Trellises Take Your Kitchen Garden to the Next Level

Trellises are a super fun element to incorporate into your kitchen garden, and they add so much beauty. Of all the questions I’m asked, "Where'd you get that trellis?" tops the list. Trellises, like raised beds, serve both practical and aesthetic purposes.

Here are four reasons to add a trellis in your kitchen garden space:

• Trellises maximize your total available growing space
• Trellises keep your plants healthier
• Trellises lend much-needed support to climbing plants
• Trellis provide year-round beauty and keep the garden looking tidy

Trellises maximize your growing space

When you add taller structures to your garden, you encourage plants to grow up instead of growing out. Certain plants like tomatoes or cucumbers would spread until they've taken over your entire bed if they didn't have a structure to climb. Training them up a trellis is especially important if you're growing in a smaller bed, but I'm sure we all want to make the most of the precious garden space we have. To me, my raised beds are prime real estate.

Trellises help you increase production because you can have smaller plants growing underneath or alongside your vining plants. Instead of just having the square-footage of the horizontal space in the garden, we now have available to us all that vertical space that stretches up over the the garden beds. 

Trellises keep your plants healthier

As trellises help rambling vines stretch upward, they're also increasing air circulation and exposure to sun for the plants down below. The leaves of the vining plants will stay clean and dry, which prevents mold and discourages pests—that means healthier and happier plants all around.  

Trellises give much-needed support to climbing plants

Kitchen garden staples like cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, sugar snap peas, and pole beans need a strong structure to cling to, or they just won't grow and produce like you want them to. While some vining plants attach themselves to the trellis, others need your help and some twine to train their vines up as they grow.

Trellises not only help plants bear the weight of heavy fruits, they also hold stems and produce in place, making it easier for you to tend and harvest.

Trellises provide year-round beauty

Trellises aren't just functional. They're also beautiful. During the height of growing seasons, your trellises will be covered with lush greenery, but in the coldest season when everything else may be dormant, your trellis will add vertical interest to your space.

Back when I installed my new kitchen garden, there was nothing but the trellises for interest. There wasn’t a lot of green, and the vines hadn’t started climbing, but the garden was still beautiful to look at thanks to the trellises.

You can even create a sense of harmony between your home and your garden by selecting a trellis that mirrors the architectural style of your house.

The Best Kitchen Garden Plants to Grow up Trellises

The best climbing plants to grow on your trellises will vary based on your growing season. Here's a breakdown of vegetables that need a trellis for each growing season:

Vertical Garden Vegetables for the cool season

The cool growing season is when your average high temperatures are in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. Cool season plants that love support include sugar snap peas, snow peas, and fava beans. When the weather warms a bit, you can plant your trellis with runner beans.

Vertical Garden Vegetables for the warm season

The warm growing season has average high temps in the 70s and 80s. Cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, winter squash, and pole beans will dominate your trellises during the warm season.

Vertical Garden Vegetables for the hot season

During the hot season, when temps are in the 90s and up, you can turn over your trellises to eggplants, asparagus beans, yard-long beans, Armenian cucumbers, tomatillos, luffa gourds, or the beautiful malabar spinach.

The Best Flowers for Trellises

Few things are prettier than flowers growing up a trellis in the garden.

In the cool season, you can plant your trellis with sweet peas (just be sure everyone knows not to eat from these plants—they're poisonous!). Transition into growing climbing nasturtiums, passion vines, or hyacinth beans for the warm season. Passion vines or coral vines will get you through the hot season.

A list of the best climbing plants for trellises:

• sugar snap peas
• snow peas
• runner beans
• fava beans
• cherry tomatoes
• cucumbers
• pole beans
• winter squash
• Armenian cucumbers
• tomatillos
• luffa gourds
• eggplants
• yard-long beans
• asparagus beans
• malabar spinach
• sweet peas
• nasturtiums
• passion vine
• hyacinth bean
• coral vine

Steps to Grow Vegetables up a Trellis

Here are the general steps to grow vegetables vertically:

• Plant indeterminate or vining types of plants right next to the base of a trellis
• Help the tendrils of young plants like peas find available rungs to latch onto; add horizontal rows of twine every inch or so if needed
• Prune each young plant to one main stem
• Prune frequently while plants are growing to focus on flower and fruit production
• Tie vines to the trellis with twine as needed
• Harvest fruits continuously
• Top off the plant before the end of the growing season

Find more detailed steps here.

Garden Trellis Materials & Styles

There are trellises to support every style and every budget. After gardening for many years and experimenting with all different kinds, I've solidified my personal favorites as metal trellises, specifically metal panels, obelisks, and arch trellises. We're going to look at all the different ways you can provide support for your kitchen garden plants, though, so let's start with trellises you can DIY.

Garden Trellises You Can Make Yourself

DIY projects in the garden have the benefit of costing you less (usually). Let's look first at wood trellises.

