found on the way supports, tend to rise. In the wild, these piers are surrounded by growing trees. When growing cucumbers as cultivated plants, trellises are built to facilitate the care of them and to obtain a rich harvest. How to make a trellis for cucumbers, applying a minimum of effort and cost, and at the same time creating a reliable and durable design, we will consider in more detail.
Benefits of Trellis Growing
Growing cucumbers on a trellis is much more productive than spreading it. This is due to the fact that when placed vertically, the crop can get rid of last year's "deposits" of infection spores in the soil. And even when pathogenic spores with water get on the lower leaves of the plant, they do not spread further, quickly drying together with dew drops.
Tapestry - a structure consisting of a support and stand, along which a wire or a harness is stretched to entangle graceful stems of climbing plants
For the arrangement of supporting structures, ready-made vertical surfaces are often used, constructing trellises using tensioned wire near walls, poles and fences.
Tapestry can be used when growing cucumbers both in open ground and in greenhouses. Such an installation has a lot of undeniable advantages, the main ones of which are:
- Land saving. The bed, equipped with trellises for cucumbers, takes up a minimum of space, but it can accommodate twice as many plants.
- Reducing the risk of crop disease. By eliminating the contact of the stem and leaves of the creeper with the ground, it is easiest to prevent damage to the culture by peronosporosis and powdery mildew.
- Acceleration of the vegetation process. In well-ventilated crops, the daily temperature difference is not so noticeable. Thanks to vertical cultivation, the plant receives more light and heat, which positively affects its development.
- Increase in crop volumes. As the experience of gardeners using trellises when growing cucumbers shows, with proper care from a site with an area of only 5 square meters, you can collect up to 80 kg of healthy greens. Vegetables hanging from the lashes do not deform and have a uniform saturated color.
- Facilitating crop care. Braiding the rods, the liana is evenly distributed over the support. This greatly simplifies the processing of plant stems and leaves from pests, as well as feeding and watering.
- Harvesting a clean crop. Due to the vertical distribution of the crop, the ripened fruits do not touch the moist soil, which eliminates their soiling.
And harvesting from trellis takes a minimum of time and effort. Between vertically located supports it is convenient to move. Due to the uniform distribution of the plant along the support when removing the fruit, it is easiest to prevent creases and damage to elegant stems.
With a vertical cultivation of a crop, there is no need to search through the entire foliage in search of a fruit, given that a fast-growing stem can reach three meters per season
This method of growing is also convenient because when picking ripened fruits, the skin of the hands is less injured by the thinnest needles of small thorns, which are often present on the stems of the cucumber.
Classic trellis design
Support trellis for cucumber vines can have a variety of designs in the form of:
- rectangle
- square;
- thumbs;
- the tent.
The function of the supporting posts of the structure can be performed by metal tubes, wooden beams or cement pillars. The mesh can be made of interwoven hemp twine ropes, metal wire or special plastic.
Often, gardeners, trying to minimize the cost of manufacturing the structure, construct a trellis from metal stakes driven into the ground, between which a PVC mesh is pulled
The finished PVC mesh, which is sold in garden centers per meter, is fixed to the posts along the top edge with wire. The lower edge of the mesh is buried in the ground, pressing with hooks made of rigid wire.
Such a trellis with its canopy can prone shade-sensitive garden crops that are vulnerable to the sun's rays: beans, rhubarb, chard, arugula, leaf mustard
A beautifully decorated trellis for cucumbers will become a worthy decoration of the site, acting as an original decorative design element.
DIY manufacturing methods
There are many ways to build a trellis for cucumbers with your own hands. It all depends on the size of the area allocated for their arrangement and the selected manufacturing material.
Option # 1 - Wooden Trellis
It takes only a couple of hours to erect a wooden trellis. They build it when the seeds are already planted in the ground, but the first seedlings have not yet appeared.
Before you start making a trellis for cucumbers, you should decide what plan the design will be.
Tapestry on wooden racks can take the form of an elegant staircase with rigid beams or a translucent vertical screen of thin slats
In any case, it should be borne in mind that the extreme trellis racks should be stronger than the intermediate racks, since they will take on the load of the entire row. So, in the manufacture of trellises with a height of 2.7 m, it is worth choosing for the arrangement of the extreme support posts of the bars with a section of 50 mm, and for intermediate ones - 35 mm.
For the manufacture of trellis, which will last more than one season, it is better to choose hardwood, for example: chestnut, oak, mulberry, ash. Wood of poplar, maple or birch is not suitable for this purpose, since they are most susceptible to decay. To extend the life of wooden elements, before burying them in the ground, cover the bars in 1-2 layers with drying oil or antiseptic composition.
The trellis looks no less presentable, in the construction of the cells of which the wooden slats replace the durable harnesses stretched between the frame beams
The work is carried out in several stages:
- Installation of support posts. Support racks are driven in at the edges of the future beds, placing them at a distance of 1.5-2 m. To obtain a firmly standing structure that can withstand its own load along with the crop, columns under the trellis are dug to a depth of 60 mm.
