Growing up

There are some people that look at the garden I have now and say that it is easy to garden when you have this much space.  Actually, it is harder to garden when you have this much space!  There are more weeds, more ground to cover, and more time to do it all.  It does have its advantages, but limited space should not be a reason to not garden at all.  I have kept some type of garden in most all places that I have lived in my adult life.  Many times the space was limited.  Vertical gardening is the way I made the most out of limited space.  There are many crops that prefer growing up rather than out.  You also don't have to spend a bunch of money on fancy planters when an old garden gate or some fallen branches can supply a support for those upward bound crops.  Pruning a tomato plant to grow up more than out will also provide you with plenty of fruit without all the space.  Even crops that don't grow up naturally can be put into a planter which stacks your garden for low growing crops like lettuce and strawberries.

I have used the netting from our Christmas tree wrapping to train vines up which has gotten additional use out of something most people would discard rather than put in storage for the next six months.  If you are in a community that doesn't allow vegetable gardens, vertical use of space is a great way to sneak those edible crops into the landscape.  That alone is a whole topic yet to be discussed.  Some of the best crops to go vertical with are:

• pole beans
• peas
• tomatoes
• hardy kiwi
• cucumbers
• small melons
• squash
• pumpkins, especially smaller pie varieties
• Malibar spinach
• any crop you can put in a small pot or planter such as lettuce, strawberries, baby carrots, etc.

Your imagination and creative use of height will be your only limitation to how high you can go.