I have several years of experience growing several crops in vertical gardens, and I like sharing my proficiency and enthusiasm with others.
Vertical gardening allows you to grow a huge variety of plants in small areas while still enjoying solid yields and lots of delicious fruits.
DIY Vertical Veggie Garden
You might not understand it, however you can grow and collect great crops of veggies in 3 to 5-gallon containers. You can even grow fantastic little herb gardens indoors in little containers on window sills. I’ve likewise grown pumpkins, yardlong beans, potatoes, yellow crookneck squash, and zucchini in my vertical gardens.
In this guide, I’ll show you how to put together some vertical gardens of your own and share some suggestions for how best to maintain them.
Here’s an easy detailed guide to assist you set up your first vertical garden. I attempted this out myself and it worked incredibly.
Supplies and Directions for Building a Do It Yourself Vertical Garden
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to construct a vertical garden (as envisioned above)
What You’ll Need
- Wood pallet.
- Sandpaper.
- Staple weapon and staples.
- Hammer and nails.
- Landscaping paper.
- Planting soil.
- 1/4-thick medium-density fibreboard (MDF).
- Plants.
Directions
- Sand down any rough spots– together with all the corners– on the pallet.
- Nail the MDF to the back using about 12 nails if the pallet has no support. (This is to avoid the soil from spilling out of the back.).
- Double up your landscaping paper and staple it along the sides, bottom, and back of the pallet.
- Lay your pallet down flat and fill it with potting soil. Press the soil down strongly, but leave enough space for planting.
- Begin planting, beginning with the bottom of the pallet. As you work your method up, ensure each of the plants are packed in tight prior to carrying on to the next layer.
- As soon as all the plants are secured, water them completely.
- Leave your pallet horizontal for 2 weeks to permit the plants to settle.
- Stand the pallet upright and delight in!
How to Support Your Vertical Garden.
In the image below, you can see precisely how a vertical garden requires to be developed. For one, there requires to be a lot of support for the weight of the plants you’re growing. Keep in mind that the vegetables that you’re growing vertically can quickly be taken down by strong gusts. So the much better assistance you can have for your vegetables being grown vertically, the much better off you will be.
Some people stick their supports in the soil, but I strongly suggest attaching your assistances to the containers by screws or nails. That way, you won’t need to fret about your veggies falling down or getting blown over by strong winds or thunderstorms.
You likewise need to set up the bed for your plants and put the growing supports in location before you ever plant your vegetables in the beds.
Develop a Basic Frame.
More Gardening Ideas & Resources
You can simply build a strong frame like in the image listed below (or just a basic cube-like structure) if you require an idea for a place to start. If you construct it in a 12′ x 12′ square, you’ll be able to grow all the cucumbers you– and numerous households– will be able to use. As soon as you have actually the frame constructed, be sure to develop a door and cover the sides and top with hog wire.
Make certain that you use treated lumber for your grow frames and for your containers. I put my growing containers around the bottom of the frames, and I put thick black plastic down in the floor of the enclosure to obstruct out lawn and weeds. I often set an outdoor chair inside the enclosure and simply head out there and sit for a while at nights. When the enclosure gets covered with cucumbers, it appears like a cucumber home.
Note: If you’re using dealt with wood boxes for your containers, they should be set on 4 x 4 lumbers, or perhaps on railroad ties, so that they will be up off the ground.
How to Motivate Vertical Growth.
In most cases, you can simply plant something as you usually would and then move the vines to encourage them to mature and over your vertical supports. I typically utilize cotton gardening twine to connect mature plants to their supports, motivating them to grow vertically.
Hog Wire Works Great for Added Support.
You can also utilize what is referred to as hog wire to build terrific support walls to grow cucumbers on. You’ll be able to walk along the wall of hog wire that they’re growing on and pick off the fruits if you grow your cucumbers this method.
To do this, you can set up 4 x 4 wooden posts about 2 feet in the ground with 6 feet sticking up in the air and fasten hog wire throughout the poles like a fence. Plant your cucumber plants along the bottom, about a foot apart. As the cucumber plants grow, train them up onto the hog wire. You can weave the growing plants into the hog wire. The cucumber plants will keep growing, and you’ll be rewarded in time with great deals of tasty cucumbers along your vertical wall.
You can grow great squash up on an A-frame assistance like in this photo. Make certain to develop a secure, heavy-duty frame for squash plants, however.
Prepare Your Containers and Soil for Vertical Gardening.
