Conduit Trellises For The Raised-Bed Garden
Farmer Andy has been busy again building trellises for the Seltz Raised-Bed Garden 2.0.
The Raised bed boxes on the north and east sides of the garden are designated for vine plants that will be trained up a trellis during the growing season. Our pea vines are already growing, so getting the trellises built was a high-priority project.
We wanted something sturdy that would last multiple seasons with little upkeep. So, I built our garden trellises using 3/4 inch electrical conduit pipe from the local hardware store. It is sold in 10 foot lengths and can be connected together using simple hardware and tools.
I used a pipe bender in the store to add a 90 degree bend to the tops of the pipes that would be located on the ends of the boxes. A simple pipe-cutter was used on location to cut each piece to fit. And, finally, I attached each vertical pipe to the box using pipe straps and galvanized deck screws.
The nylon mesh net tied to the frame was purchased in the garden department of the store. It is pulled pretty tight, so hopefully it will be strong enough to hold all the plants and fruits when we get to the heart of the growing season.
This entire project cost about $75 for materials and took about 3-4 hours to complete. Each trellis is 5 feet tall from the top of the garden box. The east box trellis is about 10 feet long and the north box trellis is about 15 feet long and was created with a center support.
It won’t be long before the pea vines are tall enough to start training them up the trellis.
Other than planting, my next project for the garden is to finish filling in the path areas with crushed rock and put a top layer on the walkway (probably shredded bark mulch for this season.)
What do you think of the progress we’ve made so far?
Farmer Andy
Hi, Could you provide more detail on how you were able to join 10 foot lengths of conduit together? In your pictures it appears as though you were working with a much longer length of pipe. How it is all held together?
Thanks!
Richard,
On one trellis I did, in fact, join together two lengths of conduit to span the length of the planter box. My solution was relatively simple. I purchased a straight connector designed to hold two lengths of pipe together end-to-end. Then, I used a high-strength epoxy to glue it to the top of an upright support pipe (the end of the support pipe was given a curved shape with a grinding wheel so it would cradle the connector and give some extra surface area for gluing.)
The end result was a T-shaped fitting that supported the middle of the long trellis. It held up all summer long in the Alabama heat and I’m planning to leave it out all winter to see if the cold does it any harm.
When the glue dried I put everything together and secured it to the back of the planter box.
Andrew
Hi, those trellises look great! I am wondering how they have held up in almost two years. Is the 3/4 inch rigid enough for 10 ft lengths? I am planning to build some and would love some performance information from your experience.
The trellises are still going strong (August 2014 as I write this.) I have done no work to maintain them and left them up year-round. There is no deterioration in the metal and I think the planter boxes will need replacing long before the trellises at this rate – I planned a 3-5 year cycle on the raised bed boxes. The nylon trellis nets are pretty beat up, but I’ve still gotten 2 summers out of them.