The Best 'New' Watermelon, Melon, & Pumpkin Garden Trellis (Shelving Trellising for Large Fruits)

Welcome to the Rustic Garden Homestead. Today I want to show you really, I think, one of the best designs to trellis melons. Now up top there you're going to see yellow cucumbers. That's just for an example. I'm not growing cucumbers on here. I'm growing cantaloupe. They get heavy. They pull off the vine. You can do this for watermelons. You can do this for pumpkins. The design is pretty simple. It took me 20 years to figure out. The A-frame is made out of deck railing. You can build that in any way that you want. But what's important is that you create the A-frame. You have hinges up here. Opens up. Creates the A-frame. And then you have deck railing in this case. Or these are one inch by one inch posts just going through here. Something that's nice and solid. That itself isn't, you know, a grand design. That's been around forever. And it's a nice solid trellis. What I think is cool is because I'm using the railing right here, I can just slide shelves in here and look, it becomes a shelf for your fruit to form. It's not going to hang. It's not going to pull away. These are just really borders that go into the ground like this. Let me put one in over here. And I got them on sale at Home Depot, I don't know, probably three years ago. They were a dollar each and I thought, you know what, I'm going to be able to use those. And you would use them for a little bit of trellising or to kind of design beds. You know, I don't really need it for that. Coming into here this year, I grow cantaloupe in this raised bed. And it's a little bit late in the season, but I was just putting in another round. And I thought to myself, how can I just not have to come out here, have to hammock the cantaloupe, have to hammock the melons. And really you could put in this shelving all the way across in different layers. So I have one here and the cantaloupe performing. Hopefully it stays warm enough for these to finish out. And you just keep an eye on them and just poke them up, tuck them on there. You can do this in any really design. Anything will work on here. And then I have the next shelf, the next shelf, and the next shelf. And I'm just using these maturing cantaloupe, I'm sorry, cucumbers as examples. And you get the idea. But this is a lot easier to grow heavy melons, pumpkins, than to come out here and have to, you know, put a hammock under them, support them in some way. I really, really like the design and just wanted to show it off, give you something to think about for next year. It is the middle of September. I'm thinking about what I want my garden to look like. This is definitely going to be a cantaloupe station next year with the shelving. I may expand this, do another one for mid-size melons, watermelons. I really, really like it. It's like, you know, coming out to your own grocery store, reaching in on the shelf, picking your cantaloupe, going back in the house. I can let this design just sit. Everything takes care of itself. I just have to work on managing the fungus, which you see on there, which I did, keeping it watered and letting the plant do what it's supposed to do. Please follow me for 2025. I'm going to teach you how to grow an entire garden. I'm going to change things up a little bit, but if you're a first-time gardener or a fairly new gardener, I'm going to really work on helping people boost their confidence. How do you deal with stress and being overwhelmed? I'm going to do a next video on that right after this one, but really kind of help gardeners keep their confidence, build their skills, and just have a great garden in 2025. I love this design. Like I said, it took me only about 20 years to figure out, but just one day I came out. I had these shelves sitting here because I was lazy, didn't put them away, and I thought, what if I insert them in here, and I really like the design. Most of my garden designs come from just experimenting, thinking about things. I encourage you to do the same thing, but one quick look, one shelf, two shelves, three shelves, four shelves, and I could design something down there to hold the shelves a little bit better. It's kind of a wide gap, but I really like the design, and you're going to be able to just let the melons form on the shelves. No worries. Thanks so much for watching. Please check out my seed shop at therustedgarden.com, and please subscribe. I'll teach you how to grow food, save money, and have some fun. Thanks for watching.