The Trellis Goes In!

My back garden now has a trellis! His name is Trellisimo, on account of the fact that he will be used to grow my Cucuzzi (I know how silly it is to name a trellis, but let's just go with it for now). My very good friend Julie came over on March 18th to help me build this great trellis! I had been drawing plans for some time (yes, I know how dorky this is) to ensure that I got it right. The basic plan was a 2 foot wide by 6 foot tall by 16 foot long trellis made of PVC. I did my homework on the Lowes website and figured out what types of joining pieces I would need in order to make everything fit together. I went there a few days prior and talked to a love gentlement who helped me get everything I needed (and a few things I didn't know I needed), and also told me (which Julie had already) that I really needed to paint the PVC to ensure that it would last in the Florida sun.

I had been going back and forth over the type of fencing/wire to put on the trellis once it was up. I wanted something a bit bigger than chicken wire, as that has very small openings (1") and I want the sun to be able to filter through so that I can still grow plants under my trellis. I found something called goat fencing, which has 4"x4" squares, and actually did manage to find someone who would sell be about 30' of it, but she never did get back to me... So, I ended up going with a plastic coated wire at Lowes that has 2"x3" openings. It was 2' wide, which was perfect, and we fixed it to the trellis with UV rated cable ties.

So, here we are laying out the two halves of the trellis, and gluing the pieces together. We didn't dry fit anything, so we were nervous about that...

Miraculously, when we put the two halves together, all of our measurements worked out, and they fit together!!!

Julie is checking both sides and they are actually the same measurement! We really could not believe that we did it! I mean, we measured and all, but because we different fittings for the different parts, we had to make different cuts... We were so relieved!

Here it is in the garden! We sunk it about 1 1/2' in the ground, so hopefully it will stay in! Daniel hammered it down for me too a little, so it should stay.

And here it is after we added the fencing to it! I love it! I planted the seeds for my Cucuzzi the same night!

PS - One week after planting the seeds, my cucuzzi started to pop up! I'll get pictures of my garden up soon. I have cabbage, silver queen corn, black beauty eggplant, and bell peppers! YUM! The front garden looks great too - more pictures to come next time!