It’s essential that the containers be prepared properly with correct drainage and a good mix of topsoil and fertilizer if you’re doing your veggie gardening in containers.
Make Certain Your Containers Drain Well.
It’s a great idea to bore lots of drainage holes into your containers and line the bottoms with screen wire (to keep those holes open). I likewise typically put 4– 6 inches of crushed gravel and small stones in the bottoms of my containers– about 1 inch for each 5 inches of soil. I generally purchase the larger crushed gravel, because it enables more drainage and I like to load my gravel in.
You can fill the containers to the top with good-quality topsoil and a compost/manure mixture as detailed below once you’ve packed the gravel in.
Use Only Well-Rotted Manure or Garden Compost.
Be sure that any manure or compost that you use is extremely well decomposed, or you’ll burn your vegetable plants up. Mix 80 percent topsoil and 20 percent well-rotted manure or well-rotted compost for best outcomes. I like to blend my soil in a wheelbarrow when I’m filling up new containers.
How to Prepare Your Soil.
Before I plant my veggies, I include a pound of 5-10-5 fertilizer to the soil every 20 feet along the row of plants. This remains in addition to the 20 percent of well-rotted manure or garden compost.
You’ll find that your plants will begin off extremely strong and grow up and over the vertical assistances rapidly if you do it this method. When my plants initially begin to grow veggies, I side-dress them with another pound of 5-10-5 fertilizer for every single 20 feet of plants.
NoteAbout every three years, I take all the soil out of my containers (down to the gravel) and mix it with more well-rotted manure or well-rotted compost. By doing the soil over, as I call it, I keep my veggies growing well. This procedure is greatly assisted by my garden compost bin, which I highly recommend assembling in your house if you don’t currently have one.
You can set up a section of fence like this image and plant your cucumbers along it. They will mature the fence and be easy to choose.
When Should You Water Your Plants?
Make sure to water your vegetables just when the sun is not shining on them. You really require to water before sunrise or after sundown. I have my sprinklers on timers. They come on at about 10 pm and go off at 10:30 pm. I try to guarantee that any soil where I have veggies planted gets at least one inch of water a week. I do not have to water if it rains this much.
Tips on Growing Different Vegetables And Fruits.
There are many various, terrific foods that you can grow in your vertical garden. Here are simply a few that I have actually had some success with
Cucumbers.
Cucumber vines growing up in the air on strong assistances will produce huge amounts of delightful fruits. If you pick them off with consistency, you’ll be rewarded with a bounty of cucumbers to produce tasty pickles with. I like to pick them when they are a little bit larger than a guy’s thumb and make delicious dill pickles with them.
Potatoes.
In the early spring or late fall, prior to it’s time to plant other veggies, you can plant numerous varieties of potatoes in your containers and grow bumper crops. They will grow extremely quickly in the prepared loose soil.
Tomatoes.
In the last few years, I’ve begun to grow primarily heirloom tomatoes, consisting of lots of ranges of cherry and pear tomatoes. Absolutely nothing, and I suggest nothing, beats the taste of treasure tomatoes that you grow yourself.
NoteWhen I grow my tomatoes, I also plant marigolds in hanging baskets overhead in my growing enclosures, since tomato worms can not stand marigolds. The mere existence of marigolds ought to suffice to keep tomato worms, and different other garden pests, far from your precious fruits.
Pumpkins.
I’ll also frequently include mesh internet under the larger pumpkins when they get growing to offer them with additional support. I have actually grown some this way that have actually weighed over 100 pounds hanging 8– 10 feet in the air.
Pole Beans.
In the video listed below, you’ll see how to grow pole beans on a teepee made out of bamboo poles. This is a great way to grow pole beans, specifically if you keep in mind to anchor your teepees well with tent stakes and rope so that they won’t blow over in a strong wind or thunderstorm.
Make certain to leave enough room to walk in under your teepee and pick pole beans from the inside (as well as from the outside). And do not forget to do your own research and discover different ranges to grow, such as yardlong or purple pole beans. Kids specifically love to see the yardlong pole beans growing, and the beans are so extremely tasty.
Do Your Own Research study.
Vertical gardening is greatly superior to row crops in some methods. When planted with the traditional approach, Pole beans, tomatoes, and cucumbers all grow much better in vertical gardens than they do. Every year, I grow substantial amounts of cucumbers, pole beans, and squash using various forms of vertical gardening, and so can you.
Do your own research, and plant things that you and your family like to eat. I keep a journal every year about my gardens so I can refer back to it in the years to come.
Purple pole beans are a great choice for a newbie vertical garden.
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