I finally got the trellis tunnel that I wanted! It will be perfect for growing all of my vining vegetables and fruit over the 2 foot wide walkway. Remember we try to do as much vertical gardening as we can.
The trellis is made from three cattle panels which are typically used as fencing on farms but I had a different plan. While I can’t take full credit as it is the latest craze on Pinterest and gardening blogs, we just made it work for Crazy for Gardening.
The hardest part was getting the cattle panels home because they are 16 feet by 50 inches! We had to rent a flat bed trailer for the back of our SUV to bring them home. Also, none of our local stores sold cattle panels so we had to take a ride out to a rural area to get them. While I don’t shop much at Tractor Supply Company, I have to give a big thank you to one of the workers. Bubba gave us a lot of help and gets five stars for putting up with us! We used a roll of fence at the halfway point (8 feet) of the cattle panel in order to make the arch and so the panels would fit in the trailer.
Once we got back, we placed the three cattle panels between the two long raised garden beds. We secured the trellis panels into the ground with black metal hook stakes. Also, Alan added a piece of wood to the sides of the two long raised garden beds and secured the trellis to the wood with torx screws and our homemade clasps which he cut metal hanger straps. Next we used black rebar tie wire to connect the three panels. Since this wire is rather sharp, I think we will use black electrical tape to soften the edges.
