Interested in do-it-yourself vertical structures!

17 years ago

I have been trying more and more vertical gardening, especially with vegetables.

Last year I installed a $6 aluminum arch along the length of one raised bed. It trellised indeterminate tomatoes, two types of yard long beans and eventually a "small" wintermelon vine.

The other bed, I hammered in two long pieces of contuit we had laying around, and tied "hog wire" fencing to it. Nice for beans and cukes.

This year I have put together lots of black plastic tree pots and I'd like to put some climbing beans in a few of them. I need very long supports but don't have any ideas for "found" items. None of the sticks in the garden are ever long enough either!!

We do have plenty of space, however, this is a front yard vegetable garden which I use for demonstration in the neighbourhood. Everything is on a small scale (most lots are way smaller than mine, and sun space is at a premium as we are under and urban forest). My vertical gardening is to show people how to grow lots in a little.

GGG

Comments (28)

ghoghunter
17 years ago
Wow GGG! What a neat new forum. I love things that grow upwards because a lot of my flowers and vines that I grow for my hummingbirds need to go up! Sounds like you are going "hog wild" there in your front yard!!!! Somewhere in one of the forums I remember a post with a picture of someone who grew things on a structure she called her "bedspring". If I remember it right it was kind of like an actual bedsping she had leaned up agains a fence!!! Once when I was in Home Depot I was looking at the long coated wire things people put in their closets..the organizer things and wondering if it could be somehow placed vertically upright in the garden somehow! That was before I had an arbor to support my plants. I am trying to think of what you could place in your pots that wouldn't be too heavy. What you need is something like a clothesline across the top and then you could tie strings up to meet the clothes line or something. The pots could be underneath. I guess maybe that wouldn't be pretty enough though for a front yard. It might be doable though for a back yard? What do you think?
Oh and by the way I have an abundance of scarlet runner beans that are great for attracting hummers if you would like some?
jackier123
17 years ago
I am glad to see this forum as I am planning to do more upwards gardening this year. Hope to see many ideas of different kinds of cages and trellises!