- Securing the supports. To give the structure a slightly inclined position, the edge anchor supports are installed at an angle of 70 ° relative to the surface of the earth. Anchor supports must be anchored using wire braces, the free edges of which are attached to metal corners buried in the ground at an angle of 90 °.
- The construction of the frame. The horizontal cross member is nailed to the upper edges of the vertical posts. It will act as a frame, for which a crate of thinner rails will be attached.
- The performance of the crate. Thin rails with a thickness of 30 mm are screwed to the frame with self-tapping screws so as to obtain cells measuring 15 cm. The joints can be further glued with waterproof glue.
Do you want the trellis to bear not only a functional load, but also act as a decoration of the garden? Then provide it with an original arched structure, which can be cut out according to the pattern from the remains of the tree. The arcs and segments of the structure are easy to connect, "planting" them on glue and staples, and the arch itself is attached to the support by means of a bolted connection.
The cells can be shaped like a rhombus or square, if desired, the crate can be easily "drowned" in the frame, cutting the edges of the planks
In the manufacture of trellis mesh to fix it on the frame, it is convenient to use staples, which can be made from ordinary nails. To do this, several nails are nailed onto the slats, placing them at a distance of 40-60 cm. If desired, the heads of the nails can be slightly bent, giving them the shape of hooks. It remains only to tie a thick rope to each bracket and pull it parallel to the ground, with the free end wound to a supporting pillar standing nearby.
Vertical threads are pulled by the same principle. To create a grid with cells, vertical threads are first intertwined with a transverse wire, and then the free ends are screwed to pegs driven into the ground.
Option # 2 - metal construction
For the construction of such a structure, more effort will be required, but it will certainly last more than a dozen years.
Racks made of metal rods can be placed at a distance of 2-4 meters, but if materials permit, then the poles should still be positioned denser
To work, you will need:
- reinforcement bars 180-200 cm long;
- thin tube for the crossbar;
- metal pegs;
- electric welding machine;
- garden drill and hammer;
- steel wire.
In the places where the support posts are installed, holes 35-45 cm deep are made with the help of a garden drill. Pre-cut metal rods are inserted into them. Pillars installed in the pits are driven into the ground with a hammer. The remaining voids between the rods and the walls of the pits are filled with earth and rammed tightly.
Vertical supports are interconnected, laying along the upper edge between them a horizontal crossbar, metal elements are connected by electric welding
To protect the structure from rust, all elements should be cleaned and coated with an anti-corrosion compound or oil paint.
Having built the frame of the structure, they move on to arranging the web for wrapping around. To do this, you can use steel wire, which is simply pulled between the crossbar and metal pegs driven into the ground. They are placed at a distance of 15-20 cm from each other on both sides of the beds.
To create the most durable construction, it is worth using a wire with a thickness of at least 2 mm. To create a mesh web, the wire is placed in several rows, pulling between supports starting from a height of 15-20 cm and every half meter. The upper row is preferably made of a thicker wire (d = 3.5 mm), since it will bear the main load.
Metal trellis is a rather heavy construction, which is problematic to move around the site every season, achieving the organization of crop rotation. To simplify your work at the installation site in the next season, you can plant curly beans or peas.
Option # 3 - support from the tire and wheel rim
To build a cost-effective trellis option, a used tire is required. She will be the "heart" of the design. Best for this purpose is a tire from a bulky transport: a tractor, a combine harvester or a truck. The role of the support of the upper part of the structure will be performed by a bicycle rim, from which it is necessary to unscrew all the spokes first.
Due to its presentable appearance, a tapestry from a bicycle rim can rightfully become an original element of vertical gardening and an elegant decoration of a site
First of all, with the help of a grinder, they cut the tire along. The cut part is laid in place of the future beds. 2 metal rods with a height of 1.5-2 m are inserted into the center of the circle, placing them so that the structure has the shape of a hut.
Then, in the center of the circle, located inside the hut, and in the cavity of the cut-off tire, add fertile soil.
The space remaining above the wheel must be "hidden", covered with cuts from the old burlap. The edges of the cuts are tucked up, hiding under the tire laid on the ground, thereby giving the garden bed a more accurate look.
In the lined burlap, several holes for planting seedlings are cut at an equidistant distance. To protect the tender seedlings from temperature fluctuations, agrofibre is pulled along the perimeter of the makeshift beds, lifting it only for the time of loosening and watering. Remove the covering material along with the burlap after the fully grown sprouts reach a height of 15-20 cm, and the surrounding temperature finally settles.
To create a vertical surface, a pole is installed in the center of the round bed, on which the wheel of the bicycle is fixed with a wire. The easiest way to do this is to alternately pass the wire through the hole for the needles on the opposite four sides of the rim and then wrap it tightly around the top of the rod.
To make the ribs, it remains only to pull the wire through the holes for the needles in several places, connecting the edges of the rim and the base of the tire.
When the cucumber lashes with foliage encircle the stretched wire, the trellis will look like a green tent.
