Cucumber Trellises

...are not very effective where the cucumbers get enough sunlight.  At least that's my current theory.

I named this blog "Bed of Cucumbers" because the first year we owned our house I put in a small garden and about the only thing that did well was the cucumber vine.  I planted a single vine at the back, near my neighbor's fence, which it promptly covered in vines and produced about a cucumber a day for a month.  I told my friend T they were the easiest thing I ever grew and of course have never had luck with them since.  This year I determined to put them in the community garden plot, plant a whole bunch all at once, and pick them easily from a 5-foot chicken wire trellis N built for me back in April.  Based on my experience at home I figured the large leaves that grew at the bottom would crowd out any weeds, and the cucumbers would grow at a reasonable picking height, all of which would make it possible for me to pick a great number of cucumbers for pickling while taking care of a newborn.

But my cucumbers this year stubbornly resisted all efforts to make them grow up the freaking trellis!  Where I did manage to force them through the chicken wire to the point that they could not escape, the pickles grew inside the chicken wire and got warped and/or stuck.  I'm now thinking that the cucumbers at my house just don't get enough light, and have been climbing every tall thing in sight because they are desperate.

My useless cucumber trellis

Anyone out there have any luck with trellising cucumbers?  I'd like to try it again - maybe with chain-link instead of chicken wire - because you just can't beat plants that produce fruit about three feet off the ground.