JOHN: This is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com and I have another exciting episode for you
today.
Today's Sunday and I gotta finish workin' on these beds, get some stuff planted out.
And let's see, what we're gonna plant out today is my Kakai pumpkins.
And these pumpkins are smaller-ish pumpkins that are maybe about that big around (holds
hands apart just a little bit larger than an acorn squash), and I'm planting these for
the seeds.
This variety of pumpkins actually have hull-less seeds.
That's right, hull-less, so they have no hull, no white hull.
So these are like the Mexican pumpkin seeds you'd see in a health food store in the bulk
bins, also known as pepitas.
And actually I think these are actually from Japan, this variety, but they're often grown
in Austria for oil seed as well.
But they're also really good eating.
So I'm hoping in a small amount of space, in just my front bed, we're gonna plant these.
But the problem is, if I just plant these in the bed, you know, this is the bed here,
they would sprawl all over, take over and I wouldn't be able to plant anything else.
So what we're gonna do today is we're gonna build a trellis.
So I thought about all the trellis things I could be doin', and the different trellises
I could be using, including some of the ones I use already—you know the hog fencing right
there, goin' up the bean trellis.
And then I have galvanized roll fencing, which I unroll, then I basically put stakes in.
But I wanted something a little more substantial, and something that's gonna blend into the
arbor theme: I have my redwood arbor there
So what we're gonna do, actually, today, is take redwood stakes, and we're gonna build
a trellis, and you're gonna see how easy it is to build a trellis out of redwood stakes
and some screws and some, uh, curious ways to measure the spacing on a trellis, which
is kinda cool.
Now I'm gonna show you how easy it is to build a custom 8-ft x 8-ft trellis.
I'm not even gonna use a tape measure—that's how skilled I am.
All you're gonna need basically is a drill, with a drill bit to pre-drill your holes so
you don't get any wood splitting; then we'll need a bit to sink the screws, and this set,
I believe, comes with a little bit inside the box.
And let's see—we've got these 1x2x8-ft pieces of redwood—nice piece of redwood here—they're
about $2 each, all at Home Depot.
And the last thing we got is some shipping boxes—yup, I said shipping boxes.
They're all 7x7x6.
And the great thing about this is, each of these are gonna define each square, so each
square's gonna be actually identical, the same exact size, you know, in dimension.
And once I'm done with these, I can actually reuse 'em for shipping.
So it's really smart.
And, you know I could use a tape measure, but that might be a little bit harder.
So you know, in mass production scales, they make what's called a jig, or, like, a template,
you know, I'm using this as my template.
Of course, you know, if I had a factory doing this, I'd have a whole template set out, but
I'm just doing this once, so I'm just gonna use some shipping boxes.
So you get to watch how it's done.
So the first step is to build our shipping boxes, and we're just gonna take 'em and put
'em together.
(Puts boxes together with tape)
And that's it—that's our shipping box.
And the box dimension is basically 7” this direction, 7” this direction, and 6” high,
we're mainly gonna use the 7x7 area.
So I'm gonna put this aside, and I got a whole bunch more
to do.
(time-lapse video)
And here's the last one; it's real easy—set it up, put the box together and tape it up.
Make sure you get tight seams.
Tape 'em up so they're all the same size and shape, otherwise it'll be, like, a millieter
off—we can't have that!
(tapes up last box) All right so that's the last box, there you go.
Now here's the cool part.
We're gonna do the layout.
So now we're gonna use the cardboard boxes as our spacers.
Take one box, put it on this end—it's the space between the uprights on that side.
Then we're gonna take another box up on the top, that's the spacer on that side.
All right, next step: more boxes.
We're gonna put another box on this side, and a box on this side...(time lapse video
up to 5:02)
So now we just got done spacing out the verticals, the uprights, and the boxes are in between
'em.
The bottom there is where they're gonna stick into the ground, they're probably gonna stick
into the ground about that much (holds hands about 6” apart)--stick 'em into the ground
to secure the whole structure...in the ground, and now we're gonna come up and do the horizontal
bars next.
All right so we got it all lined up.
