Vertical gardening is a new and exciting method to try out. It maximizes the use of space above an existing garden and will significantly increase one’s kitchen vegetable production.

Believe it or not, most home vegetable gardeners already practice aspects of this technique. It is our standard way of growing many legumes such as peas, fava beans and pole beans.

To do so, we normally plant the seed in a single row and add a vertical structure, such as a post-supported net, to allow the plants to climb and minimize their footprint.

This illustrates the key reasons for introducing vertical elements into our growing plan. The first is to efficiently use all of your available growing area. Consider a robust zucchini in an 8-foot-by-4-foot raised bed.

Given good nutrition, one plant could spread to about 3feet by 3 feet. If you had only one raised bed, that’s about of one-third of the bed taken up with one plant.

A single plant grown vertically on a structure would have a footprint of no more than two square feet, leaving an additional seven square feet for more vegetables than the one zucchini would allow to spread. This area would be even greater for one rambling winter squash, which could easily take over a whole bed.

Second, you are efficiently using the previous unexploited volume of space above your raised bed to grow more. This also helps in harvesting for those with mobility issues — no need to bend over!

Third, this technique is applicable to in-ground and raised beds as well as containers and other options. It is also applicable to fall and winter gardens but on a much smaller scale.

Fourth, adopting this method provides opportunities for more vegetable production by incorporating other process such as successional planting, inter-cropping, and companion plantings. The objective here is to keep the bed filled and to deny weeds sunlight and space as well as providing shade and conserving soil moisture.

Vertical elements for training vegetables are limited only by your own imagination. Common structures include pole-supported netting (wire or plastic), teepees, double A-frame linear structures, calf panels at 45 degrees to the end of the bed, calf panel pergolas, tomato cages, etc.

However …

So far so good, but are there any drawbacks to gong vertical? Indeed, there are!

To be successful you must use a plant that already possesses a vining or semi-vining growth habit. Over the last few years, plant breeders have been adding to the list of such plants that fall into this category. Many small winter squash varieties such as delicata and butternut are now available, as are new varieties of zucchini that produce on a central upright stem or are rapid climbers.

New developments in this area and seed selection will be covered in the presentation mentioned below.

By reducing the footprint of crops that can grow vertically, you open up more real estate to further planting. Successional planting is a kind of continuous method where you sow seed at different time intervals ensuring continuous supply, rather than planting a full row all at once.

Similarly, inter-cropping can also be used in the space between other vegetables rows filling them with a quick growing crop such as lettuce, radish, Asian greens, etc. The aim is to cover all available ground for weed suppression.

All of these ideas will be discussed in detail in an upcoming Master Gardener Green Thumb Presentation set for noon on Thursday, Aug. 22 at St. Andrews Church, 510 E. Park Ave., Port Angeles, as well as a Digging Deeper Saturday session from 10:30 a.m.-noon on Aug. 24 at the Woodcock Demonstration Garden in Sequim, where we can discuss and see some of these examples at work.

Bob Cain is a Clallam County Master Gardener.

Combining vegetables and vertical elements

Simple vertical net — Peas, fava beans, pole beans, runner beans, snow peas

Teepees and tripods — Pole beans, cucumbers, climbing zucchini, squash

Double A-frame linear run — Pole beans, cucumbers, climbing zucchini, squash

45-degree pitched panel – Cucumbers, especially small picking ones

Calf panel pergolas — Pole beans, climbing zucchini, climbing winter squash

Calf panel A-fames — Cucumbers, pole beans, climbing squash

Tomato cages – also useful for supporting vertical central stem zucchini