, caThe “I grew my cucumbers vertically up a cattle fence panel and I’ve never had such a huge harvest,” my brother mentioned to me during our Thanksgiving catch-up phone call. Craig is an enthusiastic gardener living in South Dakota. A transplant to the West, he’s getting accustomed to the conditions that summer gardening in the West presents—high heat, intense light, high wind and the occasional hail storms and tornadoes that can destroy everything in the blink of an eye. In those last storm events he’s been pretty luck so far and has really only had a few punctures from hail through his poly greenhouse. But that’s another story.

Using Cattle Fence as Cucumber Supports

I’ve written about the benefits of using vertical supports for vegetables (other than tomatoes) before. But I feel their praises can’t be sung loud enough. So for today we are discussing his solution for growing cucumbers. Craig wanted to raise them off the ground, and he used a 16 ft. long x 50 in. wide panel of cattle fencing as the support. He buried one short end into the ground a couple of feet deep then created an arch with the panel by burying the other short end about 6-8 ft. away (honestly, he didn’t tell me the exact distance, but in the photos of the cucumber-laden arch it looks like he can reach up to the arch’s peak).

Planting and Training Cucumbers to Grow Up

Craig wanted to address several environmental factors as he planned this cucumber trellis.

1. High heat: The hotter it is, the more water the cucumber plants use. He addressed this by finding restaurant-sized tomato sauce cans (105 oz), removing both ends to create a wide cylinder, and then burying the cans a few inches in the ground as he planted his cucumber transplants. The can contains the irrigation water long enough to allow it to soak into the ground rather than having it run all over the ground. In this way Craig was better able to keep up with the plants’ water needs.
2. High light: In the flats of South Dakota the light levels are so intense the easily burn plant leaves. The intense light impacted the exposed cucumber plants. Craig addressed that by loosely covering the trellis with frost cloth. He said it worked wonderfully, and did it for his tomatoes, too.

Bonus Results of Growing Vertically

Cucumbers are such vigorous growers that the only needed the occasional encouragement to grow around the trellis wires. Craig noted this additional perks of growing cucumbers upward:

• Better airflow among the leaves and vines, which lead to less disease.
• Pollinators were better able to access the flowers! Very important!
• Fruits hang off the trellis rather than lay on the ground, 1) keeping them dirt-free, 2) preventing the pale yellow patches that result from being on the ground and 3) keeping them away from ground-roaming pests.
• It was easier to clean fallen leaves and debris out from underneath the growing area, which helped to keep disease and pests away.

Craig is already planning his cucumber trellising for next year. He says he’ll move the cans and the fencing about a yard away from last year’s trellis. This will act as a crop rotation and keep the plants away from any soil-borne pests that were bothering the plants last summer (even though he noted none!). The photos Craig sent me show he has big plans for his raspberries, too. I’ll probably write for Just Veggies sometime next year!