Gardening with KSAT: Make your own garden trellis under $8

SAN ANTONIO – Planting tomatoes? Cucumbers? A climbing flower vine? Or do you want a fence covered in greenery? You’ll need a trellis for any fall-climbing vegetables or plants.

Although they can be found at your local nursery or even big box chain hardware store, trellis’ can get expensive. On average, they can cost around $40 for a nice-sized one. Plant Cages And Supports

Gardening with KSAT: Make your own garden trellis under $8

For a cheaper alternative, you can make your own and don’t have to be handy with tools.

This trellis requires no tools, is inexpensive, and takes under 10 minutes to make.

All you need is a wooden fence or wall to build along and a few tools.

If you do not have the listed supplies lying in a drawer, all of them can be found at Walmart for around $8.

First, you want to find a spot on your fence line that gets enough sun/shade for your climbing plant.

Then you make your design with your tacks. You can get creative and make big squares or diamonds.

For a simple example, Sarah Acosta did about 10 rows of up and down lines and three rows of tacks (a top row at the top of my fence line, a middle row, and a bottom row closer to the bottom of the fence line.)

A hammer is not required to push the tacks in and rest assured they will remain secured. Sarah has used them to hang her Christmas lights every year.

As an added tip, KSAT does not recommend hammering the tacks in, as you run the risk of popping the plastic tops off (which you’ll need to wrap the twine around and they can hurt you if the plastic pops off and hits you in the face.)

Once you have your rows secured with thumbtacks, start your twine rows.

Make a small knot at the bottom tack row, run it up, and loop around the middle row, then cut and secure the twine at the top.

Make sure to make these twine lines as tight as you possibly can.

Repeat this over and over until you decide you have enough trellis lines.

Plant your climbing plant right under the fence line, and every couple of days guide your plants’ vines up the twine trellis for it to get going. Your plant will eventually know what to do once it gets established.

Sarah Acosta is a weekend Good Morning San Antonio anchor and a general assignments reporter at KSAT12. She joined the news team in April 2018 as a morning reporter for GMSA and is a native South Texan.

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