Cucumber Ladder

There are many great ideas out there for creating vertical growing structures — specifically for plants such as cucumbers. For several years, I had been growing our cucumber plants along the edge of a raised bed, and trained them to use the short fence that bordered the bed as a support for their vines. It worked well, but by the end of the summer our the bed would be completely surrounded in cucumber vines, making it harder to work in the bed itself.

This summer, I decided to create my own cucumber ladder (aka trellis) and give it a try with my cucumber vines. I had some extra materials that I wanted to use, rather than buying anything for this project. Using only a steel fence t-post, bamboo stakes, 24″ poultry netting, and some wire, I was able to construct an “A-frame” shaped trellis that was 3.5′ wide at the base and was about 5′ tall. The 8′ steel fence t-post was used to connect and secure my bamboo stakes at the peak of the “A-frame” after I drove them into the soil a bit. I used the wire to secure the poultry netting to the bamboo, and the bamboo together/to the t-post. All told, it only took me about an hour to construct the trellis.

Overall, the plants did great on the ladder. Despite the vigorous tendrils working to grab and climb the ladder, I did have to train them a bit over the summer. The smaller weave pattern on the poultry wire (versus other cucumber ladder options out there) was great for supporting the vines, as it gave the plants lots of places to grasp. The one downside to using the poultry wire was that, if you didn’t pay attention for a couple of days, a cucumber might start to grow within the netting and get stuck as it enlarged. As long as I kept an eye on them, this wasn’t a huge problem. As with other cucumber ladders, growing them in this manner made harvesting somewhat easier because the cucumbers would hang down on the inside of the “A-frame” making the hunt for cucumber amongst the vines a bit quicker.

Because the cucumber ladder worked well, I decided to build a few more ladders. These were constructed with 18″ poultry netting and longer bamboo, so they are bit more narrow and a bit taller. With my cucumber ladder, I felt that I could maximize the space even further by taking less horizontal space in the raised bed and providing more vertical opportunity for the vines. I plan to use one of these new ladders to grow some smaller melons, and the other for our kids’ favorite fall decoration: Jack-Be-Little pumpkins!

// Dad Gardener