Jackie
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Interesting piece, Tony. And, by the way, "Happy New Year" all. I've been reading, but not posting for a little while. The article reminded me of an address given by Parker J. Palmer several years ago on leadership. I've tried to excerpt the key points, which means that this post is too long and perhaps a bit disjointed. Still I think there's some connections between Palmer's "shadows" and the "dark" tone of the Gehry article. Palmer sets his course this way: I'll give you a quick definition of a leader: a leader is a person who has an unusual degree of power to project on other people his or her shadow, or his or her light. A leader is a person who has an unusual degree of power to create the conditions under which other people must live and move and have their being m conditions that can either be as illuminating as heaven or as shadowy as hell. A leader is a person who must take special responsibility for what's going on inside him or her self, inside his or her consciousness, lest the act of leadership create more harm than good. I want to look at the shadow side of leadership. In the literature on leadership there are so many pamphlets and books which seem to be about "the power of positive thinking." I am afraid that they may feed a common delusion among leaders that their efforts are always well-intended, their power always benign. I suggest that the challenge is to examine our consciousness for those ways in which we project more shadow than light. I'm not talking simply about the heads of nation states, i'm talking, for example, about a classroom teacher who has the power to create conditions under which young people must spend half of their waking hours, day in and day out, five days a week. Have you ever walked into a classroom in which the leader is projecting light? Have you ever walked into a classroom in which the leader is projecting a huge and ominous shadow? That's the question, that's the choice. --"Leading From Within", Parker J. Palmer. That same choice, I would say, is made by architects, landscape designers, nursing home attendants, lawyers, janitors, and taxi drivers. I'm not sure I like the parenting imageI don't think it is necessary to infantalize your client in order to lead the process. But then, "parents" are the archetypical leaders. Any time an "expert" is dealing with a client there is a leadership dynamic at work. And, according to Palmer, that would mean that the shadows within a particular leader are also at work. Palmer suggests that there are many shadows within us, and then focuses on 5 of them: 1. Insecurity-- identity determined by function rather than innate value of one's life: " I go around the country talking to people in higher education, and wherever I go I ask students, 'When was the last time that you were asked to relate your life story to the things you are studying?' They say, 'What? Our life story doesn't count here.' The whole deal in higher education is to replace your 'little' life story with the 'big' story. The whole deal in an expert-dominated, technocratic form of education is to devalue those little parochial stories on behalf of the 'true' one. Reflected in that strategy I see a kind of leadership which is so insecure about its own identity that it has to deprive other people of theirs. "I've talked with some nurses and doctors who say, "Think of what we do to patients in a hospital. Talk about depriving people of identity so that leaders can have more for themselves!" 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Many many years ago, my uncle had a similar structure, though not as elegant-looking. They lived at the last end of nowhere in a very wooded area with thousands of critters who'd decimate a garden, along with a few cattle, barnyard fowl, and a few pigs. He completely enclosed his garden area, sides and top with wire netting about ten feet tall to keep out animals AND birds (crows & corn seedling problems), burying it a couple of feet deep to keep out the diggers, too. Maybe the netting was chicken wire. Occasionally they'd let the guineau fowl into the area to eat the insects. Their yearly survival depended on what they could grow and can, so the garden came first in everything from Spring through Fall. It had a tall latch-gate. When I was a kid, I thought it was really neat! So, I think its usefulness must depend on where one lives and the critters one must contend with. lamd, have fun searching for just the right plan. You may end up designing your own to accommodate your space needs, but it should be fun if you can get the basics under your belt!
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tomintenn
17 years ago
I grow needlepoint ivy as topiary specimens in 5,7 and 10 gallon nursery pots using 1/4 inch hardware cloth rolled into a tube. ("hardware cloth" is basically screen wire with a 1/4 inch mesh and is available at any hardware store) You can vary the size of the tube depending on how tight you roll it. After rolling to the desired diameter, cut the cloth along the vertical axis in a manner that leaves horizontal "tabs". Bend the tabs inward to secure the roll. Put heavy drainage material - I use medium size river rock - in the bottom of the appropriate sized pot. Next put the roll in the center of the pot and fill the pot with potting soil and tamp down. Then fill the tube with peat moss, compressing and tamping as you fill. As you near the top of the tube, place a plastic drink cup with large holes in the bottom, inside the tube and fill in around it with peat moss to hide the cup. Plant with any trailing, climbing plant. Water added regularly to the cup in the top of the tube keeps the peat moss moist without making a mess and facilitates aerial root developement and attachment. You will have to train "leaders" at first to get them started on their vertical journey. I use green, plastic coated twist ties for this. If the vertical tube will be very tall and you feel the tube needs additional structural support, put a length of large diameter PVC pipe inside the wire tube before packing with peat moss. The beauty of this technique is that the wire tubes can be bent and shaped any way you desire. Tubes can be made and placed horizontally to connect one vertical tube to another for an arbor effect. You can even make the letters of the alphabet! With a little imagination, the possibilities are limitless.

Oops! One word of CAUTION: USE HEAVY GLOVES WHEN WORKING WITH HARDWARE CLOTH!!!

Hope this helps.
girlgroupgirl
Original Author
17 years ago
I'm the "bedsprings" gal! I use galvi pipes attached to the fence and strug with wire. They end up looking like bedsprings until they are grown in. But my veggie garden doesn't have a "nice" fence. I can grow some veg I don't mind people picking along the fence line (i grew beans for people last year), but my veg garden is inside of that...

I LOVE the topiary ideas. I have been wanting to put two topiary pots at my front door (I already have the huge cement pots, they must be 40 gallons each!!). I just didn't know what to use as forms, as I like to do things myself, like you. I was thinking of using them to make bases to hold bowling balls. Some people craft with their bowling balls, but I just like the balls on their own, all swirly and psychedelic looking. I think maybe your tubes would work great if I could make them substantial enough to hold the balls. I might be able to put some thin wire around the balls as "ribs" so as not to hide the ball itself, but make a cage for it?
Boy, you could get creative! This is also a neat way to get "evergreen shrubs" if you need them in a narrow space. I might try it!! You could make your forms very tall, it would look very mod and geometric!

GGG
maineman
17 years ago
GGG,

The GardensUp! website caters to vertical gardening with several products. I think that site used to be a high-pressure "infomercial" for a couple of eBooks on the subject, but they seem to have taken a more main-line approach now.

MM
girlgroupgirl
Original Author
17 years ago
maineman (love it!), thank-you for that link. Two things I liked. That they painted their PVC (which I need to do since my PVC structures are in the front yard, and the white is very obvious!), and the cradles. I have cradled before with old pantyhose, but this fellows invetion is pretty ingenious isn't it?