So basically what we wanted to do was make the ends on both sides about the same overhang,
and now the next thing we're gonna do is drill some holes; I'm gonna actually drill two holes
per, you know, where the..basically where the crosses meet.
This is basically to ensure more stability.
You could just do one hole, but then it might move a little bit, so with two screws, definitely
a little bit more sturdy.
I was building the trellis and what happened was I ran out of stakes—and I bought these
stakes, they're about $2 at my local Home Depot and I ran out of 'em, and I went back
to Home Depot and actually they had run out of 'em, or they had run out of the good quality
ones—they just had some junky ones left.
So, I need to get this project done, so what I did instead, was I went and bought this,
basically 1x8x8-ft, you know, redwood fence board.
And basically what I'm doing, is I'm ripping those down to basically the size I need, like
this.
And can basically get five of these out of one fence board, you know.
And if I bought these—these are $2—this (pointing to the fenceboard) would have cost
me $8, but this was like $7, so I'm saving a whole dollar.
But the problem is, I have to saw all these up, and I've already got a big pile and it's
takin' a while, so, you know, it's probably worth it just to buy the stakes individually,
instead of rippin' 'em up.
Unless you have a professional saw, and you're totally comfortable ripping wood down.
I don't really mind it, so next time, I'm just gonna buy the individual stakes—it's
a lot easier.
(cut to asphalt scene)
The monster trellis is taking shape.
This is a day where I've just been working on screwing all the pieces of wood for the
cross members using my US Priority Mail boxes as the squares, so we'll have an even, consistent
template.
It looks really good so far.
I'm basically putting two screws in at each joint—this way we don't get flex.
If you just put one, you can get a lotta flex.
And so what I basically do is pre-drill the hole first.
We'll do that, and I don't have a countersink bit, so I just use a larger drill bit.
So this is kinda like the poor man's countersink bit.
We'll put that on and just go like about very—I don't know how deep that is—about an eighth-inch.
So I'll basically screw in a deck screw just to make that flush.
And that's how it is: I've been basically doing ones down the row, and then I'll come
back and fill in the second one to give it the stability that I desire.
All right so that's the update from this time.
Next update you'll see the whole trellis completed.
And then I get to do another one just like this for the backside, 'cause this is a four-sided
trellis—it's gonna be pretty crazy.
(cut to garden shot)
So, now I've completed the trellis after several nights of work and we're gonna install that
today.
This is an 8-ft x 8-ft trellis, with 7” squares, and the sides each cross, has two
screws and this is nice and sturdy.
Actually, it's also nice and heavy.
And we're gonna go ahead and erect this into the bed.
All right so here it is—it's finally in, the two monster trellises; the final step
is maybe tomorrow or the next couple days, I'm gonna take a piece of wood and tie these
together, every rung, so it's gonna be total, complete four-sided trellis.
Right now they're just two single trellises standing next to each other.
It took a while to actually get 'em sunk in and get 'em lined up, so that's gonna work.
So there's gonna be about 15 Kakai pumpkin plants.
Once again, these Kakai pumpkins will make nice-sized pumpkins, but these pumpkins are
grown for the oil seed or for the edible seed.
The seeds are high in oil, but also edible.
They're also known as pepitas, or the green pumpkin seeds that you find in your local
health food store.
They're basically hull-less, so you can just take 'em out and eat 'em.
I've never even had 'em fresh.
And so I figured this is something I could grow and give me a fat source.
There's not many crops that can give you a fat source—they give you a large volume
of fat in a small area.
If you had a nut tree—almond tree or walnut tree, but they get huge!
If you could grow a field of sesame seeds, they'd be a fatty seed, so I'm gonna try the
pumpkins and see how that works as a viable fat source and see if I get a lot.
These trellises, I think they cost me about $30 each.
So that's definitely some expensive trellises, and I'm really into my garden.
But you know what?
If you don't have a lot of space, you gotta grow vertically, and these trellises are all
well made, they'll last many years, and I'm proud of my work.
So this is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com and we'll see you next time, and you know,
grow vertically.
It's good for you.