The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Best trellis wire gauge?

which gauge wire is best for building a trellis for black berries


In the beginning we used 12 gauge galvanized wire for trellis support because someone had given us what was left of a roll.

After several years of experimentation I'm ready to say 14 gauge wire is easier to work with and seems to be more than strong enough.

I might switch back to 12 gauge if our rows were longer, but we don't have any large scale orchard plans like that.



Anna Hess's books
Want more in-depth information? Browse through our books.

Or explore more posts by date or by subject.

About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.


I am using 14 gauge and U Posts to hold up my tomatoes this year. 12 gauge seems like it would be over kill. I find the 14 gauge to be quite stiff and hard to work with compared to 17 gauge.
Comment by RDG Mon Jun 25 06:45:22 2012
RDG --- I suspect different gauges are better for different kinds of trellises. For example, grapes and kiwis might grow big branches that always stay on the same trellis, which would be a reason to use heavy duty wire. But with brambles and other fruits where you prune out canes every year, a really thin wire seems to do the trick!
Comment by anna Mon Jun 25 19:30:50 2012





profile counter myspace



Powered by Branchable Wiki Hosting.

Required disclosures:

As an Amazon Associate, I earn a few pennies every time you buy something using one of my affiliate links. Don't worry, though --- I only recommend products I thoroughly stand behind!

Also, this site has Google ads on it. Third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to a website. Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to users based on their visit to various sites. You can opt out of personalized advertising by visiting this site.