GGG
eswar
17 years ago
All I did was the easiest way for me. (Age and fracture of arm).
Gave the pictures in the Square foot gardening book to the local Hardware stores. He cut, drilled and gave me the frame at about 2/3rd the cost and no shipping. The Nylon trellis is only 50 cents a foot with 6 inches of opening and it is Tough.
maineman
17 years ago
GGG,

Painting the tubing a neutral green does make it look better. I think they say it is fiberglass instead of PVC. Fiberglass tubing might be more rigid than PVC, although there are several grades of PVC.

The cradles do look pretty ingenious, but I suspect they will leave impressions of the cradle "plus sign" on the bottom of the melons they cradle. I prefer the home-made pantyhose cradles because they support the entire bottom of the melon more evenly.

Since the GardensUp website is still under construction, I think their product line is still not very well developed. Their use of guy lines to stabilize their vertical structure is probably a good idea for smaller structures that might tip over in the wind.

However, I think I would prefer larger structures that would be wide enough to be stable without guy lines. I tend to trip on guy lines.

MM
girlgroupgirl
Original Author
17 years ago
Oh, I hear ya about tripping on things :) I put thicker mulch in the paths around the raised beds and of course, I am tripping on it, lol. The problem with pantyhose here is that they have a hard time making it to the end of a season...the sun really breaks them down quickly. We use them at church to tie up vertically grown tomatoes.
PVC serves me well. I use some EMT pipes we have left over go-go cages hubby built for his first rock band, they are handy but the PVC I like because you can drill holes in it. Handy for firming up taller structures. I don't need guy wires, especially with EMT. I stand on a chair and hammer those puppies down in to the clay with my 16lb sledgehammer. Try to hold the EMT still with knees, balance on chair on uneven surface while throwing your weight around AND trying to get an 8 foot pole 2 feet deep into clay, :)

I like the idea of PVC screwed into the sides of raised beds much better!!

GGG
maineman
17 years ago
GGG,

"Try to hold the EMT still with knees, balance on chair on uneven surface while throwing your weight around AND trying to get an 8 foot pole 2 feet deep into clay..."

I don't know what the outside diameter of your EMT pipes is, but if it less than 2 inches, a Post Pounder might come in handy. You can get Post Drivers from several different companies. If your EMT is too big for a 2-inch pounder, they have larger sized pounders available. There is even a fancy Dead Blow Post Driver. And if you were driving T-posts or U-posts, there are even specialty drivers and pullers for them.

MM
girlgroupgirl
Original Author
17 years ago
Oh, MM. That is cool but it spoils all the fun!!

GGG
dethride
17 years ago
If you have a neighbor with a big stand of bamboo ask if you can hack down some of those pesky, invasive stalks. Up here in Blue Ridge it has spread down crreks and rivers and the stands are huge. Even some yards in town are impenetrable. Just a thought.
altorama Ray
17 years ago
i have to garden this way since i have a small yard. however
i don't grow veggies, mostly roses & vines.
here are some pics of things i made for them to climb up.

(i didn't make the arbor though)

fence/trellis made from rebar and springs(from old couch)

stakes & rope work for young plants

I love to use rebar, and rebar wire has tons of uses!!
alida
PRO
Nell Jean
17 years ago
Here's a link to my Stick House.

Here is a link that might be useful: Stick House
altorama Ray
17 years ago
that is awesome!

alida
karenforroses
17 years ago
My husband has built a variety of lattices, tutours, and arches for my roses.
it's so nice to have that man around!

{{gwi:220601}}

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The tutours in the pots are nice for mandivilla.

{{gwi:322263}}
naplesgardener
17 years ago
Beautiful inspiring photos from everyone.
LOVE the "stick house" but it needs a artier name. It's more freeform than sticks, more like the trees that had arms in Wizard of Oz.
altorama Ray
17 years ago
i agree, it deserves a nice gothic name!
alida
eileen_plants
17 years ago
Nice pics, altorama! And the stick house was amazing. Does anyone have any suggestions for narrow, inexpensive vertical structures? Am a complete novice to this and am hoping to have a teeny 4' x 4' plot in a community garden this spring...also, any suggestions for perennials that would be appropriate for the structures? Thanks so much.

