Vertical Vegetables & Fruit

For gardeners working in confined spaces, Rhonda Massingham Hart presents an ingenious solution for maximizing productivity: grow up! With tepees, trellises, hanging baskets, cages, wall pockets, and multilevel raised beds, you can reap bountiful harvests in even the tiniest growing areas. From kiwis on a clothesline to tomatoes dangling outside a window, Vertical Vegetables & Fruit shows you how to construct and maintain a thriving and abundant garden in whatever small space you have available.  Get big results from small growing spaces with this guide to creating low-maintenance, high-yield vertical gardens.
Rhonda Massingham Hart is a master gardener and the author of several books including Vertical Vegetables & Fruit, The Dirt-Cheap Green Thumb, and Deerproofing Your Yard & Garden. She has written articles for a variety of magazines, including Flower & Garden, Woman's Day, and Fine Gardening. She writes extensively on organic gardening techniques and lives in Washington State. Limited Space and Little Time to Garden? Try Growing Your Food Up



In a very small footprint, you can take advantage of vertical acreage by planting vegetables and fruit that climb, ramble, and twine toward the sun. Small, contained spaces also minimize weeding and pest control and maximize your harvest.



Begin with peas and beans, the stars of climbing vines, and then explore the vertical possibilities of other popular garden foods:



* Grow tomatoes in a hanging planter; pick them off the dangling vines

* Train cucumbers along the sloping sides of an A-frame trellis

* Tie melon vines to a fence and use slings to cradle the heavy fruit

* Weave sweet potato vines through a trellis; enjoy the foliage as a decorative plant and dig the potatoes for dinner

* Confine sprawling squash plants to a tepee instead of having them take over valuable garden space

Part I: The Whys, Whats, and How-Tos of Making Food Grow Up

1 It's Time to Grow Up!

2 Making the Most of Materials

3 Traditional Techniques: Tepees and Trellises

4 Not-So-Traditional Tricks: Hanging, Stacking, Towering, and More



Part II: Vertical Annual Vines

5 Beans

6 Peas

7 Tomatoes

8 Cucumbers

9 Squash and Gourds

10 Melons

11 Sweet Potatoes



Part III: Fine Perennial Fruits

12 Blackberries

13 Raspberries

14 Strawberries

15 Grapes

16 Kiwis

17 The Essentials of Espalier



Appendix 1: A Note on Recommended Varieties

Appendix 2: Direct Seeding

Appendix 3: Growing Your Own Seedlings

Appendix 4: Hardening Off Tender Transplants