The best part about modern gardening is the trend of growing vertically.

Using vertical growing techniques, many gardeners are able to grow an incredible number of vegetables in a very small piece of land.

Growing vertically also helps with harvest, pruning, and maintaining which provides similar benefits to raised beds in terms of not having to bend down all season.

Here we can discuss 3 ways to save space in your garden.

Let’s Dive In..

Saving Space in the Garden

Here are my 3 ways to save space in the garden:

• Sturdy Trellising
• Growing in Unusual Places
• Choosing the right vegetable variety

Trellising

This is an obvious one, but really effective.

The main goal of a trellis to get the plants that sprawl off the ground and growing into the sky while supporting their weight.

This way the plants don’t get bulky and wide that will make it hard to navigate or take care of mid-season.

Cucumbers, tomatoes, squashes, beans, peas are commonly grown on a trellis, but I would even suggest watermelons, cantaloupes, berry bushes, grape vines, and pumpkins to be grown on trellises too.

The best piece of advice for trellising is to invest in strong, heavy-duty trellises.

Cheaper trellises are often flimsier and will buckle under the weight of the plants mid-season.

Cattle panels formed into an arc are a popular choice that gives great results.

You can also use regular fencing, bean poles, pergolas, traditional tomato cages, or even create your own out of scrap lumber.

Growing in Unusual Places

Being creative and growing vegetables in unique places can really help you utilize your space wisely.

A common one is to use your deck or patio space to grow vegetables in pots and grouping them on tables or racks to give you an opportunity to grow up.

There are plenty of vegetables that do well in pots, such as lettuces, radishes, green onions, carrots, strawberries, turnips, and even some peppers or tomatoes.

Other options off a deck or patio include:

Rooftop gardens are becoming a slight trend that give the grower a great opportunity to grow food. Although labor intensive, it is a viable option.

A greenhouse can give you a chance to grow something year-round. With a heated greenhouse, you can spare yourself growing everything in one season, which is a great way to use the land when you are limited on space.

Setting up a grow space inside their house (commonly a basement) has also given some gardeners a chance to grow more. Setting up a space dedicated with grow lights can allow you to grow simple vegetables such as herbs and greens and smaller root vegetables.

When space is limited, your creativity will often figure out good spots that are unique. Having these unique spaces can really give you good opportunities to grow more in a small space.

Choosing the Right Vegetable Variety

The most important thing to space saving is choosing the right vegetable variety to grow.

When choosing seeds, you really want to look for key terms such as ‘prolific’ or ‘compact’ or ‘container friendly’.

The term prolific is specifically referring to how much produce it will create in a season.

This is important because in a small garden, you usually only have room to grow a few of each plant.

A variety that is known to be more prolific will give you a chance to harvest the same amount of food on less.

The term compact or container friendly will lead you to good vegetables that do well in pots.

These have been bred to have smaller root systems.

Most seed companies are good at labeling seeds that are great for containers or pots.

Today, there are plenty of tomatoes, peppers, flowers, herbs, berries, greens, cabbages, cucumbers and more that are specifically wonderful for containers and small spaces.

This also applies to fruit trees and bushes.

Choosing dwarf varieties of fruit trees and fruit bushes, you can easily incorporate them into a small piece of land.

That’s It!

Good trellising, being creative on garden planning and placement, and making sure you choose the correct vegetable variety will help you save space in your garden each year.

Enjoy!

The Cottage Vegetable

Gardening & Preserving for a Practical Kitchen

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12-IN 1 Metal Raised bed in Barn Red, featured in my own personal garden