Bomber: Good advice from Murky. You might think about building a stronger grape arbor when the ground thaws. There will always be high winds at this time of year, and when your vines are heavier and more extensive the problems could be worse. Wooden posts sunk 18 inches into the ground are better than a couple of light steel posts that are driven in. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Bluberrier, what we're talking about here is a steel trellis which means you've gotta be able to weld. Lowes, Home Depot, Amazon etc sell a cheap 110v Lincoln wire feed welder that'll git 'er done.110v is important because you can use heavy duty extension cords or a small generator to reach the site. Unpainted steel is the way to go, just let it rust and drive in new post bottoms every thirty years and weld together. As cheap steel goes there's 1/4" pencil steel (used for concrete reinforcing); 3/8, 1/2, and 5/8" rebar; 1/2, 3/4, 1, 1 1/4, 1 1/2, 2" etc ID (inside diameter which means OD outside diameter is bigger so 1/2" ID is more like 13/16 OD) black pipe which is used for gas piping and sold at plumbing supply houses; and of course good old tee posts, 6,8,10' with 2' under the ground. Rebar and pencil steel comes in 20' lengths and is sold at ready mix plants, Lowes etc. and goes for about $6 for 1/2" around here. Black pipe comes in 21' lengths and 1/2" is about $14 around here. The key to getting a good price is to call contractor's supply houses and ask for it. Say something like " I need a price on 9 lengths of 1/2" black pipe and 4 lengths of 1" black pipe. I'm going to weld it up into a grape trellis so it can be rusty, but it has to be straight". Then be prepared to haul it off on a pickup with a lumber rack. Black pipe is easy to carry on a lumber rack because it's so stiff. Maybe buy the pipe first and then pick up any rebar you need so it stiffens when bundled with the pipe. Sometimes it works best to bundle 7 pieces of pipe together with a ton of duct tape then tie THAT down. Industrial suppliers don't like to hand hold so come prepared and act like you know what you are doing. For the price, 1/2" black pipe and tee posts are a heck of a deal so I suggest you design around the 21' length, which is what I did. You could make a 21' square trellis with 1" pipe around the perimeter and 1/2" pipe on 7' centers in between. This would make a 3 row (14' wide) by three row arbor with 9 posts and nine grape vines trained up them. The 14' dimension leaves 7' to split in a 42" cantilever on each side. Then you run high tensile wire (available at fencing suppliers) on 21" centers which is tensioned with turnbuckles and pulls against the stiffer 1" pipe on the perimeter. Weld little one inch long tabs of pencil steel verticle on the center 1/2" pipes on the 21" centers to tie the high tensile wire to. Use some 20" or 24" lengths of 1/2" rebar to make angle braces on the four corners. This all may seem hard to visualize, but lay it out on graph paper and it's really pretty simple. Make each 1/4" equal 21". But that's not what I did. I have about a 75' long trellis. The 1/2" pipe runs north to south with only wire running east to west. The ends are 1 1/2" pipes in the ground supporting a 1 1/2" horizontal, and a deadman anchor and wire pulling against the horizontal in 2 places at each post for the wires to tension against. Of course 3 rows 7' apart would make sense here also, but I went 4 rows at 7' for 21' w and welded half a length onto a full length for a total of 31' 6" with 66" of cantilever on each side of the 21'. 3x22= 66 so the outer 3 wires are at 22" oc. Truth to tell, I went 9' between pipes for no particular reason, but the resulting 28 grapes was not enough to experiment with new varieties, so I planted grapes half way between on free standing 4' posts for 4x13= 52 vines. I train the vines on the wires using a Geneva double curtain training system ( described in The Grape Grower by Lon Rombaugh, which anyone with more than 5 vines MUST buy). Finally varieties. All the varieties you ordered sound fine. Steuben has been fantastic for me, with catawba mediocre in comparison. Reliance worked well in every way for me except my family didn't like the flavor as much as others. Canadice is great but is not as aggressive a grower as the others so don't plant it on a corner. Jupiter (raintreenursery.com) is by far the best grape I grow, a must have. Glenora is also a must have. Suffolk Red is a family favorite. "Price" is excellent and very early. Venus is very good. Yates is very late and keeps on the vine into Nov., with average flavor. rakgrape.com is a top supplier, and Raintree seems to be out of Price right now. I apologize for the length of the post, but hope it helps.

I built a simple "arbor" with 2 4'x4's firmly cemented into the ground about 24' apart. Used vinyl coated cloths line (wire) to tie them together forming 4 lines between the posts (7' high). This was enough space (barely) for 3 vines to climb up and cover completely. A "real" arbor appears to be similar but with 2 sides that loop over the top to form a tunnel that one can walk thru.

lass, get yourself a book on building decks. The structure you're describing will be framed just like the understructure of an elevated deck. Investigate post spacing and joist sizing ... and, yes, a structure can be built without a center post if you design it right. I can't put my hands on it right now, but my deck book has a table that shows how much space different size joists can span. I think mature grapevines would eat a 1 x 2 for lunch. A structure like you're describing will need some hefty lumber ... from the posts, to the joists, to the cross pieces. The pergola Eric shows looks like it has 6 x 6 posts, and equally beefy lumber in the overhead framing. Connie