There are many uses for vertical gardening techniques. The most common is to conserve space. However, if space isn’t your issue, vertical gardening can be used as creative outdoor decorating, or for people that can’t bend and stoop as much as traditional gardening often requires.
Benefits of Vertical Gardening
- Less time and work
These days life is so fast-paced, and there is very little time for watering, weeding, and harvesting. With vertical gardening, you spend less time watering and weeding because there is little soil and harvesting is a snap with all your fruits and veggies at eye level. Vertical gardening is also cheaper because you won’t be creating large rectangular beds, thus saving money on soil and compost. Another money-saving advantage is the bed itself. Lots of vertical gardeners use reclaimed materials, like pallets, buckets and old ladders or shelving to create their garden beds, and you will use fewer materials to build the bed itself.
- Less weeds, pests, and diseases
Because you will be using less soil, there will be little to no space for weeds to pop up, and if they do, you can see them right away and pluck them out before they spread. Vertical gardening allows for excellent air circulation, which cuts down on pests dramatically and since the different species of plant life won’t be touching each other, there is less disease caused by physical foliage contact.
- Higher yield
When plants are up off the ground the fruit has more room to ripen and often grow larger. There is also less chance of rotting fruit because you can see it right away. It creates a much richer bounty of fruits and vegetables even though it grows in a smaller space.
- Fewer square feet
One of the most common reasons for starting a vertical garden is due to lack of space. However, even gardeners with large plots are choosing to garden vertically. you can plant more than before and thus, harvest even more than you thought possible.
How to do it
- For the avid DIY’er
Building a vertical gardening bed can be as simple or as complicated as you like. Some of the cheapest and easiest options include attaching buckets to ladders to bolting them together to create a pyramid. You can also build a simple frame and attach milk jugs with the bottoms cut off to create an incredibly simple and easy vertical gardening bed like this.
- For the not-so-handy among us.
You can also purchase vertical gardening beds from your local hardware store or even online like these. These beds can range from $20 to $300 depending on how fancy or how tall you want your bed to be.
there are so many great reasons to create a vertical garden, and the possibilities are endless. Vertical gardening is a great way to bring gardening into your life for the first time or the 51st time. there are so many options and it is so simple that anyone can do it. There is very little time commitment involved and your plants will still be as healthy as ever, if not more healthy than before.
