Installing My Cattle Panel Trellis

Hi guys, Kevin here. So I'm up in the kitchen garden and I'm getting ready to do something that is probably crazy but we shall see. Let me show you this garden. So I really love the layout of this garden. We're facing it from the main gate, actually the only gate. So I have four two by eight raised beds for this central path and there's an urn in the center here and then a pergola behind and two chairs and then to the right I have four raised beds. That's my garlic and to the left I have the same thing four raised beds. Now the reason I'm starting a new project is because I want to grow winter squash and specifically butternut squash in this garden. Now if I planted the butternut squash in one of these raised beds better move the camera again. Yeah if I planted let's say butternut squash in this four by eight raised bed, well butternut squash has a spread of at least four feet and it can trail a good 16 feet so it means I would have vines coming all the way over here and all winter squash just keeps growing and growing. It's an indeterminate type of plant. So I figured the way to grow the butternut squash would be vertically and in order to grow it vertically I needed some special kind of trellising and I found it at Tractor Supply. It's called Cattle Panel and I bought two cattle panels and they were $23.95 each. They are four feet wide by 16 feet long. I just had them leaning against these beautiful Fuji green giant right now. So my idea is to do what many other gardeners have done and arch the panel between two raised beds. In other words it's going to arch like this and then the vines can grow up. I'll plant seeds on this side more seeds on the other side and they will grow up and over and the squash should be very easy to harvest. We shall see. Anyway I'm going to try building one of the trellises right now. First step is to hammer in two six foot tea stakes and I probably didn't need six foot tea stakes. Probably five feet would have sufficed. Anyway hammer them in. A step ladder helps. Okay my posts are in. That hammering job took about 15 minutes because my native soil is very rocky and that's exactly why I built raised beds for my vegetables. Raised beds can hold good soil with no rocks. Here comes the next step. Installing the cattle panel. Wish me luck. By the way this panel is heavy galvanized wire. Okay this is really a two-man job probably. We'll see. It's a little unwieldy I'd say. It can't just go this way. Where there's a will there's a way folks. I just have to figure this out. Lift really high this way. Okay well you have the idea right? Makes a cool arch but it's in the wrong place. Try to move it here. You know I'm going to figure this out. This cattle panel is not going to get the best of me. If nothing else I'm building character. Get over there. No don't come out. Yeah it's definitely a two-man job or two-person job anyway. Alas I am a one-person show and can I confess something to you? I'd rather be shooting a cooking video right now. Okay. Here a little bit. All right I can almost sense success. Going this way. Well who's laughing now? This is kind of cool. Let me see what you see. Yeah I have a nice trellis arch. Look from this direction. I think that's pretty cool. And of course I will have to attach zip ties down here to connect the panel to the t-stakes. This is pretty impressive. It's going to look really cool when stuff is growing on it. And I think I have the formula now for doing the next one. I think I have the formula. We shall see. Anyway yeah so this creates a tunnel through which to walk so that's pretty nice. And also an arch is good energy. It's considered good feng shui. And what I will do is plant, I guess I'll plant the butternut squash on the outside of the fence or rather the panel and then I'll just weave it through these openings. By the way these openings are about four inches by six inches which means you can reach through to grab the vines. You could even pull a good sized full-grown butternut squash through or push it out. Whatever you needed to do. So I don't know if I'm going to put this video up on YouTube because it was a little bit awkward wasn't it? Anyway it was an honest video. We shall see if I publish it. So and that's it. That's a cattle panel. Oh and I should tell you that if you want to buy a cattle panel make sure you have the means to transport it to your house. Although the cost per panel was only $23.95 plus tax. I had to hire our handyman to bring his truck down to a neighboring town to pick the panels up. I don't know how much he's going to charge me. Probably an arm and a leg. So anyway that's it for today. Thanks for spending time with me. Now go watch my cooking videos. Bye-bye.