How to Make a Green Bean Trellis Using Welded Wire

Learn how to to make this DIY Garden Trellis for green beans using welded wire, chicken wire and u-posts.

Gardening during this pandemic has definitely forced us to get more creative with using the material we have on hand. In an effort to limit our trips to the store, we're now taking a second look at that leftover scrap of welded wire and extra u-posts in the garage--and it's honestly been pretty fun! When we ran out of room in our raised bed garden for our green beans, we decided to use the space next to it for our trellis. The chicken wire around the bottom is really optional but with our 3 chickens--we knew we needed something to keep them out!

Supplies:

• Shovel

• Welded Wire

• 4ft U-posts (3 count)

• Chicken Wire

• Small Wooden Stakes

• Bamboo Stakes (optional)

• U-post Driver or a black of

• Cable Ties

Step 1: Till the Ground

First, we hand tilled the ground with a shovel. We found that hand tilling with a shovel, while a lot of work, is sometimes for effective for a small area like this because you can go deeper into the ground. Tilling does give you more weeds to deal with than a raised bed garden but we weed the area daily and it hasn't been that big of a deal.

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Step 2: Insert U-Posts

Using a U-post Driver, a block of wood and a hammer, or a rubber mallet you can insert the 3 posts evenly spaced apart. Our posts are about 2 feet apart.

Step 3: Attach Welded Wire

If you'll notice, the u-posts have these little tabs all along it to help securely hook your welded wire fencing to it so it stays in place. Hook your fencing as needed and make sure it is pulled taunt across the posts. If you need more re-enforcement you can use cable ties to secure the wire to the posts.

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Step 4: Plant Seeds

We started with two rows of seeds (one on each side of the fence) and spaced then evenly apart so they had enough room to grow.

Step 5: Insert Wooden Stakes

We decided to add the chicken wire fence because we let our chickens out frequently and didn't want them digging up the seeds or messing up the beans as they came in. It's worked great so far! The wooden stakes you can find for cheap at Lowes and are easy to hammer into the ground.

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Step 6: Wrap Chicken Wire Around Bottom

Once the wooden stake are installed, we unrolled our chicken wire and wrapped it around the wooden stakes, making sure to stretch it tightly as we went around so there wasn't any gaping. We did have to staple gun the chicken wire in a few spots to the wooden posts to make it stay in place. And because we have small children, we added the white electrical tape to a very sharp pieces that were poking out. This part of course is totally optional since it really doesn't look that great! But it gets the job done and in gardening, that's what matters most!