Building a simple cucumber trellis for your garden will help the production of your cucumber plants. This plan uses easy to find lumber and will cost you less than $15 to build!
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Building a Simple Cucumber Trellis
I love to have some structures in the garden. Not only are they handy to use but they add interest and character to the look of your garden. This simple cucumber trellis has been a great addition to our vegetable garden!
Growing cucumbers are one of those garden plants that really begs for a trellis! Many plants will grow on a trellis but in my opinion, cucumbers need a trellis to reach their full production potential. A big sprawl of cucumber vines with the fruit growing on the grown will never be as productive as vines growing vertically.
A simple cucumber trellis needs to be sturdy and moveable. You shouldn’t grow cucumbers in the same spot year after year, to help prevent pest and disease problems you need to put them in a different spot each year. So a few years back I came up with this simple, cheap trellis.
Materials to build a simple cucumber trellis:
18 feet of 2 x 2 lumber
4 heavy deck screws 2 1/2 inches long
12 to 20 – 1 1/8 inch eye hooks
Some garden twine
(or in my case baling twine)
Lumber
The lumber is the cost variable on this project. If you use redwood or cedar it will last longer but cost a lot more. Pine or fir will be 1/4 the cost but may not last as many years. Also, you can by 2 x 2’s in pine but if you want to use any other type of lumber you will most likely buy 2 x 4’s and have to rip them on a table saw.
We chose to use Douglas Fir 2 x 4’s which we quickly ripped in half on the table saw. We then cut 3 of the resulting 2 x 2’s to 6 feet in length and cut a 45-degree angle on the bottom of 2 of the boards. The Douglas Fir should easily last 6 years, more likely 8.
Eye Hooks
These eye hooks are simple to use and should outlive the lumber and can be reused if you ever have to rebuild.
Drill a small pilot hole and then screw in the hooks by hand. We chose to put hooks on the sides of the trellis every 10 inches and along the top rail as well.
Out in the Garden
Now head out to the garden with your drill and deck screws. Drive the two side posts into the ground about 1 foot deep. We were lucky to have a post driver to do this, but if you don’t have a post driver you can use a heavy mallet or even a hammer.
Once the side posts are in, place your top rail on the posts and secure with a couple of deck screws on each side.
Now simply string your twine between the hooks in whatever pattern you like.
I have found that cucumbers need a little extra support at the bottom so I wrap an extra piece of twine around the posts at about 12 inches. This gives a spot for the cucumbers to climb through when they are still small. They don’t really start putting out runners and “grabbing” onto the twine with tendrils until they are about 12 inches tall. If you give them this first row to go through the plants are supported on both sides at the bottom.
When the Season is over
When the season is over you can just cut off the twine (that brown garden twine usually only lasts 1 season). Then back out the screws at the top, pull the side posts out of the ground and bring the whole thing indoors to your garage or garden shed for the winter (this will help the wood last longer).
And there you go! A simple, sturdy trellis for your cucumbers (of course you can use this trellis for just about any climbing veggie or melon). The trellis keeps the fruit out of the dirt, the leaves and vines have much better air circulation and it’s easier for you to find the fruit and the bee’s to find the flowers.
What other simple garden structures do you use in your garden?
Canning Pickled Beets
I have a couple wire trellises and cobble up other kinds!!! Yours looks very sturdy! Nancy
Love! You are this weeks feature on the (mis)Adventures Mondays Blog Hop. Congrats! You will be pined on our board as well.
Thanks Mindie!!
Awesome! Thank you for sharing this great tutorial. I usually trellis my cucumbers on a similar style of trellis made from electrical conduit. It works really well. I love this style though…I just may have to try it. 🙂
Would this trellis work as well for zucchini or yellow crookneck summer squash? I just built three raised beds this weekend (4×6 each), 3′ apart, and am looking for ways to maximize production using the “vertical” space.
Thanks!
Yes, but I would choose a extra heavy twine. But that being said, neither zucchini or crookneck squashes are really a good vertical growing option. I’ve never felt like they vine well enough to really grow well vertically. You might be better choosing a winter squash or pumpkin, or maybe even a melon.
How tall is your trellis? When you say 18feet of lumber do you mean the total wood used was 18 feet and cut down to a different size? 🙂
My trellis is only 6 foot tall. and 6 food wide. The sides have an extra 2 feet (so they are 8 feet long) so that there is some wood to put into the ground. 2- 2x4x8’s should be enough to build this trellis.
Is there a good way to make an angled version of this trellis?
I suppose you could make the sides triangles. But why would you want an angled version? That will take up more space in the garden and not allow you to plant underneath the trellis. The point of this type of trellis is to grow UP! And save square footage in the garden.