Green Beans Trellis

I went through all the hardware and construction shops in town looking for a cattle panel or a hog panel that I could use for a trellis. Not one of the shops here in city carries this kind of panel. All they had are the 2-inch-hole welded concrete wire. I would have bought two of these to make a trellis but the cost was expensive at 1,500.00 pesos per piece so that would have cost me a total of 3K to make one trellis. One piece of this welded wire is only 4 feet wide and 8 feet long but what I did not like about it is the small holes, just 2 inches square. I could not find any cattle or hog panel so I asked my brother if he could make me one since we already have a welding machine. My DH bought a welding machine last year and this is what my brother and my carpenter used when they made the rabbitry. I asked my brother to make the hole dimensions to be 6 inches wide by 8 inches high. This size of the hole dimension will allow us to reach out for the plants during harvest time. So we bought 5 pieces of gauge # 10 wires and it only costs us 70.00 pesos per piece so that all came to 350.00 pesos all in all.

This summer, I was able to grow 2 crops of green beans in this wire trellis. The first batch of green beans were planted behind the outdoor aviary using the home-made welded wire trellis that my brother made for me. What I like about this trellis is that I could plant on both sides of it and I get to have more produce. This arched trellis is 4-feet wide and 6 feet high on its apex. Since I am short at only 5'2" tall, I could easily walk under the arch whenever I gather the green beans and it's easy to pick them as they would just be hanging over my head. Vertical gardening is really a good way to go in maximizing a small space.I placed both ends of the wire trellis in the center of a 2-feet wide raised bed which is in the corner of the garden where it doesn't make a shadow on the other plants. This corner gets the full afternoon sun from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. I made this raised bed only 2 feet wide because it is near the fence and this allows me to reach out at the back of the trellis to get the beans without stepping into the raised bed.

 

Overhauling the Backyard Garden

There is really nothing much that anyone could do as far as gardening is concerned during the rainy season here in Baguio City. The gardens gets flooded, the strong winds and rain damages the plants and worst, if there is a typhoon because everyone has to stay inside the house for safety purposes. Now that the rain has stopped today, I was able to transfer the worm bins to the back of the chicken run where it is shaded by the Cherry tree because the worms are not supposed to be exposed to direct sunlight which is why I had the worm bins under the shade of the tall ferns and flowers. Once the worm bins were out of the way, I set out to remove the wire mesh fencing material that enclosed the perimeter of the garden. I cut off all the ferns and the flowers that were growing in between the stone rip-rap that was behind the worm bins. Now I could clearly see what I have to work on with what I have. There is a 2 feet drop from the garden level above to the ground level from where the worm bins used to be so I had to lower this down to 1 foot high. The ground dirt is also filled with gravel and so I had to clear them out as well. I also had to factor in the walkways and I could only come up with an 16 inches wide walkway above this new raised bed. This is really just fine for me as I could still get around on both sides of this raised garden bed to do my work.

Salvia flowers at the edge of the garden with the stone rip-rap walls removed.

The worm bins under the shade of ferns and flowers.

 Then once everything was cleared out, using a garden fork, I dug up the dirt to about 8 inches low using the cut and back fill method. Then I enclosed this new raised bed with one layer of 4-inch wide concrete hollow blocks which is 8 inches tall. I then put some composted leaves at the bottom and then layered this with rabbit manure and covered it up with the top soil that was set aside when I dug up the bottom. I bought some Okra seeds and planted them directly in the ground. I sowed some seeds of tomatoes and peppers in a box and when these were ready to be transplanted in the ground, I planted them next to the Okra plants. I then thought of buying some flowers to brighten up the garden so I went to visit the Baguio City Orchidarium and bought some French Marigolds and Petunias. The pictures below will show you the outcome of my work in overhauling the entire garden. It's really just a small backyard garden but it took me a couple of months working intermittently to finish the work due to the rainy season at that time. I put in a lot of hard work in this garden but it was all worth, don't you think so?

The garden is partly in shade from the Cherry tree and the Rabbitry.

The trellis for the green beans is located at the far end of the garden.

The newly constructed raised bed at the foot of the garden.