If you love the idea of growing your own veggies, but just don’t feel like you have the room for it, we gotcha covered. Vertical vegetable gardening is a way to make the best use of your garden space, and allow you to grow fresh fruits and vegetables for your family, even if your space is tight. Whether you are just looking for ways to grow more crops in your existing backyard garden, or you need to find ideas to grow food on the tiniest balcony, we have a vertical vegetable garden project for you! Check out these genius ideas for growing up!
Vertical Vegetable Garden Planters
If you are trying to grow vegetables on a patio, balcony, or tiny backyard space, the best choice might be to stop looking at the ground (or lack thereof) and start building yourself a vertical vegetable garden planter. You can attach these planters to walls, squeeze them into an odd corner, or hang them from the roof!
DIY Lettuce Hanging Basket
Our first veggie garden project just might be one of the easiest. Use a hanging basket and some sphagnum moss to grow a cut and come again DIY lettuce ball! This is not only a really efficient way to grow greens, it’s really pretty too. You could also grow certain herbs and other small veggies like this as well.
Find this easy tutorial at ‘This NZ Life‘. She also suggests this would make a great Christmas gift for gardeners- I love that idea!
PVC Pipe Vertical Garden
‘The Kim Six Fix‘ used PVC pipe and a 1×4 to create a wall vertical garden perfect for growing herbs, greens and small veggies like radishes or globe carrots. You can hang this from any wall, and make as many as you need. We love how she painted them pretty soft colors to make them a artsy part of the garden.
Vertical Pallet Vegetable Garden
Learn some awesome pallet vertical vegetable garden ideas over at ‘Garden Therapy‘. She has some great tips for finding safe pallets for growing food in, and for using them for more than just veggies, too.
Wooden Crate Planter
‘The Paper Mama‘ used wood crates to create this pretty rainbow garden that fits up against a wall, hardly taking any space at all! This vertical vegetable garden has space for deeper roots, allowing you to grow any veggies suitable for containers. Beans, tomatoes, even patio squash varieties.
Cedar Vertical Gardens
Find out how to build this cedar vertical vegetable garden that is complete with a drip watering system from ‘Houseful of Handmade‘. They are growing herbs, but this would be perfect for lettuce, spinach, radishes, carrots, cherry tomatoes… the list goes on my friends.
This cedar wall planter is the same idea, but less “floor” space. This complete tutorial is from ‘Rogue Engineer‘, and is the perfect way to have a pretty garden when you really don’t have space to put down planters. Free plans and step by step instructions.
DIY Garden Towers
This DIY Strawberry tower is from ‘Creating My Happiness‘. We love how simple and inexpensive this project is, and that it takes up so little garden square footage. They used cheap 2×6 lumber, but fence boards would work too. This doesn’t have to be just for strawberries though!
Terra cotta pots (you probably already have some!) and a piece of rebar from the home improvement store allow you to stack your veggies! This vertical vegetable planter adds a little touch of whimsy, too! Tutorial from ‘Budget 101‘.
Rain Gutter Planters
These rain gutter garden planters from ‘Hunker‘ allow you to slip a little growing space anywhere there is a wall to hang it. You could also hang rain gutter gardens from roof eves with chain. This one looks sleek and modern, and you would never guess what it was made of.
Create a vertical vegetable garden that stacks rain gutters into a frame to maximize your yield. Place this planter right outside the kitchen door for quick access to anything you might need for your culinary creations. This one is moveable, too! Find all the how-to’s at ‘Garden Gate magazine‘.
If you have a little garden space, but are looking for ways to be able to grow even more, than check out these ideas for growing vertical.
Cucumber Trellis DIY’s
One of the tried and true ways to grow up is to use a trellis. This DIY garden trellis from ‘Finding Lovely‘, is exactly that, lovely! But it also can be used to grow vine vegetables in between regular crops to maximize yield. Peas, beans, cucumbers… These could even be used as tomato cages.
Use an old pallet to create a trellis with this vertical vegetable garden idea by ‘Lovely Greens‘. This can also be really useful with crops you need to get off the soil to prevent rot, like melon and squash. This trellis could double your growing space if you plant shade loving greens underneath, as well.
Raised Bed Ideas
Make this three tiered raised bed with these plans from ‘GardenTherapy‘, She used this planter to create a viable growing space out of an awkward, tiny area. Side yard, anyone? Patio?
Raised beds are great way to grow healthy crops in a backyard garden. Especially if you use the square foot gardening method. But you can find even more growing space by growing up! ‘Frugal Family Home‘ used wire cattle panels to create space saving trellis’ to be used in their raised beds. They are sturdy and they last, and are inexpensive. They fold tight even when in use, so that they maximize space.
Finally, ‘Delia Creates‘ used the same idea with the cattle panels to utilize space between the raised beds… up in the air! Creating a trellis between the beds allows crops to grow up above the walking path, doubling the growing space.
So no matter if you want to build a vertical vegetable garden on a balcony or in your backyard, you can still get excited about growing food for your family with these ideas. Check out our posts on Top Garden Seed Catalogs, DIY Raised Garden Beds & Planter Boxes and Growing Seeds Indoors. Also check out our posts on Indoor Vertical Garden Planters over at OhMeOhMy!