Collaborative Efforts

I've been thinking about bean trellises all winter.  Last year, I hated picking the string beans because I had to crawl around on the ground scrounging through the wad of vines growing on the scrimpy (is that a word?) tomato cage things I used (well, truthfully, I really dislike picking anything any time).  So I was trying to think of some kind of structure that the vines could grow on that would be more accessible.  Something that would be cheap and utilize what we already had on the farm.

I thought about using some old cattle panels like we did a couple of years ago to make tomato cages, only taller so I could walk under them and have access to the beans growing on the inside of the trellis.  They've been very useful and I've already set them up and planted the tomatoes under them this year.

Obviously, I don't want to have to crawl through the middle of this.

Jordan and I put our heads together and came up with these and I'm very excited.

I described what I wanted - that I needed to be able to walk under it and easily pick the beans from all sides; that it needed to be cheap; light enough for me to be able to move around without having to ask for help.

Jordan suggested making a frame out of wood and attaching field fencing (we have unused rolls of fencing that we don't have any plans for) to it.  With a little more discussion, we designed this shape of frame and put the fencing up over the top in a U-shape.

Isn't this cool?  I hope they work as well as I think they will.  Jordan built these in just a couple of hours with treated two-by-two lumber and they were under 20 bucks a piece, not counting the fencing because we already had that.  They are approximately six feet high, so that I can walk under and still reach the beans over my head if they grow that high.  Although, it just occurred to me that if the beans grow on the very top and don't hang down, I won't be able to reach them.  Hm.  There always seems to be some unforeseen glitch.  Oh well, we'll see.  The vines may not grow that high.