Trellis Talk

Looking a little bit droopy out there...

This balcony we've chosen to put our plants on gets a LOT of sun. From about 12:30 in the afternoon til the sun sets behind the trees around 6:30 or 7, this porch gets pretty much full exposure. I've been hoping the plants could hack it, that if I gave then enough water they'd thrive...I mean, most of them come with the instructions "full sun". But despite the fact that we had rain yesterday, and I gave then water this morning, before the sun came round the house (as I felt it was going to be a bit of a scorcher), there were some definite wilts and droops out there today. So, I decided to take action!

Here's what the area looked like before:

The trellis seen against the wall there is actually two sheets of trellis/ lattice work I found on a neighbouring street. With wire I attached the two to make one very tall trellis - as I was/ am expecting great things from our morning glories! I had been thinking, sort of vaguely, about some sort of way to make use of that trellis to provide sun protection, and with that sun beating down I just went for it. A few minutes of untwisting, and then retwisting wire, and voila:

Little bit of shade anyhow! I am hoping that the morning glory will grow up and over to provide additional shade, and also I have brought that little bough of ivy over to the trellis (attached a woody stem of it to the trellis gently with wire), hoping it will twine about and grow over top! This ivy on our house is a force to be reckoned with, I tell you. I'm sure it will be taking over that trellis in no time.

I think this is also an opportune time to talk about the trellis used in the companion planting workshop I went to. It was quite a neat little set up that we made. Working with a bed maybe three feet by five feet, we planted cosmos, various lettuces, mustard, cucumber, radishes, dill, marigold and sweet alyssum. (I should mention that all the credit for this plan here goes to our Companion Planting instructor, Helene! I'm just passing on what I learned/ observed.)

I'm going to use the little sketch-diagram I did at the workshop to show how it was all put together. Only the most highly-technical illustrations, of course! (wink wink.) Okay, here goes. To clarify the areas I'll be talking about, I've got the "outer bed" outlined in green, and the "inner bed" coloured yellow.

Starting with the inner bed, we planted cosmos, maybe a dozen or so spread out. These are flowering plants which serve to attract pollinators, which will be necessary for the cucumbers. The idea is for the cosmos to grow through and above the trellis before the cucumber has a chance to cover it over. This way the attractive flowers will be more obvious and accessible to the pollinators, and also so they can continue to get some good sun! We used already-somewhat-grown plants in this case, I think probably either doing this or planting the cosmos seeds before anything else is advisable here.

Then, various lettuce seeds and mustard seeds were scattered liberally over the inner bed, and covered over with more earth. If the lettuce grows too thickly, you just thin it out and eat the thinnings. A good reason to purposefully plant thickly!

Cosmos shown here in dark green, sometimes with pink flower; lettuce and mustard shown in light green and yellow.

Next we travel to the outer ring; the outer bed.

On each of the four corners we planted dill, because it is delicious, because it attracts pollinators and also beneficial predators. Again, the plants you eat together are often companions in the garden. Neato.

Next, the cucumber seeds were planted. These are intented to grow over the trellis once that is in place, which gives it a structure to grow on, and the plant will in turn give shade to the lettuces below. Apparently lettuce has a tendency to "bolt" with too much sun exposure: it will very quickly send up a big stalk, go to seed/ flower, and then die. Our instructor said that you could either plant cucumber on one side, or on both sides of the trellis, depending on how thickly you want it to grow, and how many cucumbers you're looking to have!

We then planted little rings or semi-circles of radishes around the cucumbers, for radishes will deter the pesky cucumber beetle. And, they are very tasty!

Dill shown here in light green, cucumber in dark green, radishes in red.

 Next were the lovely flowers: marigolds between the cucumber plants to attract pollinators and beneficial predators, and to repel some pests. Sweet alyssum was planted in two solid rows on the open ends of the trellis tunnel; this lovely little plant will also hopefully attract pollinators, and most importantly it acts as a living mulch - it will help retain water in the soil, and apparently may also keep the whole under/ inside of the trellis hoop cooler.

Marigolds in golden orange here, sweet alyssum in purple, green and white.

 Finally, we got down to the trellis itself! It was just a section of springy, curvy wire fencing. We tried to just stick it in the ground, but ended up needing some bricks to hold it down. Here is the trellis, in all its highly-technical-illustration glory (in two perspectives, no less!):

...

Yeow! Electric Kool-Aid Companion Planting!

I hope you can now picture that! It's pretty neat to see how 8 different types of plants can be placed strategically in this small space and will then help one another to grow and thrive in a whole little working system. And what a bounty this will produce! I'd like to go back later in the summer and see how this lovely little world flourished. This is just one example of how companion planting can be used...with a little research, maybe some wire and some brick, some imagination...the possibilities are endless!

(Final note: allow me to connect you with the blog of the very knowledgeable woman, Helene, who gave the companion planting workshop. It's a lovely gardening blog that she shares with 2 other gardeners.)