Eileen
Bev__
17 years ago
I use those 4' orange electic fence stakes from home depot (about $1 a piece)for lots of things in the yard & gardens.
Pound it in the ground and then slide the PVC pipe over it and into the soil a bit.
Set out several of these with holes drilled in the PVC pipe and string wire through them to make a fairly sturdy, portable & cheap trellis.
I use these stakes to build easy fencing. I use plastic cable ties to secure wire or plastic mesh fencing to them.
Because I dislike the orange and it stands out like a sore thumb, I paint my stakes black.
Pound 2 rows of these stakes in the ground about 4' apart and slide each end of a flexible PVC pipe over them, making an arch. Cover this with garden cloth or plastic to protect plants. I "sew" the fabric to the pvc with fishing line. If you are using plastic, cut some flaps in it, to keep it from blowing away in a big wind.
I use them to brace non secured retaining walls.
At my old house I built a raised bed using them to hold the lumber together. I drilled holes in the timbers and slid them over the stakes, then I lined the interior side with heavy plastic.
girlgroupgirl
Original Author
17 years ago
karen, those are beautiful! I wish I had someone (besides myself) who builds things around here. I also like your round patio. That is another project I need to work on. As a matter of fact, I need vertical "something" to be the privacy area around a round patio.

ggg
karenforroses
17 years ago
Thanks, ggg. DH really does beautiful work (he's building cabinets for either side of the fireplace this winter). He did the paver stones through the rose garden in three weekends - one weekend to dig out the center circle and 4 paths - about 7" deep, one weekend to lay the edging and gravel, and one weekend to actually lay the pavers and spread sand between them. He was really motivated because our neighbor boy was getting married in the rose garden and he didn't want the bride standing on mulch! It has held up well for the past two seasons, including a tough Northern Michigan winter.
pjintheozarks
16 years ago
I love the tiny fence-height arbors using the couch springs as an arch across the top. That is really creative, and neat looking too! I bet this could be done with tubing from a plumbing supply place for something you could walk under, or build double and connect for something that would stand alone.
pghgardnewbie
16 years ago
Wow! There are some neat things on this thread! I love the rose garden- only wish that I had enough sun (and space, and time, and money, and....) to have one of my own. Altorama (not sure that you are still active, your post was in 2006), you have a space much like mine, with a smaller yard. I love the wildness of it- perhaps you can post more recent pics?

I love what you have all done, and have printed out your pics to put in my "idea" book. I have to do a little at a time, so I have to keep track of all of the good ideas that I see around, lest I forget!
missinformation
16 years ago
I'm sitting here with my son freaking out over the couch springs and stick house. Our neighbors already hate us so much for our crazy yard ha ha ha - Just wait! I'm thinking of doing a taller version of the rebar and springs to hide our old ugly chain link fence and partially block the view of the alley with a wall of plants/food. And the stick house... oh I love it! How cute would doggie sized ones be covered in creeping fig or something tight to give the pups a break from the sun?

Here's our cube of food built from sewer pipes. It's a hassle to get them in straight and level, so ours is crooked and crazy looking!
arjo_reich
15 years ago
Hey, I wanted to thank you for the idea for the cattle panels, I suspect they're going to work very well for my melons, sweet peas and green beans in my square-foot gardening project. I might have to brace them from behind once they're fully fruited - don't know, we'll see...

{{gwi:1270241}}
{{gwi:274957}}

The trellises are 4'x8' panels on my 12" deep 4' x 4' beds. The back two beds will have watermelons and cantaloupes on them. However, the trellis on the raised bed in the foreground is about a foot shorter so the wifey can reach the sweet peas and green-beans without grabbing a step-stool...
missinformation
15 years ago
Those look great! Wow, you would die if you saw how messy and unorganized my gardens are this year. I'm jealous!

We have an old low chain-link fence that runs down the back of our yard, and there's an ugly alley behind it. I'm thinking of garbage picking rebar from demolition sites and using that couch spring idea along the entire back of the property, to give some height to the ugly fence and turn it into an edible wall. It's full sun back there, and I can plant in the easement to keep the young plants safe from the chickens. I just love that idea!
vieja_gw
15 years ago
We have a dozen or so 2 1/2 x 5 ft. tomato cages my husband made years ago from that heavy reinforcement wire. Kinda hard to store off season if one has a small space & not exactly beautiful (!) but they sure hold up well over the years for the huge heavy growing indeterminate varieties of tomatoes!

For cucumbers we have a 5 x 20 ft. piece of sheep fencing attached to fence posts & the cukes do fine climbing off the ground on them. The sheep fencing openings is big enough so easy to pull off the dead vines in the Fall. Again, not esp. attractive but for the vegetable garden it is 'function' over 'looks' for us & it keeps the bounty off the ground & in better condition !

Interested in do-it-yourself vertical structures!

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