Getting a Start on Vertical Gardening

When a garden has only limited space, one way to make the most of every inch is to support vining plants to grow up rather than to sprawl across the ground. I've learned so much from the the wonderful Square Foot Gardening books by Mel Bartholomew.  He has some great suggestions for making the most of small garden areas, and the close placement of plants in a series of small beds.


Inspired by this, I created six four-foot square raised beds, edged by concrete blocks, which are my vegetable garden.  As Bartholomew suggests, I put trellises on the north sides of the beds, so that they do not shade the shorter plants in the rest of the bed.  I use these trellises for my peas, beans, cucumbers and melons.  If allowed to sprawl on the ground, they'd take up far more space than they do upright.

I also use tomato cages to keep my tomato plants upright.  I grow indeterminate tomatoes, so that they continue to bear over a long season, and they get really huge.

My strawberries are doing well in a system of stacking planters that allow many plants to grow vertically in a small area.   I know some gardeners create their own vertical planters for strawberries in sections of large PVC pipes with holes drilled in the sides for the plants, or from a couple of plastic 5-gallon buckets, or columns made from the heavy wire panels used for animal fencing, lined with burlap to hold the soil in. There are lots of great ideas out there, and many YouTube videos showing how they're done. 

Before reusing the trellises, stakes and tomato cages, it is best to disinfect them.  Especially if you have experienced diseases in your garden the previous year, this is well worth the effort, to prevent them from infecting this year's garden as well.  Spraying them down with a fungicide, either in the fall before storing them over the winter, or in the spring before putting them back in the garden, can help protect your investment of time and money in this year's garden. 

Some people dip trellises and cages in a large container of fungicide and let them soak for ten minutes, but I don't have such a large container.  Like many other gardeners, I spray them thoroughly with a solution of one part bleach to ten parts water, then let them dry. This is also good for cleaning pots before reuse. This lets your garden get off to to a good, healthy start.

This week I have been spraying down my trellises and tomato cages, and getting them set up in the garden.  Several of the tomato plants, which I started in April protected by the wall of water garden protectors, now have small green tomatoes.