5 Easy, DIY Cucumber Trellis Ideas

Cucumbers are one of my favorite crops to grow in my garden each year but if you aren’t careful your cucumber vines can get out of control very quickly. That’s where using a cucumber trellis comes in!

Using a cucumber trellis can help improve your plants and keep them healthy and productive.

Here are 5 different cucumber trellis ideas- most of which are inexpensive and easy to construct.

Why Should You Use a Cucumber Trellis?

Vertical Gardening is good for a lot of plants and can improve your garden’s health and decrease the space that it takes for you to grow your food. But here are a couple of reasons why you should use a cucumber trellis.

1- There is less chance of disease. By growing cucumbers on a trellis you can more easily water the roots, and not the leaves. The plants can dry better and aren’t on top of each other.

2- Your cucumber fruits will grow straighter when grown on a trellis.

3- Have you ever waded through a jungle of cucumber vines? Using a cucumber trellis makes harvesting SO much easier.

4- You will have less problems with pests on cucumbers grown up a trellis

5- Of course, your cucumber plants will take up less space in your garden

5 Easy Cucumber Trellis Ideas

Cattle Panel Cucumber Trellis

Cattle panels make a great cucumber trellis because they are made of strong wire that won’t bend and give as much as thinner fencing or string.

Another plus for a cattle panels is that they can be bent into arches and attached at the ground to raised beds or frames so that they can grow vertically above walkways.

Imagine walking through a tunnel of cucumbers to harvest!

Cattle panels also make a good trellis for larger vegetables such as many varieties of winter squash.

The cons of using cattle panels as a cucumber trellis is that they are a little more expensive- $20 or so for a 16 ft section. They will last a long time tough!

Posts and Twine Cucumber Trellis

This is probably the most economical choice for a cucumber trellis.

All you need is stakes- either wooden tomato stakes or metal t-posts- and some twine. I use tomato twine.

You can wind the twine around your posts before staring your plants- essentially building a ladder of string for the cucumbers to climb up.

Or you can use twine to do the Florida weave, like I talked about in, my article on 5 Ways to Stake Tomatoes

Below you can see a picture of a commercial cucumber field that trellises their cucumber purely with wooden tomato stakes and twine.

Related Reading: 10 Delicious Ways to Preserve Cucumbers

Fencing Cucumber Trellis

Fencing is another option for a cucumber trellis. Similar to a cattle panel, fencing is strong and supportive and gives lots of places for cucumber vines to grab on to.

This is a particularly good trellis option if your garden is fenced. Simply plant your cucumber plants along the perimeter and let them grow up your existing fences.

You can also stretch a section between t-posts in your garden. I’ve done this a number of times and use it for peas in the early season and plant cucumbers as the peas are dying out.

Bamboo Tee-Pee Cucumber Trellis

If you only have a few cucumber plants to grow, a bamboo tee-pee is the perfect trellis to grow your cucumbers up.

You will need 4 bamboo poles and some twine to tie them together at the top. Then plant one cucumber plant at the base of each of the 4 poles.

When we had a smaller garden- 2 tee-pees gave us a harvest of over 20 cucumbers a day!

You can also use long, sturdy branches or limbs as an alternative to bamboo.

A-Frame Cucumber Trellis

Constructing a free standing A-frame cucumber trellis is a quick garden project that will look great in your garden. They are easy to move from year to year.

An A-frame trellis can either be made to look like a ladder- with wooden rungs up its length or they can be made to be used with twine.

You could probably even build one for free using branches and limbs from around your homestead.

Tips for Using a Cucumber Trellis Successfully

You may need to tie your plants to your fencing or posts to begin with, especially when they are small. This can be easily done with twine.

Once the plants are larger their tendrils should grip your trellis and stay up on their own. The vines are plenty strong to support the fruits without any further support.

Don’t forget to water your cucumber plants at the soil level- not from above. This helps prevent diseases

Harvest your cucumber daily once they start producing to encourage more growth.

Check out 7 Tips for Growing Amazing Cucumbers for more tips!