DIY wood trellises

You can purchase some inexpensive wooden stakes or use collected sticks to form a sort of teepee tied together with twine.

the advantages of using DIY wood trellises in your garden

Wood trellises are a basic and inexpensive option. When I first started gardening, I scavenged for bamboo sticks for free. I formed the stakes into panels and connected them with netting in my garden beds. The little tendrils of my cucumber and bean plants loved clinging to the netting.

the disadvantages of using DIY wood trellises in your garden

The downside of wood trellising is that it often only lasts one season or so. It also needs a lot of reinforcing to prevent it from falling over. 

How to make a garden trellis with wooden poles and twine

The best and most secure DIY garden trellis, in my opinion, is a Florida weave, and this is a great option if you don't mind a more casual look to your garden.

To make a Florida weave, you'll hammer tall wooden stakes or bamboo poles at opposite ends from each other, several feet apart. You'll run twine or thin wire back and forth between the poles to create a zigzag pattern from top to bottom. Plant your vining plant (cherry tomatoes work well) on either side of your weave. You'll work your tomatoes in and out of the weave as they grow upward.

Learn more about creating a Florida weave.

Farm fencing or cattle panels

You can buy entire rolls of fencing or cattle panels from a tractor supply or hardware store.

the advantages of using farm fencing or cattle panels in your garden

This inexpensive type of material is great to use between two or more strong vertical supports. It also works well along a fence.

the disadvantages of using farm fencing or cattle panels in your garden

This type of support structure doesn't add the vertical interest of a wooden or metal trellis. Additionally, lighter material is too flimsy to serve as an arch trellis if you're wanting to DIY your own arch between two beds (you'll need cattle fencing for that). I tried creating arches with cattle panel once, and they collapsed under the weight of the plants mid season.

Garden Trellises You Can Buy

You can buy everything from flimsy tomato cages (which I don't really recommend) to metal trellises that will last a lifetime. When you're shopping for a trellis, you should pick something as durable and strong as it is beautiful. Those little plants you're growing at the base of your trellis may not look like much now, but they'll soon be supporting pounds and pounds of foliage and fruit, so trellises need to be able to stand up to that year after year.

Tomato cages

Tomato cages are readily available at the hardware store and give support to your larger plants by encircling them with large cross sections of wire.

the advantages of growing in a tomato cage

Tomato cages are inexpensive, and unlike heavier trellis structures, they're easy to add to or take away from your garden seasonally or move around.

the disadvantages of growing in a tomato cage

For my first experience growing tomatoes, I bought tomato cages from the hardware store. I found that the vines often burst through the open sections and then put too much weight onto the rest of the cage, causing it to fall over. Cages with more narrow openings also make tending and pruning difficult—you either have to maneuver your hand holding the tool inside or work from the top.

Ready-to-grow wood & metal trellises

The discovery of ready-made trellis kits changed how I designed gardens for good. These kits arrive with all of the pieces ready for assembly. If you bury the legs of your trellis about one foot down in your raised bed, the soil will hold it in place. Many kits also include ground spikes to safely anchor your arch if you’re placing it in your landscaping.

Most kits cost between $200 and $500, so this is still an accessible option when you consider how many years this will bring structure and aesthetic appeal to your outdoor space.

If you're buying a trellis kit, look for something with as few pieces of hardware as possible. Not only does that make the trellis easier to put together, it also means fewer places that might rust or rot through.

Custom-Made Trellises

If your budget and timeline allow for it, there's nothing like a custom-made trellis, a piece crafted to perfectly suit your garden space. This is by far the most expensive option (prices will depend on the metal worker).

Custom-made trellises will be one solid piece of metal. Having a custom piece designed and made is a great way to upscale your kitchen garden space, especially if you want a more formal garden. Plus, you can support a local business and craftsman.

Whether you buy a trellis kit or have one made for your space way, you're going to end up with a beautiful hardscaping piece that you can enjoy for years to come in your garden.

Most metal trellises fall into three main categories, so let's look at those now.

Panel Trellises — Your Easiest-to-Use Option

Pan means flat, so a panel trellis is a flat structure that allows vines to climb it—perfect for doubling your growing space in narrow beds or border gardens. You could also use a panel trellis in the middle of a wide bed that you can access from both sides. It will accommodate pole beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, sugar snap peas, and fava beans—really anything that wants to climb.

the advantages of using panel trellises in your garden

We love using panels along a fence, garage, or home to maximize space. If you have an L-shaped garden, you could even look for a similarly shaped panel trellis.

Panels often come in one piece, so you just place it in your garden, and boom, you’re done. 

the disadvantages of using a panel trellis in your garden

One downside is that I sometimes find panel trellises to be a little flimsy; they might need extra support by being pushed deeper into the bed or attached to the surface that you’re growing against (such as a wall or a fence). Another downside is that they limit the height of vining plants that could grow beyond the top of the panel if given the opportunity. 

Obelisk Trellises — The Best Trellis Option for Smaller Vining Plants 

Obelisk trellises are sometimes shaped like a tall pyramid, wide at the bottom and narrow up top. These are best suited for the corners or the middle of square or rectangular gardens, lending height and unique interest to your space. 

