When You Can't Go Out Go UP!

I recently snagged this metal garden arbor from Hay & Needle for $90 and free shipping.  I buy a lot from this company and they've never let me down.  This latest purchase will be my 5th arbor, so no doubt, I have a thing for vertical gardening!

You see, as I was planning my upcoming season, I ran into a familiar problem:  I want to grow too many things for the amount of space I have.  Add the challenge that I never plant the same thing in the same space two years in a row, puzzling out my garden plots can be a big challenge.

So with more plants than space, my only options are:

1. Add more space (nope, too much work)
   
2. Grow fewer things (haha yeah, no)
3. GROW UP!

A-hah! #3!!

My vegetable garden already has three arbors and two 4' X 6' trellises.  About half of what I grow, grows UP, and that includes most tomatoes, cucumbers, pole beans, peas, and some varieties of squash and melons.  I absolutely love trellising for it's space-saving benefits, but I also love that it creates interest and a "secret garden" feel to the space.

Here's a photo from early in the season when you can easily see the structures:

And here is later, when it's all in full swing:

While trellising has many benefits, thought has to be given to placement.  You don't want tall plants to shade out any sun-loving plants north of them.  And I've made some mistakes.  In the photo above, I've joined two arbors to form a bean tunnel.  And while my bean tunnel ended up being everything I'd hoped, I found that pole beans--growing very thick and tall--were shading out too much of my garden late in the day.  So I've had to adjust.  Now I only plant lower growing tomatoes, cucumbers, melons or peas in that spot.

On the flipside, plants such as carrots, beets, lettuce and many herbs are very tolerant of--and even prefer--some shade, especially in the hottest hours of the afternoon.  So shade isn't always a bad thing.  You just need to think about and plan for it.

Here's a copy of my garden plot with the planned placement of my new arbor shown in red.  I won't be able to install it until fall, but knowing I have it helps me figure out my garden plots for the upcoming seasons. 

I know next summer seems like a long way off, but if you're planting things like garlic, onions or shallots, they will go in well before Halloween and will stay there until at least June of next year.  So I was quite serious when I said I have to "puzzle this out".  With my summer crop in the ground now, a fall crop, things that will over-winter and more vegetables I want to plant for spring, I have to use several iterations of this plot map to help me puzzle it all out.

Fortunately, I'm very fond of puzzles, love plotting, planning and scheming.  So for me, this is one of the funnest aspects of vegetable gardening.  AND I get to do it at the comfort of my kitchen table with a nice glass of wine, which makes it one of the easiest of garden tasks! 😄

Happy Gardening!