On to new (vertical) pastures……

[martMember]

Hi Charles,

Hope you are doing fine.
Unfortunately I have to move house and leave my ‘work’ behind. At my new place there is not much ground to make a garden and not enough time either. Since I do like to eat and grow my own stuff I thought the solution might be in vertical growing. I assume you don’t mind posting it here since effectively it will be no dig.

What I want to do is basically fill bags with growing matter and stick plants in the sides. My question is about growing matter. I have understood that tall structures can be a problem to water (they will be about 1,20m high). It either gets to soggy or the water doesn’t rach the bottom parts. I heard that coco peat is great for this sort of growing, I was wondering if you have any experience with it/ know something about it. I think I like to mix it up with some local earth (maybe dug from my old garden), and some compost.
If you have any experience with this in sense of types of plants that might work would love to hear it. Planning to grow lots of the asian stuff (non bolting) from realseeds as well as freckles maybe. And since I may have some shade even some chicories might work in spring. The ubiquitous romano salads may pose a problem since they are tall though will give it a try. Would be a sight to behold if it works.

For the record, I might be able to put something in the old garden but it is some distant from me and I will not be able to do much in the sense of improving/maintaining the soil.

Thanks,
Mart

[charlesModerator]

 I have no experience of vertical growing Mart, but here are one or two ideas.

For compost I would not use any soil as it holds less nutrients than composts and you need as much goodness as possible. Worm compost would be superb. Composts also hold more moisture than soil so growing in top quality compost is more productive and easier where volume and weight are restricted..

Salads will surely be the most worthwhile vegetable, all raised as plants first. Also bush tomatoes, nasturtium, chard and spinach.

Keep us posted!

[martMember]

Thanks Charles I’ll try to stick to compost, will have to buy/beg some. I eat loads of salads so will need some space.
At the moment I’m looking into a ‘vehicle’ for holding the compost. I came across these white growbags which would be great for tomatoes. Not sure if they are compostable. I will report back on the project.
Though it seems an interesting project would prefer some non dig terra firma but alas. Will your new book be available on the mainland in March as well? Looking forward to it.
Saluti,
Mart

[ruth nobleParticipant]

I came across this website which supplies four different types of hanging gardens (gardenbeet.com) and they also recommend a book on vertical gardening. HTH

[Author]

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