Over the years, we’ve experimented with a number of vertical vegetable garden ideas. While we live on 4.5 acres, most of that isn’t farmable, plus we’re in the woods, where adequate sunny areas are limited.

In order to get the most growing in the least amount of space we’re using several types of vertical vegetable garden ideas. Vertical gardening not only saves space, but it makes harvesting and tending plants easier throughout the season.

You can grow a surprising amount of food in much less space with careful planning and creative use of space and materials.  Naturally some vegetables need more space than others, such as the spreading and vining plants like squash, cucumbers and tomatoes (which apart from the determinate type will need vertical training of some sort).

Benefits to Vertical Gardening

As with home construction, and how a two story house gives double the space on the same smaller footprint, we can maximize the growing areas by building up. Other advantages include more air circulation, easier access for inspection and treatment, easier to mulch, and easier to harvest.

• Grow more in less space
• A little set up time saves lots in harvesting time
• Helps protect plants from pests
• Easier to mulch
• Well constructed supports help plants aerate, pollinate and thrive

Here’s more about growing vertical with tomatoes. 

Vertical Gardening Systems

Vertical gardening can be as simple as pounding a stake in the ground and tying off to it. Or it can be as elaborate as a commercial string and wire system.

It can certainly be a DIY as we discovered with the “Florida System” using a weave of string and staking. And there are cages, and other wire configurations which serve the purpose.  Except for the commercial string and wire set-up, we’ve deployed many of these methods and they all have their good points and disadvantages.

Growing vertically can be as simple as pounding a stake in the ground and tying off to it.

Use Material on Hand First

Creative and frugal gardening is about using whatever you have on hand to do the job. For instance we have a patch of bamboo in our yard and it needs thinning each year. We love the practicality of growing our own support systems.

You can see more on bamboo for vertical growing in this article on how to make a bamboo bean teepee trellis.

Vertical Gardening Ideas Can Include

There are as many ways to grow up as there are materials to work with. Bamboo, pipe, wire, even pallets can be useful.

• Twine
• Bamboo
• Cattle Panels
• Palettes
• Plant cages
• Plant towers
• PVC Pipe for support
• Trellis’ out of wood, plastic, bamboo and metal

Vegetable Garden Ideas for Vegetable Gardening

Stacking Planters – Great for Decks, Patios and Balconies

Stacking planters are a popular choice for vertical gardening. They’re especially helpful for patios, especially when the planters are on castors or plant dollies. It’s good to be able to move them around if needed for cleaning, harvesting, sun exposure and cleaning under and around them.

We talk more about the pros and cons of growing vertically using plant towers and stacking garden planters in these articles.

Jute Twine for Garden Plant Supports for Growing Vertically

You can buy a bundle of stakes for relatively cheap. Use plastic ties or jute (tied loosely to allow for expansion). We use the slip plastic ties like the kind that come with trash bags these days as there’s always extra.

Alternately, you can get zip ties. We prefer those over the paper covered wire twist ties as those disintegrates more easily, plus can be a liability for flip flop feet if they fall onto the ground in the garden.

You can get plastic covered twist ties these days and some come on spools with a built-in cutter for quick and easy field adjustments for the perfect size. The biggest advantage of these is that there aren’t lots of little pieces to keep up with.

Staking Tomatoes with Jute Twine – Part 1

Staking Tomatoes with Jute Twine – Part 2

Vertical Garden Ideas – Cattle Panel Garden Tunnel

We will start with our latest structural venture —– a cattle panel garden tunnel. We’ve seen these first hand and really like their simplicity and (yes) the way they look. My wife says I’m making a man cave-not so! All pole bean and cuke pickers are invited. Some of our FB fans have sent us photos of their garden tunnels, so we’re pretty excited about seeing squash, cucumbers and pole beans forming an arbor.

Our farmer friend Harvey Moser has them all over his garden plots, and says he enjoys picking in the shade that the cattle panel arches provide.

Where to Buy Cattle Panels for Gardening

Our 3, 16 feet x 50 inch panels cost $34 each at Tractor Supply and are stout enough to hold a load of squash, cukes, or beans. Cattle panels will last numerous seasons, so this is an investment that, divided over the years, will cost very little.

You can also buy cattle panels on Amazon, and as of this writing, there’s at least one company offering free shipping with Prime, delivered to your door. Or, you can get them from Lowes or Home Depot, likely also delivered. However, these are not as sturdy a grade as you will get from a Tractor Supply type store.

Cattle panels that come in rolls will be too flimsy for vertical vegetable garden tunnels.

If the cattle panels come in rolls rather than flat, then it will be too flimsy for cattle panel tunnels in your garden. Those might be okay for tomato cages, but they’re not sturdy enough for a tunnel garden.

Best to buy from your local Tractor Supply store. You may be able to order ahead and pick it up from your local store.

Tie Down and Anchor Cattle Panel Garden Tunnels

For anchorage, we’ve used what we have laying around:

• 12″ cinder blocks
• recycled T-posts
• wire
• heavy-duty UV-resistant zip ties

We’ll also tie off the lower grids to the strings of the straw bales which should help keep them from leaning. As the bales get water logged, the increased weight will add to anchoring of the frame.

With the 16 ft x 50 inch cattle panels, we can achieve over 6 feet of head clearance and about a 7 foot width at the base.

Here’s a video clip on our latest panel last spring for squash, cucumbers and scarlet runner beans.

Cattle Panel Gardening – Video 1

Cattle Panel Gardening for Garden Tunnels and Archways – Video 2

Cattle Panel Trellis – Garden Arbor – Part 3

This is a short 34 second video clip with music only.

Cattle Panel Garden Trellis Arbor – Part 4

This is the 6:59 minute extended version with voiceover explanation or our cattle panel garden trellis.

We also grew loofah gourds on this cattle panel tunnel and they did great! Also, you may be interested in our article on making soap with homegrown luffas.^[1]https://www.gardensall.com/growing-loofah/^[2]https://www.gardensall.com/luffa-soap/

An Amazing Gourd Tunnel

Apparently, there are many ways to construct these garden tunnels, AKA “Squash Tunnels” or “Gourd Tunnels”. This image is a dream tunnel of squash and gourds. Maybe our next project will be something like this. It sure is beautiful! Please let us know if you know the origin of this photo so we may give proper credit to whoever created this masterpiece.

This gourd tunnel is not ours but we love this photo, so had to include it.

Cattle Panel Arch Converts to Greenhouse or Cold Frame Tunnel

A bonus feature of this cattle panel style of a vertical garden can easily be covered with UV grade poly sheeting to serve as a cold frame tunnel.

This can really extend the growing season. You can read about our cattle panel greenhouse here.

Apart from a vertical vegetable garden, these 16 ft cattle panels can also be used to make chicken trucks and other kinds of poultry shelters. You’ll find plans for those here.^[3]https://www2.ca.uky.edu/agcomm/pubs/ASC/ASC189/ASC189.pdf

If you want some smaller vertical garden ideas for now, here are some others you may enjoy

• Gutter gardens
• How to build a cold frame greenhouse
• Straw bale gardens, where we talk the benefits and how to’s on SBGs.

Many people are concerned about the possibility of pesticides in the straw bales. We touch on this in the straw bale gardens article as well.

Depending on your capabilities and available time, you can either make your own, or buy something ready made, such as in these examples from Amazon with free shipping with Prime. Please keep us posted on what you end up doing.