Practical Gardening

This is the second part on the series, Assembling the Trellis Frame.

In the first part, two topics were discussed: the assembly of the trellis frame outline and an explanation of the terms used to describe the components that make up the trellis frame. Shown below are the parts that make up the garden trellis frame.

Drilling and mounting the trellis anchors is just half of the work to be done to complete this DIY wall trellis project. It's actually the easier half because you have a power drill to do the bulk of the work for you.

In assembling the wire trellis, you'll be limited with manual hand tools like pliers, vise grips and other trellising materials. Expect plenty of brute force for bending, forming and setting the metal wires. So it is important to plan ahead with the sequence of tasks to do so there is minimal wasted effort. You save time on rework. As well, you save your knees from undue stress of climbing up and down the ladder to assemble this big trellis.

After marking the drill points for the trellis anchors on the concrete wall, it's time to take out the power drill for a spin. As you will be working on concrete, ensure the power drill is switched to the "hammer drill" setting and not the "normal drill" setting which works for metal and wood only.

In this connection, you should also be ready with the appropriate masonry drill bit to be used for drilling holes on the concrete wall. Masonry drill bits, as opposed to the regular drill bits, will work only on concrete.

Because you'll be screwing the trellis anchors into the holes, you'll also be needing plastic expansion shields. These are also called plastic expansion sleeves or fasteners. One expansion shield used in this garden project is shown below.

Trellis anchors are what support and secure your wall trellis to the concrete wall. Too few anchors and your garden trellis may collapse sooner than you think. They should be strong and adequate enough so they can withstand the weight of the vine. The trellis anchors also provide support to the branches of non-clinging, non-twining garden vines.

It is important that trellis anchors are positioned so that they're evenly spaced. This ensures that the load of both trellis and vine is balanced. And when a storm or typhoon comes, a well-secured and balanced trellis assures that the high impact that strong winds place on the vines do not compromise the trellis' stability.

Wall trellises are relatively easy to assemble and mount. In a recent project, I attempted to build a wall wire trellis on faux stone panel. It turned out very well and although it posed a few challenges, was actually easier than I thought. The position of the trellis though was higher off the ground because of the way the post was built.

The faux stone panel adorned the top part of the post while the lower part had some decorative side mouldings. Although not impossible, I thought it would be awkward to put some trellising materials on this lower portion of the post. Wall wire trellises are best mounted on flat-faced walls rather than on walls that have ridges or bumps like in this case, concrete moldings.

After extracting the pure honey by lightly pressing it out, I was left with five wrung-out honeycombs that still had honey in it. I learned much later that beekeepers use a centrifuge to separate the honey. I suppose the centrifugal forces that press against the spongy honeycombs further squeeze out the honey and fiters it.

Anyway, I had the idea to liquefy the spongy mass of honeycombs and then strain out the remaining honey. To do this, I heated a small amount of water in a pan. I then dumped of what's left of the honeycombs in it. Everthing seemed to have melted quickly. I then poured the entire honeycomb mixture into a plastic tray to cool.

Discovering not one, but five honeycombs inside what I thought was an empty upside-down garden pot was both thrilling and astonishing. Who would've thought that in this quiet little corner of my backyard garden, a colony of honeybees was thriving?

Immediately, several jars of sweet luscious honey cropped up in my mind. Even if we don't normally eat or cook with honey, I was still excited to get my hands on real pure honey.

Here's one of the honeycombs and you'll clearly see the familiar hexagonal shape of the cells. You'll also see some dead bees on the surface.