raised bed - cages or trellis?

[TightenUp]

does anyone have any photos of some home made trellis or support system?

i am worried with my new bed that the mix is so light and fluffy even a couple stakes driven the 12 inch depth of the bed wont hold up the plants and concrete reinforcement wire cages

if you grown in a raised bed what do you do?

[jerryinfla]

Last season I used box store cages secured with one 5' length of half inch re-bar per cage driven about 18 to 24 inches in the ground. They held up well but tomatoes grew out of the tops of them and spilled over. This season I made some CRW cages and secured them the same way with half inch re-bar. We've had 30 MPH winds and the cages never budged. My soil is quite fluffy -- I can easily poke my hand into it up to wrist deep and probably deeper.

[tjg911]

get some 1/4" rebar 5' long. i drive them 2-2.5' into the ground with a small sledge hammer, 2 per crw cage and tie each rebar nearthe top and near the bottom. the cages have never fallen over due to wind or weight of plant/fruit.

tom

[RebelRidin]

I am using nylon mesh trellis on thinwall conduit frames. The trellis attaches to the raised bed frame with conduit clamps. Very economical, about $8.50 each with the netting.

[John3]

This might interest you

He also have some videos on how he made his trellis from redwood or maybe cedar
And he has some that shows how his raised beds where built
do a search might turn up something here's a link to his youtube channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/growingyourgreens/videos

[bully]

I've tried a lot of different techniques but for me the Texas tomato cages worked best

[Mudman]

I use 8 ft. re bar pounded into the ground about 3ft. deep. Then I pinch suckers and tie to the bar about every 20 inches. Saves space and never falls over.

[celerystalksmidnite]

Anybody ever tried tying their cages together? Usually, i don't have much problem with the CRW cages tipping until very late in the season, if at all. I wondered if they were secured together, say, in groups of four or five, if it would make them less likely to fall?

[Mudman]

Originally Posted by celerystalksmidnite

Anybody ever tried tying their cages together? Usually, i don't have much problem with the CRW cages tipping until very late in the season, if at all. I wondered if they were secured together, say, in groups of four or five, if it would make them less likely to fall?

Or more likely to fall in unison.

[b54red]

I use 1/2 inch and 3/4 inch metal conduit and make a trellis held together with wire ties from Harbor Freight when they are on sale. The conduit comes in 10ft pieces and I cut about 2 ft off for a cross member on some and use the remaining nearly 8 ft for the upright posts. I only push them into my soft ground about 10 inches but I reinforce them with angled pieces driven in fairly deeply and attached to the main trellis with several wire ties for added strength. This gives me a trellis about 7 ft tall from the soil level, which is as high as I can reach. The first time I used the full 10 ft pieces for verticals but ended up using a step ladder all the time and I can no longer do that. I use the full length pieces for most of my horizontals. On tomatoes I like to use 3 horizontals giving me more to tie to and more options on where to let the stems run. The reason I don't drive the conduit in deep on the verticals is the difficulty of removing it if I decide to take it down. I keep my conduit stacked outside or leave it up and add fresh wire ties. The conduit will last for many years. Below are some pictures I took showing the trellis in operation early in the season. Late in the season it is a solid wall of foliage if I don't do a bit of pruning.

[TightenUp]

Originally Posted by Mudman

Or more likely to fall in unison.

my neighbor had them fall in unison but it was 50 mph winds with higher gusts....hurricane last summer

[TightenUp]

thanks for all the replies and photos. i would love to try a trellis with the conduit frames but since i already have some ok store bought cages and plenty of CRW cages i guess i will do my best to stake them down.

my bed is on hard packed sand and driving a stake into that will be tough. i also have my underground water plumbing on the east side of the bed and my house is on the west side so lets hope i dont hit a pipe while hammering away.

[RebelRidin]

Originally Posted by ChefJeff

thanks for all the replies and photos. i would love to try a trellis with the conduit frames but since i already have some ok store bought cages and plenty of CRW cages i guess i will do my best to stake them down.

my bed is on hard packed sand and driving a stake into that will be tough. i also have my underground water plumbing on the east side of the bed and my house is on the west side so lets hope i dont hit a pipe while hammering away.

Jeff,

Does your raised bed have a wooden frame? If so you can attach some short vertical "stakes" of thinwall to the box sides using conduit clamps. Then affix your cages to those verticals. It would anchor your cages but avoid having to drive stakes into that packed sand or worse.... your plumbing.

[Rockporter]

Originally Posted by celerystalksmidnite

Anybody ever tried tying their cages together? Usually, i don't have much problem with the CRW cages tipping until very late in the season, if at all. I wondered if they were secured together, say, in groups of four or five, if it would make them less likely to fall?

I use a wood support and tie the plant to it so that the cage is only supporting the outside branches. This also allows me to tie the longer branches to the wood support with torn up T-Shirt ties allowing for more airflow if needed.

[NorthTom]

texasrockgarden -

Are those buried metal barrels in your last pic? I have a bunch of food grade ones floating around my back 40 that I need to put to use.