DIY Vertical Garden

[govikes211]

Does anyone here have a vertical garden or has any experience making a vertical garden? I'm limited with space at my home and have been researching ways to make one myself to grow herbs and small vegetables. Any ideas or tips would be appreciated.

[pushbutton]

No technical experience with one in particular, but do grow as many things as I can on a fence and used to container garden a lot, which is essentially the same thing. Once you figure out whatever design works out best for your particular situation....attention to the soil makeup and plant variety choice will be key. You can probably get by with heavier less expensive soils on the bottom tiers, but you will definitely have to make some decisions on how much you can afford to keep those top tiers as light as possible. If it is just a small gig, bagged potting soil should be fine. If larger, see if there is a local nursery that sells bulk pine bark fines or big bales of peatmoss, or maybe even peralite.

As for plant variety, most will have a smaller cultivar that will do better than others in confined spaces. They usually are not as accessible though and mail order will often greatly expand your options. Between Johnny's, Territorial, and Pinetree, you can get almost anything you need. All are geared towards northern climates as well.

[Juneau4]

Does anyone here have a vertical garden or has any experience making a vertical garden? I'm limited with space at my home and have been researching ways to make one myself to grow herbs and small vegetables. Any ideas or tips would be appreciated.

How many sq. Ft. do you have for a garden?

What Veg. & Herbs do you wish to grow?

Full sun? Shade? Whatever.. don't want to sound harsh, but it all matters.

[govikes211]

Im thinking maximum feet would be about 4-6 feet long with a couple of rows. Area would be half sun/shade. Looking to grow basil, cilantro, jalepenos, and grape tomatoes.

As far as building one, I have been thinking about using pallet to make one. I would really like to make one out of pvc but it would kind of be an eyesore.

[Juneau4]

Check out global buckets, Some thing like that may work for you.

[pushbutton]

If you wanted a true vertical .....would just make a 4x8 ft rectangle out of 2x10's or 12's and put lattice on the front and plywood on the back. Could even, with some sort of support, lattice and plant through the holes on both sides. Would use a lightwieght predominantly peat or leaf mulch with some potting soil mixed in. Would need to water it A TON slowly, but would think it would stay in there pretty good. Could possibly, if built properly, lay it with the 8 ft side on the bottom, leave out the top 8 ft board, run some fencing up and plant your your maters on top and train them up that fencing....leaving the side to plant the herbs. Cilantro is a bugger to transplant and might have to use those little peat pellets. GECOFURE basil would be a good choice, so would the TUMBLING TOM tomato ....both can be found at Pintree seeds. The pepper would be a little trickier. There are some ornamental hot peppers that would cascade in that type of set up, but the jalapeños are a pretty large bushy plant. The MOHAWK pepper also found at Pinetree would work, but it is a dwarf sweet pepper plant.

[govikes211]

Thanks for all the info. I hope to be building one sometime this spring

[nofishfisherman]

Here is an idea I've been thinking about for awhile. We have a neighbor who doesn't take great care of his yard so we are thinking of ways of blocking the view a little. I threw this diagram together in Illustrator to show you the basic idea.

Its nothing fancy and can be made a variety of ways to accomadate different size plants. The two vertical pieces could be 4x4's or something larger depending on what you wanted to plant. You could make the vertical columns wider by doubling up 4x4's and lag bolting them together. The horizontal planting troughs would be made out of 2x's. I'm thinking 2x8 or 2x10 or they could be larger depending on what you'd want to plant. And then the bottom of the trough would be a 2x that matched the depth of your vertical posts.

Fill with some good soil and add some drain holes and you should be set.