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Are there benefits of growing vegetables vertically?
Have you tried vertical gardening before? I did this year because I made a mistake! When I planted my butternut squash I did not think they all would do as well as they did. Now I am left with way too many squash plants in too small of a space. I needed to find a solution.
Growing vegetables vertically is supposed to help reduce disease in your plants because plants are not growing directly on the ground. Vertical gardening still requires you to weed and water your plants but you will have more space to grow more vegetables.
Perfect for vertical gardening.
How do you build a simple vertical garden?
My carpentry skills are terrible, so I needed to figure out how I could build something simple that would not fall over in the wind. Look around your property and see if you have some sort of materials or solid structures you could reuse without a lot of extra work. Work smarter, not harder!
What materials do you need to build a vertical garden?
For the first structure I built, I used branches/small logs that we already had cut on our property. I then secured the top with binder twine and a few screws. When placing the branches/logs it is important to be certain the base is secure. You do not want the structure to fall in a wind storm.
Once the logs were positioned and secured, I then wrapped binder twine at different heights around the structure. If you don’t have binder twine, string would work just fine. As the squash begins to grow, the vine will attach itself to the binder twine and move up the structure.
If your vine is not attaching itself to the structure, you can always gently tie the vine with a piece of nylon or something soft to the structure so it will naturally attach itself to the structure and grow vertically.
Why do you have a hockey net in your garden?
I am a big fan of using what I have on our farm. Be creative and look around your property! What do you have that could be used for vegetables or plants to grow vertically? I found an old hockey net and it worked perfectly!
A hockey net was a great option for the second structure. The net already had brackets along the edges that are really meant for the mesh of a hockey net to be secured to. That is, if you were using it as a ‘real hockey net’. I secured binder twine to these brackets so my cucumbers could climb up the twine.
The only downfall to using a hockey net is a hockey net tends to tip forward in the wind. Easy solution! I secured the net to the nearby fence posts on each side. Problem solved!
To see exactly how I built these structures check out this video!
In the fall I will be able to compare how the butternut squash grew vertically versus how the squash grew on the ground. I will definitely keep you posted in the fall to compare results. I will be curious to see if there is actually a difference.
If you missed the blog post How To Harvest Rhubarb Correctly, you have to check it out! It caused quite the debate on some of my social media sites. How do you harvest your rhubarb? Let me know in the comments. I would love your feedback!
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What a clever solution to the squash overload! I’m all for resourcefulness in gardening. Here’s a tip: try using old pantyhose as gentle ties for your vines – they’re soft and stretchy. Has anyone experimented with different plants for vertical gardening? I’m curious to know which ones thrive best in such setups! Thanks!
That’s a great idea! Thank you so much for sharing.