With gardens getting smaller and food getting more costly, everyone wants to make room to grow more food in less space. Well guess what? If you have 50″ and a gap between your planting beds you can set up an arbour for under $100.00 in less than an hour.  Of course i wanted one in my own garden so we made an episode of Little Jobs in the Garden to show you how I did it .

Here is the video we made in my garden this fall. Don’t forget to like the video when you are over on YouYube and subscribe to my channel so I can make more videos to share and help gardeners grow.

So I am in Utah in September and I am seeing the same trellis systems everywhere. In public gardens, community gardens and in back yards. The simple trellis concept, built with a single piece of wire fencing called a cattle panel, horse panel or livestock panel is the main ingredient. A few angle iron or t-stakes for strength plus a dozen or so zip-ties and you are done.

This is a little project you can build with friends or family in less than an hour. Remember most livestock and fencing stores sell the cattle panels but I saw them in Canada from $50- $80 depending where you go. (In the US they were $20-$25  each so that is a shocker!)

PS If you place your trellis on top of raised beds (see below) you get more space to walk under. If you don’t have raised beds, you can still use the cattle panel on the ground. Remember big squash like butternut will weigh up to 3 kg each and every plant will have five to six squash so that is a lot of weight. Not to worry because these panels can almost hold my weight. And FYI – that is a lot more than 15 kgs!

This trellis, made from a cattle panel I saw in Utah this fall was designed for tall and rambling tomatoes. But I was to build a place for those quick-growing and rambling squash like butternut! Guess what? The same trellis works for both.

PS Do you have questions about Gardening? Join in the conversation on my facebook live event every Monday by clicking right HERE.

 Donna Balzer is the Brand Ambassador for BCGreenhouse Builders and she has two greenhouses in her big backyard.