Cucumber and tomato trellises: four plans for raised beds

The four supports compared

The netting trellis along the north side of a 4 × 8 bed suits beans, peas and cucumbers. The four supports here are built another way: an A-frame of 2 × 2s for cucumbers, wire cages or a staked row for tomatoes, and a cattle-panel arch over the path between two beds. Each plan below has its drawings, what to buy and cut, the steps and the soil for its bed, and prints on its own.

Which one to build

For cucumbers, build the A-frame. Its two netted sides lean together over a 4 × 8 bed, the ridge 6 ft ½ in above the soil, meeting the 5 to 6 feet NC State Extension gives as the least for a cucumber trellis, and a row of vines climbs each side. University of Illinois Extension adds that cucumbers grown up a support grow straighter.

Tomatoes form no tendrils, so they have to be held rather than left to climb: UW–Madison Extension cages them or holds a row between runs of cord on stakes. A cage goes around each plant and is built once: Oregon State University Extension says the wire will rust but should last for years. The staked row, the Florida weave, holds four plants in the same bed where three cages fit, and the twine goes on as they grow.

The arch is for two beds with a path between them. Clemson Extension grows pole beans and cucumbers on trellises across the walkways between its beds, so the vines take up only a few inches along each bed’s edge, and the path stays clear underneath.

A cucumber A-frame for a 4 × 8 bed

Two ladders of 2 × 2s, each with three legs and a rail at the top and at the soil, lean together along the middle of a 4 × 8 ft bed and are hinged at the ridge. Netting covers the outside of each ladder, and a row of cucumbers grows in the 6-inch strip between each long wall and the feet, so the vines climb from both sides of the bed. The feet stand on the ground under the soil, 6 inches in from each long wall, and the ridge stands 6 ft ½ in above the soil, 6 ft 10½ in above the ground.

The bed is the 4 × 8 cedar plan, 11 inches tall and filled 10 inches deep: 16 bags of 1.5 cubic feet. Use untreated wood: UW–Madison Extension says not to use chemically treated wood for stakes, and the legs are stakes.

1. Cut six 2 × 2s to 84 inches for the legs and four to 88 inches for the rails, and both 29-inch spreaders from the eleventh.
2. Lay three legs flat, one at each end and one in the middle, and screw a rail across their tops, its ends flush with the outer legs. Screw a second rail across the same face with its lower edge 10¼ inches up from the feet, where the soil will come. That is one side; build the other the same way.
3. Tie a net to each side, over the rails and legs, pulled taut from the top rail to the bottom rail.
4. Before you fill the bed, stand the two sides in it with the rails facing out and the tops together, the feet on the ground 6 inches in from each long wall and the rails 2½ inches clear of each end wall.
5. Join the two top rails with the three hinges along the ridge, one beside each pair of legs, so the frame folds flat when it comes down.
6. Screw a spreader across each end pair of legs, on the outside, level with where the soil will come, so the feet cannot spread.
7. Fill the bed, then plant the cucumbers in the strip between each long wall and the feet, a foot apart, and guide the first tendrils onto the net. NC State Extension spaces cucumbers at least 8 to 10 inches apart.

Print the A-frame plan

Wire tomato cages in a 4 × 8 bed

Each cage is a 6-foot piece of concrete reinforcing mesh 5 feet tall, rolled into a cylinder about 23 inches across, the size Oregon State University Extension gives, with the bottom wire cut away so 6-inch spikes push into the soil. It stands 4 ft 6 in above the soil. UW–Madison Extension holds each cage with two stakes driven into the ground; here they stand inside it.

Three cages fit down the middle of a 4 × 8 bed, about 8 inches apart and 11 inches from each long wall. The bed is the 4 × 8 cedar plan, filled 10 inches deep: 16 bags. The mesh is stiff 9- or 10-gauge wire, sold in rolls about 150 feet long and 5 feet tall, Oregon State says, so one roll makes 25 cages this size.

1. With bolt cutters, cut three 6-foot pieces from the mesh, each with a straight vertical wire at one end and loose wire ends at the other.
2. Bend the loose ends into hooks with pliers, roll the piece into a cylinder and hook them onto the straight wire.
3. Cut away the bottom horizontal wire so the vertical wires stand out below the cage as 6-inch spikes.
4. In the filled bed, push the spikes of the first cage into the soil down the middle of the bed, 4 inches from an end wall, then the other two about 8 inches apart.
5. Drive two stakes inside each cage, on opposite sides, 1 foot into the ground under the soil. They stand 4 ft 2 in above the soil. Tie the cage to each stake at two heights.
6. Set a tomato in the middle of each cage at planting, and train it inside the cage as it grows.

