I used 1/2" thin-wall (E.M.T.) conduit for my trellises last year. It can not be threaded. If you look in Lowe's or Home Depot, in their electrical dept., they will have set-screw type fittings to join the corners. These fittings look like a 90 degree elbow with a removable cover on the back of it. If you want to be a little more fancy, you can get a bender to bend the conduit then just use regular straight couplings. My trellis was 8' long. The conduit bowed slightly at this distance, but it held 6 tomato plants just fine. If your trellis is 10' long, you might want a support in the middle, unless you went to 3/4" or 1" conduit. There are electrical fittings to join a tee, but it may not look too good in the middle of a garden trellis. You could also use 1/2" rigid (heavy wall) conduit. This is much more expensive, but it can be threaded and you could use threaded water pipe fittings for the corners.

About the cages, I made some a couple of years ago, and they were more of a hassle than anything. Planning on fencing off the entire garden this year.

TheBug

I used electrical conduit for my trellises. For the crossbar on top I used a piece of wood. Drilled a hole in the conduit and the wood and attached the wood using a 3 inch bolt and wing nut. I also drilled holes every 6 inches in the conduit for stringing Twine across to create a net type support structure.

Okay, went to Lowes today and I think I have this figured out. A 10ft piece of 1/2 conduit is only about 2.69. Wow! That's encouraging, I thought. Then I found the little set-screw 90 degree elbows you were talking about, Bug. Then I thought what could I use to support the middle of a long 8ft horizontal piece, for example? They didn't have anything like a "T". So I went over to the PVC pipe section and found a slip T-joint for 1/2 inch PVC, took it over to the 1/2 inch conduit and the conduit slides right through the top. The bottom of the "T" would fit loosely over the end of a vertical piece of conduit used for support. I figure it doesn't have to fit tight, the weight of the whole thing plus the plants will keep it down, and we don't have strong winds around here. I think I'm in business. Now I just have to find some sort of netting material that I can "weave" conduit through. And maybe I can use those little "U"-shaped metal brackets from the conduit section to hold the conduit to the 12" side of the raised beds. If it fits loose enough, I can move the trellis around to wherever I have brackets already mounted. Whew! Progress!

I just had an interesting thought about the wire cages ... you can get "storage units" which are made with wire panels snapped together to form boxes in any layouts you want - the panels are about 12" across and usually coated with plastic (I've seen white, black, and multi-colored). You could put those together to make whatever cages you want, then take them apart again at the end of the season to stash flat. The plastic coating would keep the metal from rusting, and they should last for a number of seasons. The black ones would visually "disappear" among the plants, I think, while the white or colored ones would be more obvious and you'd have to work them into a color scheme for the garden. Check at discount places like Costco's or BJ's or Sam's Club - I got mine at BJ's, I think. (Now I'm going to have to go get some more to try them out.)

Wow, what a great idea for using the cubes. I have extra from when I constructed my rabbit cage, now I know what to do with them! Hopefully they will keep the raccoons out of my garden!

They also sell them at Target, I think I bought 2 boxes for 22.00 on sale before.

You know, I hadn't thought of that - using those storage unit squares as cages for the garden. I have about 40 - 50 of those left over from a big guinea pig cage that we're no longer using. I'll try some. Thanks Demeter!

What are these squares, can someone post a pic?

Sorry, no digital camera to post a pic. But what they are are these approximately 12 inch x 12 inch grids made of plastic-coated wire. They come in different colors and are packaged twenty something to a box. They come with these little plastic connectors used to fasten the corners together (or you can use plastic cable ties.) You find these grids in stores like Costco, Target, etc. on the west coast. They are typically used to assemble a storage unit for the house or garage. You can store papers, magazines, etc. in them or just use them as shelves for displaying whatever. Check the discount stores that carry all sorts of things for the home.

Okay, after all that I just found a picture online. Check below. Oh, and it looks like they are 14 inches square, not 12.

Here is a link that might be useful: shoplet.com