Simple Scrap Wood Trellis

Last weekend I had to trim up the Japanese Maple that is in front of our friend's condo, because a lot of it was dead or dying. 

This is it post trimming, I'd say about half of it had to come off or risk losing the whole tree.

We had also started some cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers in our little indoor greenhouse. I know the cucumbers and tomatoes are climbing plats I think the peppers are too, but not %100 on that plants are more my wife's area of expertise. Either way we needed something to for them to climb up so the local animals did't eat all of our food when it grows.

I was in need of some kind of trellis, and had thought of just going to a hardware store and getting a small section of fencing or a cheapo alternative to save time, also I had never built a trellis or anything like it so I really didn't have much to go on except some vague idea of what they are supposed to look like. But I had the rest of the day off, a bunch of pieces of wood now, and not much else to do that day so I figured it was worth a shot.

Keep in mind I think the last woods project I did was sometime in middle school in a classroom with the most hard ass teacher I had ever met so I'm not very experienced in word working.

So with a little bit of imagination, a pair of bolt cutters I used for trimming small branches, some twine, and a saw this is the result.

 Not the prettiest trellis ever, but it works. The main bit I got pretty lucky on because it was all one piece that came off so its got a pretty stable skeleton. The cross sections are just more branches that I tied onto the skeleton.

This is a close up of the joints. I'm not too well versed in knot tying so I just wrapped it real tight and tied a bunch of double overhand knots. After a few blisters that are still healing they are on their pretty tight.

That's all the pictures I have of this one in retrospect I should have taken more of them to show the process more in depth, and I'll try to do that in future projects.

But basically the process was taking the skeleton and stripping off all the extra bits to shape it into what I thought it should look like. Luckily it was fairly triangle shaped to begin with. I didn't really measure anything or have too much of a plan just kind of winged it, and made many small adjustments after I cut way too much off one leg. You can't see it , but I left a little bit under the base so the feet could dig a little into the ground to add more stability because it doesn't quite sit flat. The cross sections are just parts that I trimmed off the main skeleton or whatever piece was close to the width or length I wanted. A bit more trimming and it fit together fairly well.

That about wraps that up I'll post some better pictures if it because I realize now that there was way too much direct sunlight in the ones I have. I'll also update on it when the plants begin to grow on it.