I prefer obelisks that are less than a foot wide; otherwise, they take up too much room in the bed, without actually maximizing your growing space (that’s also why I don’t typically recommend them for border gardens). 

the advantages of using an obelisk trellis in your garden

I love that obelisks give you room to grow smaller plants around their base, while your vining plants grow right up the center and can be easily tended (unlike with tomato cages). You can grow three to four plants up and around the outside of an obelisk trellis, rather than just one plant inside.

the disadvantages of using an obelisk trellis in your garden bed

One downside with the obelisk is that you have way more planting space at the bottom than you do at the top due to the trellis coming to a point. By the end of each season, I often have vines reaching over the top and have to decide whether to cut them or trail them back down.

Some obelisks (like our Wide Pillar Obelisk Trellis Kit) stay wider until the very top, when they close like an imperial crown, which helps prevent overcrowding. 

Arch Trellises — My Top Trellis Option for a Kitchen Garden

This is, as you may have guessed, my favorite type of garden support. Spanning an arch trellis between two beds is the best way to tie your whole garden together. When I create gardens for clients and for my students, I want them to feel like their garden is a private getaway. Walking under an arch covered in vines can feel like you’re entering your own little oasis—just you and the bees and the butterflies. 

I wouldn’t put an arch trellis in beds that aren’t at least three feet wide. I also think you need a good, wide pathway so that your arch feels cozy but not crowded. You want your arch to have that Ta-da! factor. 

the advantages of using an arch trellis in your garden

Arch trellises can form a gorgeous living bridge between two raised kitchen garden beds. The surface area provided by an arch also allows your plants to grow as tall as they like. In fact, the plant growth never has to stop. You could grow vines all the way over, flip them, and grow them back the other way. This makes arches ideal for plants that grow quickly or that have a long growing season (100 or even 120 days in the garden). 

the disadvantages of using an arch trellis in your garden

The two main downsides of an arch trellis would be the cost (they’re generally the most expensive) and the time to put together. It’s also really important to make sure the bases of your arch are secure and buried deep into your bed because a lot of weight will be placed on the middle of that arch. If your raised beds aren't very deep, you might consider anchoring them in some concrete.

Tip #1: Keep Two Measurements in Mind When Selecting a Trellis

When selecting a trellis, keep height and width in mind. Measure your space once and then double check. That way, you don't pull a "Nicole" and have to take a saw to the bottom of a trellis to get it to fit.

These two measurements will give you a better idea of what type of trellis will fit in your space and whether you should purchase a pre-fabricated trellis kit, build your own, or order a custom trellis for your space.

The best height for a trellis

Be aware how high you're capable of reaching when tending and harvesting from your garden. Unless you're over six feet tall, you probably don't want your trellises to be much taller than eight feet. Make sure to also calculate the height of your raised bed and how deeply the trellis will be buried.

The lowest recommended height for a trellis would be four to five feet above the soil line. That's enough to support peppers, eggplants, tomatillos, and bush tomatoes. You'll need something taller for vining plants.

The best width for a trellis

The second measurement to consider is how wide you need the span of the arch or the panel to be. If you'd like to span two beds with an arch trellis, make sure to note the width of the trellis at its widest and narrowest points. Our Modern Arch Trellis, for example, has convex sides, which makes measuring a little tricky.

Tip #2: Match Your Trellis to Your Home

Look at the distinctive features of your home, including the windows, doors, columns, gates, light fixtures, and roof lines. Notice the type of metals, woods, brick, and/or stones that are on the exterior of your home and be mindful of the finishes of those materials. Match the style of a new trellis to the style of your home to make your garden feel as though it's always been there.

Tip #3: Look for Trellises That Are Easy for Your Plants to Hold Onto

Small wires are great for pea and cucumber tendrils to easily grab onto. When you're shopping for a trellis, look for small breaks from one section to the next; most plants will only grow a few inches from week to week and will need the next rung to be close by to cling to. 

If you fall in love with a trellis that doesn't have these small breaks, you can always run your own twine or wire between the larger supports.

Tip #4: Budget for the Best Material Possible

It may be more expensive, but a trellis made of steel will resist rust and discoloration and grace your garden with beauty for way longer than a wooden trellis, which rarely lasts more than a year or two. The most durable trellises are made of powder-coated steel.

By ensuring you choose a durable trellis, you can avoid the heartbreak of coming out to the garden after a big storm and finding your trellis, along with all those beautiful vines loaded with fruit, knocked down on the ground. It happens more often than you think, so don’t let it happen to you.

The trellises you'll find here in the Gardenary shop are all made of powder coated steel. This material means the trellises will last as long or longer than the raised bed itself.

There's also just something about a metal trellis covered in vines that instantly elevates a garden space.

Tip #5: Purchase Arch Trellises Before You Install Your Kitchen Garden

Don’t wait until your garden is installed to add your arch trellises. Otherwise, you might end up having to dig up loads of soil to retrofit your massive structures. It's best to place your trellises before you finish loading in all the soil to secure them in place.

Panel and obelisk trellises are much easier to install seasonally as needed.

Time to Trellis Your Vegetables!

Trellises are a fun way to get growing in the garden and add support and beauty. If you’re anything like me, your trellises will soon become your favorite feature of the garden. 

I can’t wait to see what you grow on your own trellises this year!