Produced by
Patti Moreno
Contributor to:
Vertical Gardening
What better way to make a chain link fence beautiful and useful than to grow juicy grapes vertically? Watch the vines transform the ugly industrial nature of the chain link fence as your vining plants grow...
There are no limits to what you can do, if you just think outside the box. The urban gardener’s biggest challenge is space, but that never stops me and it shouldn’t stop you, either.
Vertical gardening is a must in order to maximize your growing space, especially in the city. The plants that are the best candidates for this method of gardening are grapes, cucumbers, pumpkins, even watermelons, or any type of vining plant which can all be grown in small spaces by planting them along a fence, an arbor, or building a support yourself. In this video, I will take you on a tour of my vertical garden showing you my cucumbers and pumpkins, both of which are doing just fine. I’ll even show you how to build alternative supports.
Years ago, I started building trellises for my garden beds and implementing chain link as the perfect support for heavy crops like watermelon and pumpkin. Another creative solution that I have used is implementing a 4X4 Dog Kennel that is a chain link fence structure. The size works perfectly with my 4X4 raised beds and the vines of my crops latched on effortlessly to this type of structure. Other plants that can be grown vertically are heirloom tomatoes, beans, and garden peas.
Check out the video and see how easily I whip up an additional one-wall structure that attaches easily to the base of one of my existing 4X4 raised beds. Once you secure your mesh wiring to the wooden base, you will be able to easily move it to another raised bed when needed by simply unscrewing it.
Important Reminder for Vertical Gardening: Read your seed packet!
- The best types of watermelon plants are sugar baby or ice box varieties since they don’t grow to be too big or too heavy.
- Cucumbers, watermelon and pumpkins are all susceptible to wilt which can kill the plant before fully fruiting.
- Read your seed packets carefully, some seed farms have developed strains that are disease resistant.
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