Print the cage plan

A staked row of tomatoes, tied with the Florida weave

Four tomatoes stand in a row down the middle of a 4 × 8 bed, 24 inches apart, the widest of Penn State Extension’s 18 to 24 inches. A steel T-post stands at each end of the row, as Penn State advises, and a wooden stake stands between the second and third plants: a stake after every second plant. Each is 7 feet long and goes 1 foot into the ground under the 10 inches of soil, so it stands 5 ft 2 in above the soil.

Runs of twine go along one side of the plants and back along the other, wrapping each stake, so the plants stand between two walls of twine. Penn State starts the first run 8 to 10 inches up when the plants are about 12 inches tall, then adds one 6 to 8 inches higher every week or two; here that is 8 runs, from 9 to 58 inches above the soil, every 7 inches. UW–Madison Extension uses polypropylene or nylon cord, which does not stretch as cotton does. The row stands in the 4 × 8 cedar plan, filled 10 inches deep with 16 bags of 1.5 cubic feet.

1. In the filled bed, set the four plants down the middle 24 inches apart, the first and last 10½ inches from the end walls.
2. Drive a T-post at each end of the row, 4 inches in from the end wall, and the 2 × 2 stake between the second and third plants, each 1 foot into the ground under the soil.
3. When the plants are about 12 inches tall, tie the twine to an end post 9 inches above the soil. Take it past the first two plants, around the middle stake, past the other two and around the far post, pulling it tight as you go.
4. Come back along the other side of the plants, wrapping the middle stake again, and tie off at the first post. The plants now stand between two runs of twine.
5. Every week or two, add a run 7 inches above the last, up to the top of the stakes: 8 runs in all. Penn State threads the twine through a 12- to 36-inch piece of plastic pipe to make the low wraps easier.

Print the staked-row plan

A cattle-panel arch over the path between two beds

A cattle panel is a sheet of welded steel fencing: OK Brand’s are 50 inches wide and 16 feet long, and Clemson Extension builds its trellises across the walkways between its raised beds from one panel. Here one panel bends over a 4-foot path between two 2 × 8 ft beds, each end standing on the soil 6 inches in from the bed’s path-side wall, clear of the post at the middle of that wall, and held by two T-posts.

Bent over the 5 ft 3 in between its ends, the 16-ft panel rises about 6 ft 6 in above the soil, 7 ft 4 in above the path, and is still about 6 ft 5 in above the path where it crosses the path’s edges, so an adult walks under it. That height is worked out for straight sides and a round top; a panel bent by hand takes its own curve, so expect a few inches either way.

The beds are two of the 2 × 8 plan, filled 10 inches deep: 21.8 cubic feet, 15 bags of 1.5 cubic feet for the pair, or 8 for one bed on its own. Four feet between beds is what the University of Georgia Extension allows for carts, wheelbarrows and wheelchairs; the path guide has the other widths.

1. Build the two beds with their long sides 4 feet apart and fill them.
2. In each bed, mark a line 6 inches in from the path-side wall. Just behind it, on the bed side, drive two T-posts 46 inches apart, centered on the bed’s length, 1 foot into the ground under the soil. They stand 4 ft 2 in above the soil.
3. With a helper, bend the panel over the path, its long wires running across the path, and stand each end on the soil in front of that bed’s two posts. The panel pushes outward against them.
4. Tie each post to the panel at three heights.
5. Plant the climbers at the foot of the panel in each bed and guide them onto it. Clemson Extension plants tomatoes close to the middle of the panel and, as each grows taller than the next horizontal wire, pushes it through the opening under that wire.

Clemson Extension builds its arch another way, with no bending: it cuts the panel in two across the middle with bolt cutters, pushes the cut ends of one half into the soil just inside one bed and the other half into the bed across the path, and ties the two tops together with four zip ties. A notched spacer board holds the halves apart near the top, so they bow out away from the path and leave more room to walk.

Print the arch plan

What these plans do not cover

These are plans for supports in board beds on open ground. They are not engineered structures and make no load rating. A net or a panel full of vines catches the wind: in an exposed garden, take the nets down when the crop is done. UW–Madison Extension suggests letting the vines dry on their support until they are brittle, so they break apart for easier removal.

References

• Trellising, Staking and Caging – Vertical Gardening Techniques for Vine-Type Vegetables, University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of Extension.
• Cucumbers: A Refreshing Treat From the Garden, NC State Extension.
• Starting a Garden: Supporting Plants, University of Illinois Extension.
• Support structures help tomatoes produce more fruit, Oregon State University Extension Service.
• Stake your Tomatoes, Penn State Extension.
• Grow Tomatoes Vertically, Clemson Cooperative Extension.
• Max 50 Cattle Panels, OK Brand.
• Raised Garden Bed Dimensions (Circular 1027-4), University of Georgia Cooperative Extension.