Vertical Gardening

Vertical Gardening is a great concept for any organic vegetable garden. You probably use this for veggies like tomatoes already so they don’t get out of control. There are other veggies in your organic vegetable garden that could benefit by going vertical.

You can also use this concept for Fruit Trees. It involves training your tree onto a trellis. If it works for grape vine, it can work for a plum tree. It's not simple, but worth it if you need the space.

The benefits for Vertical Gardening include:

- Save space

- Easier to manage

- Crop is not on the soil so reducing soil borne diseases and access for pests

- Leaves have more exposure to the sun and better air circulation around the crop reducing chance of disease

- Dry faster after getting wet, once again reducing chance of disease

Veggies to consider growing vertically:

- Passionfruit

- Grapevines

- Tomatoes

- Cucumbers

- Acorn and Butternut squash (pumpkins)

- Garden or Snap Peas

- Pole Lima, Snap or Roma Beans

- Some Melons

- Get creative and add to the list!

OK, so how do you set up the trellis system?

This will depend on the plant. Some plants, such as small melons and squash (pumpkins) are heavy so will require a strong trellis set up.

- We have used wire around the rain water tank for passionfruit and cherry tomatoes.

- Make a tee-pee with tomato stakes or bamboo sticks and tie at the top to secure.

- Stakes for tomatoes

- Wood lattice (for a lighter plant).

- Set up 2 poles with wire between them (like a flat clothes line)

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