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  • From: Roots Farm & Karen Sutherland <rootsfarm AT cwdom.dm>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Market-farming] Cucumber trellis
  • Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 07:10:51 -0400

We trellis all our cukes, but have found the Hortonova doesn't hold up under UV for more than a year or two and then leaves a mess of plastic bits. The woven nylon trellis net sold by Johnny's and others, on the other hand, lasts and lasts and lasts and is light and easy to put up. take down, store, etc. We use a local "living post" -- gloricida -- that then provides leaf mulch and/or partial shade if we need. We bind a heavy cord or doubled up twine to the end post, then weave it through the top edge of the trellis net for strength, binding it to post tops down the line. Usually we plant in "hills" of 3-4 cukes about 3-4' apart with "hills" of pole beans planted in between to take over the trellis when the cukes fade out to disease. We may plant herbs or some small quick crop in the front and some shade-loving crop behind. The crucial step for us is helping the vines (both cuke and to a lesser extent bean) first connect to the net and then helping wayward vines connect anytime we're passing through.

Best wishes to all,

Karen

Karen Sutherland

Roots Farm

Organic Produce

Fruits, Roots, Vegetables & Herbs

Cockrane, Dominica

767-449-3038

rootsfarm AT cwdom.dm <mailto:rootsfarm AT marpin.dm>

rootsfarm AT protoscape.com <mailto:rootsfarm AT protoscape.com>









Cory and Shanti Rade wrote:
We trellis our cucks. We definitely get more straight, unblemished (becaue they don't sit on the ground) fruits by far with trellising. But mostly the ease of harvesting is the best advantage and makes it worth the effort. We used to use rolled field fence attached to t-posts but found it heavy, hard to strech, and expensive if you need to buy more. We switched to using Hortnova Flower Support, a 6x6 inch durable netting, attached _vertically_ to t-posts or rebar pounded in the ground. It does require a lot of pulling the vines up and weaving them into the netting. We probably do it about twice before picking starts and then everytime, as we pick, we put the vines up as we go. Some times the vines are fragile and break off, but maybe this works a bit like the pinching, which I have never done but might try this year, I don't think it diminshes the plant growth at all, by the middle of the season they are h uge hedges. At the end of the season we roll up the netting, let it dry for the winter. The next season we stomp on the rolls and all the trash comes out when you unroll it. We have used it up to 4 or 5 seasons
We also plant several successions about every 3-4 weeks, this seems to be the only way to get consistently good quality. We also use this netting to trellis pole beans, peas, and horizontally for some flowers.
Hortnova is available (the cheapest I have found) from G&M Agricultural Supply (800)901-0096 at about 3,200 feet for $200

Whipstone Farm
21640 N. Juniper Ridge Rd.
Paulden, AZ 86334

I use t-posts and roll fencing. I've done this for two years and had poor results one year and good results last year. The biggest difference was that the first year I relied on the plants to vine up the fencing on their own, but last year I used an ag-clip to tie the vine on the fence to get it started in climbing. Quality of the cukes went way up compared to cukes grown on straw mulch on the ground. They were much straighter and looked real good. My Suyo Long cukes did especially well on the fence.

Andy

Glen Eco Farm wrote:
> I have never had any real success with getting cucumber vines to climb > vertical trellises. I generally allow cucumber vines to sprawl and they > usually do OK with the exception that a lot get missed by my PYO customers. >
>

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