DIY Natural A-Frame Trellis Part 1

Today my boyfriend and I started making trellises for our peas, cucumbers, gourds and melons.  We had an abundance branches from cut trees.  So we dug through the pile of tree limbs matching similar size branches. 

Basically we started with a tripod.  Taking 3 branches and anchoring them together using the natural notches in the stick to lock them in place.  We wound the thickest jute I could find around the sticks, wrapping tightly and knotting in multiple places. 

We built 2 tripods close to the same height.  Then put a long, relatively straight beam across the tripods giving us a well supported a-frame.   We tied the center beam down, although it didn’t seem necessary because they are pretty sturdy as they are.

We made a couple for the house garden, and 3 others to take to our other gardens in the neighborhood.  We tied them up in little bundles so we can carry them easily and remember which branches go together.  It seems to be easier to set the frame up on site, rather than carry tripods.  Once you have some branches picked out it really only takes about 15 minutes to put together. 

And best of all these trellises are all natural and biodegradable, just compost or burn when you’re done.  We haven’t decided what to put across the sides to encourage the plants to grow up the frame.  Wire fencing, bird netting, or jute is what we are debating. Jute will work for peas and possibly for cucumbers if strung in a grid, but that will be figured out in Part 2.

Three Sisters Beds

I just wanted to share how awesome our corn, beans, gourds and amaranth are doing!  Our yard is already filled with a garden where we have herbs, greens, tomatoes, peppers, fruit trees, cucumbers, onions and so on… But not much space for corn.  Luckily a friend down the street has a huge sunny backyard, so we dug a couple beds, mixed a little manure and compost in and planted away.  Everything looks amazing.  The smaller bed was planted about 2 weeks after the first one.  Here is what we planted and where we got our seeds:

Ohio Blue Clarage Corn (Southern Exposure)

Black Iroquois Sweet Corn (Southern Exposure)

Purple Podded Pole Bean (Baker Creek)

Provider Bush Green Bean (Fedco)

Blue Bush Lake 274 Green Bean (Fedco)

Bushel Basket Gourd (Baker Creek)

Opopeo Amaranth (Baker Creek)

Hopi Red Dye Amaranth (Fedco)

I’ve only had the space to do a Three Sisters garden once, and I had to move out before harvesting, so I’m excited to see how these beds do!  Everything can be eaten except the gourds.  I’m not so into squash, so I figured something useful could replace it, like a gourd you can make bowls out of!  The Ohio Blue Corn can be eaten as sweet corn when it’s young, but we plan on trying to make corn meal with it once it’s mature.  You can eat the amaranth greens in salads and whatnot, use the seeds in breads and I definitely plan on experimenting with dying fabric using the Hopi amaranth.

Gardening is so exciting!  And since these are new beds the bugs are pretty minimal. Way different from out house garden, which has been full of plants and bugs for years.  If only we could get some rain!