How to Build a Trellis for Green Beans

If you're a gardener, chances are good that at some point, you've considered planting green beans. After all, they're easy to care for, they taste delicious, and they grow just about anywhere. However, they also tend to be climbers, which means you'll need a trellis to support them so they don't fall over. Forget about spending a bunch of money on an expensive trellis at the home improvement store. With just a few sticks and some twine, you can make a rustic-looking trellis for your beans to climb up and cover.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Sticks about 5' long and about 1" in diameter
• Sticks about 1/2" in diameter and several feet long
• Gardener's twine

1. First, use a mallet to pound your 1" sticks into the ground along the line where you're planting your green beans. Place the sticks about a foot apart, until you have a row of them.

2. Next, take one of the narrower sticks, and place it horizontally about a foot above the ground, so that it crosses the vertical sticks.

3. Use the twine to lash the horizontal crosspiece in place, tying it securely to all of the vertical sticks.

4. Repeat this procedure, going up a foot at a time, until you have a trellis of vertical and horizontal sticks forming a grid-like set of squares.

5. As the beans grow, loop them in and around the sticks, so they have a framework to cover up.

Tips & Warnings

• If you have a really long row of beans, overlap your horizontal sticks on the trellis so there are no gaps.
• If you live in an area that gets a lot of wind, you may want to anchor your trellis to a nearby fence to keep it from blowing over.