Grow more of your own food in less space with these helpful vertical vegetable gardening tips…

Got a small garden? Vertical vegetable gardening is a great way to grow more delicious fresh vegetables (and fruits) in less space. If your garden space is limited, consider maximizing your harvest with some simple vertical gardening techniques. Given the right combination of crops, vertical supports, and wall-hugging planters, you’ll be able to fit a lot more into the space you have available. With just a bit of planning, you can design your vertical garden to utilize certain plants’ natural upward growth habit to increase harvests while using less ground space.

Tomato plants are an easy example. While they will gladly spread out on the ground and sprawl everywhere, you will actually have healthier plants and fewer disease problems if you train them to grow upwards with support. As a bonus, the tomatoes will also be easier to harvest!

Most vining crops do best if trained up a trellis or fence, not only minimizing the amount of horizontal space they take up but also making harvesting a breeze. Beans, peas, melons, cucumbers, and vining squashes are all good examples.

Fruit can also be grown vertically.Grapes and passion fruits are delicious vining fruits that look lovely on an arch or pergola. Many fruit trees, such as apples, pears, and cherries can also be trained to grow vertically against a wall so they’ll take up less space in your garden. And cane fruits such as raspberries and blackberries can also be supported to prevent them from sprawling over nearby plants, while strawberries do great in hanging baskets.

This short video discusses the many different types of plants that will happily grow vertically, and shares some tips for building simple DIY structures such as trellises, teepees, arches, and wall-mounted planters that will provide plenty of support for your vertical vegetable gardening efforts.