Trellising cucumbers
 

I have always let my cucumbers run on the ground, but would like to try trellising them next year. Any thoughts or ideas about materials to use, tricks, do's, don'ts, how-to's would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you :yes:

I trellised them this year using bird netting and metal conduit wired together. I would recommend nylon netting with 4x4 or 6x6 openings. The smaller holes didn't let the plants meander through like they wanted. Also have it rain more than once in three months.

Mine this year are self trellising.
They are growing on the outside of my raised beds on the 8 foot tall Texas Tomato Cages.

Right now they are about 10 feet off of the ground, quite the site to see.:shock:

You can grow then on anything chicken wire, net made from string, anything they can get a hold on.
One year they took over a tree in my yard it looked like a cucumber tree. :lol:
Once you have started this you will never go back to growing them on the ground.

Cucumbers were made for trellising, start yours today.:yes:

Worth

I tried this year with the useless tomato 4' tall tomato wire circles, put pieces of 48" by 4" of chicken wire inside to the ground up the sides. 3 pieces then added another set on top, the plants loved this. As they grow outside I just put them into the circle, perfect. I just had my first Armenian cuke' with my first P Robeson tomato some S/P, vinegar and nice olive oil. I am in heaven, another tough year for me with diseased dirt which kills some of my plants. My Stump of the World is in the middle of sick plants growing like crazy still, huge fruits on bottom and a new set above and a new set of flowers on top, 3 crops.

I built this 8 foot high trellis with 2X4s and 1" X 2" X 48" fence wire, buried the feet in the bed about 18" then attached it to my 2X6 bed borders with 6 wood screws. It's easy to set up, take down and store when not in use. I expect I'll be using it for years in spring and fall -- we have two cucumber growing seasons in Florida each year. The three cucumbers I planted under it this spring grew over the top and we ate all the cucumbers we wanted for several weeks.

Jerry-very professional trellis!

I use tomato cages made out of CRW. The work great.

The trellis I use is iron T-posts, with 1/2" rebar top bar run through 1.25" PVC T's. I run several lines of plastic baling twine horizontally between the poles, with vertical strings of sisal twine every 12" or so. The sisal verticals are wrapped around the horizontals on the way down. I usually (but not always) use a bottom bar as well, and run the verticals between the two bars. Plants seem to grip the sisal more easily, which is the reason I use it for the verticals... but it tends to sag under weight if used on the horizontal runs.
[IMG]http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n244/zeedman/GardenPictures191.jpg[/IMG]

This is a universal trellis setup. I use the same trellis setup above for tying up tomatoes. For trellising squash & heavier gourds, I use taller posts & overlap/tie together the rebar top bars for added streng. I am trellising Tromboncino that way this year (no photos yet). For pole beans, I use 7.5' posts with a lighter top & bottom bar (3/8" rebar); you can just see some of those trellises on the left side of the photo.

jerry, when do you plant cukes in the fall? i live in southwest florida and want to plant some

i used metal pipes from scaffolding you could use pvc pipe and made an A frame. i put a length of crw on both sides. one isde is pole beans the other cukes. it'll last for decades.

tom

Zeedman, thank you, this is just great. I use T-posts for my Florida Weave, and use the polypropylene baling twine for that; my pole bean set-up uses 2 x 2's and jute twine. About all I will need to buy is the PVC T's and rebar.

Are 5' T-posts tall enough for cucumbers? Having always grown them on the ground, I invision a daily battle of trying to keep them on a trellis, but I keep reminding myself that they do have tendrils and they cling to my marker sticks often enough.

(Photo on the left is Good Mother Stallard beans, next one is PBTD, Black and Red Boar, JD'S Special C-Tex).

[QUOTE=tjg911;297249]i used metal pipes from scaffolding you could use pvc pipe and made an A frame. i put a length of crw on both sides. one isde is pole beans the other cukes. it'll last for decades.

tom[/QUOTE]

Tom, I wondered about CRW - we get temps up to 110 in the summer and I wondered if it ever burned the plant tendrils? Wire would be nice to use, then I wouldn't have to make a mesh myself out of twine, seeing as how I am a lazy gardener... :love:

I used nylon netting, but I had greenhouse rafters to attach it to, so it was easy. The nylon would have lasted longer than that one crop, but I think those cukes had disease, so I didn't want to re-use it. It could in theory have been soaked in bleach and re-used, but the stuff is cheap anyway.

I make trellises similar to Jerry's except I just use metal conduit and whatever wire fencing I can find and hold it together with wire ties. I have never noticed the metal heating up enough to bother the cucumbers. I also make mine 7 feet tall with the wire stopping about a foot off the ground and even with this height they still will grow over the top. You just have to give them a little direction by sticking the growing tips through the fence wire openings to force them where you want them to grow.

[QUOTE=halleone;297260]Tom, I wondered about CRW - we get temps up to 110 in the summer and I wondered if it ever burned the plant tendrils? Wire would be nice to use, then I wouldn't have to make a mesh myself out of twine, seeing as how I am a lazy gardener... :love:[/QUOTE]

Cukes grow on the fencing that surrounds my raised gardens, and it works out great! No stooping over to hunt for and pick the fruit and no worries about the wire getting too hot, either...the cukes put on enough foliage that the sun rarely hits bare metal. Only drawback for me is that this approach also puts the cukes at a perfect height for any passing deer. Most of that damage can be avoided by tucking the baby cukes back inside the mesh, but some are invariably 'shared' with the critters.