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nativeplanter · July 3, 2012

George (and anyone else who wants to chime in),
I have a similar situation as you (but in SE Virginia). Your garden is an inspiration! I have a high water table and water puddles after storms, so I built twelve 8 x 4 raised beds (three 2x4s high) three years ago (when we bought our first house). Filled them with topsoil/compost blend from the local waste management company. Big mistake. I don't think the compost was finished, and the first year everything was chlorotic. Second year growth was better, but still not great. Last year beds dried out super fast. I realized that the topsoil that was in the mix was really sandy, and the compost was hydrophobic. In addition, the large nearby elm and persimmon were sending up feeder roots into the beds, sucking them dry. So this year I have started re-doing them. I have dug out six, added a fourth 2x4 to make them a touch taller (and added a nifty little 1x4 trim), dug out below the bottom of the beds by about 8 to 12 inches into the silt/clay. I lined the sides and bottom with plastic sheeting, sloping the bottoms away from the offending trees for drainage along the 4-foot side. Dug a pit just outside each bed for the drainage to run into if needed and backfilled that with rock/sand. Then I thoroughly mixed the native material with the topsoil/compost, and that seems to be working out very, very nicely! Holds water and nutrients much better than before.

For years I have monkeyed with how best to trellis tomatoes. In college I worked at a hydroponic tomato farm and learned how to use the string/clip method, which I really like. The problem is how to do it gracefully when there isn't a greenhouse or other structure to fasten the horizontal wires to. I spent 10 years in Georgia where the vines grew 10-ft long, but we had plenty of bamboo to make structures with. The current setup uses 8-ft 2x2s attached to t-posts pounded in next to the beds, with wires stretching the 8 ft across. Of course, now in the forth summer, the 2x2 poles are really bending and the wire is rather like a smiley face. Thought about using guy wires to straighten them, but management said no (he thought it would be ugly). So I've been looking at doing something similar to your conduit trellis, just using strings/clips instead of netting.

I went to Home Depot yesterday and the 1/2-in conduit seemed rather flimsy to be spanning 8 ft. (while supporting 3-4 plants with 2-3 stems each). I bought the 3/4-in conduit. It was hard to find elbow connectors – I bought these:

But they were $5.74 each!!

I would have preferred these for $3.52, but they didn't seem to have them in stock:

I've noticed that most of what few elbows are available in the store are threaded. I'm guessing that these wouldn't grip very well even if they did fit, but I could be wrong.

Do you think your 1/2-inch conduit frames would span 8 feet without sagging too much? Or, if you wanted to build frames to span 8 feet, how would you do it (given your experience)? I plan to attach them to the boxes with the little U-brackets. I'm thinking I'd like them to be 8 feet tall as well, especially since the beds are now about 15 inches tall, which would make for 6-ft, 9-in of vertical trellis space.

I'll want to build six or eight of these things, and using the 3/4 inch material with the elbows I found is about $24 per trellis. Management would not be pleased at all. The 1/2 inch material would be much less expensive, but if they bend over 8 feet, then I'm back to square one (with an even less pleased spouse). PLUS, we seem to get hurricanes here, so high winds are an issue too. (Shoot - last weeks thunderstorm even blew clay flowerpots off the porch.)

Knowing all that you know... how would you go about building these?

(That's what you get for making such nice posts with photos - you're an expert in these matters!)

July 3, 2012	#34
nativeplanter Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Hampton, VA Posts: 86	George (and anyone else who wants to chime in), I have a similar situation as you (but in SE Virginia). Your garden is an inspiration! I have a high water table and water puddles after storms, so I built twelve 8 x 4 raised beds (three 2x4s high) three years ago (when we bought our first house). Filled them with topsoil/compost blend from the local waste management company. Big mistake. I don't think the compost was finished, and the first year everything was chlorotic. Second year growth was better, but still not great. Last year beds dried out super fast. I realized that the topsoil that was in the mix was really sandy, and the compost was hydrophobic. In addition, the large nearby elm and persimmon were sending up feeder roots into the beds, sucking them dry. So this year I have started re-doing them. I have dug out six, added a fourth 2x4 to make them a touch taller (and added a nifty little 1x4 trim), dug out below the bottom of the beds by about 8 to 12 inches into the silt/clay. I lined the sides and bottom with plastic sheeting, sloping the bottoms away from the offending trees for drainage along the 4-foot side. Dug a pit just outside each bed for the drainage to run into if needed and backfilled that with rock/sand. Then I thoroughly mixed the native material with the topsoil/compost, and that seems to be working out very, very nicely! Holds water and nutrients much better than before. For years I have monkeyed with how best to trellis tomatoes. In college I worked at a hydroponic tomato farm and learned how to use the string/clip method, which I really like. The problem is how to do it gracefully when there isn't a greenhouse or other structure to fasten the horizontal wires to. I spent 10 years in Georgia where the vines grew 10-ft long, but we had plenty of bamboo to make structures with. The current setup uses 8-ft 2x2s attached to t-posts pounded in next to the beds, with wires stretching the 8 ft across. Of course, now in the forth summer, the 2x2 poles are really bending and the wire is rather like a smiley face. Thought about using guy wires to straighten them, but management said no (he thought it would be ugly). So I've been looking at doing something similar to your conduit trellis, just using strings/clips instead of netting. I went to Home Depot yesterday and the 1/2-in conduit seemed rather flimsy to be spanning 8 ft. (while supporting 3-4 plants with 2-3 stems each). I bought the 3/4-in conduit. It was hard to find elbow connectors – I bought these: But they were $5.74 each!! I would have preferred these for $3.52, but they didn't seem to have them in stock: I've noticed that most of what few elbows are available in the store are threaded. I'm guessing that these wouldn't grip very well even if they did fit, but I could be wrong. Do you think your 1/2-inch conduit frames would span 8 feet without sagging too much? Or, if you wanted to build frames to span 8 feet, how would you do it (given your experience)? I plan to attach them to the boxes with the little U-brackets. I'm thinking I'd like them to be 8 feet tall as well, especially since the beds are now about 15 inches tall, which would make for 6-ft, 9-in of vertical trellis space. I'll want to build six or eight of these things, and using the 3/4 inch material with the elbows I found is about $24 per trellis. Management would not be pleased at all. The 1/2 inch material would be much less expensive, but if they bend over 8 feet, then I'm back to square one (with an even less pleased spouse). PLUS, we seem to get hurricanes here, so high winds are an issue too. (Shoot - last weeks thunderstorm even blew clay flowerpots off the porch.) Knowing all that you know... how would you go about building these? (That's what you get for making such nice posts with photos - you're an expert in these matters!)