Making vertical beds: an analysis of the 3 best ways to arrange ⋆ 👨‍🌾 Farmer-online ⋆

When there is not enough land on the plot, but you want your own vegetables and herbs, housewives use the third dimension – height. Its parameters are not limited, and you can create at least five-story structures for growing garden crops. It was because of the shortage of land that an intelligent person once invented vertical beds. True, at first they were designed exclusively for flowers and were used by the townspeople on balconies and loggias. But the idea was quickly picked up by smart summer residents, having figured out that vegetables can grow in such structures. In addition, the unusual appearance of the beds gives the landscape a piquancy, attracting the attention of neighbors and people passing by. Let’s try to figure out in what ways you can quickly and easily create a vertical bed, and what crops coexist in such conditions.

It is not difficult to create vertical beds with your own hands, but you must understand what conditions await plants in such structures.

Positive points:

For housewives, vertical structures are a great way to relieve the arms and back, because weeds will not grow in containers (they simply do not have enough space there).
Due to the lack of contact with the ground, plants will less likely to get sick with fungal infections, which means that less chemical treatments will be needed.
During the period of frost or hurricanes, many vertical beds can be temporarily moved to a farm building, thereby preserving the future harvest.
With the help of containers, you can decorate an ugly fence or barn wall, thereby improving the aesthetics of the site.
Saving space: if you move part of the garden to vertical beds, then there will be room for arranging a recreation area or flower beds.

Disadvantages of a vertical vegetable garden:

In containers, the root system of plants is limited in nutrition, since it contains a small amount of soil. Therefore, feeding with this method of cultivation is carried out more often.
The earth dries up faster, so the plants are often watered, and if they are at the dacha only on weekends, they create a drip irrigation system. It is recommended to dilute the soil with hydrogel, which retains moisture longer than the soil.
Perennial crops with this method of cultivation can freeze out in harsh winters. Therefore, they create mobile structures to hide the garden for the winter in a farm building.

When caring for a vertical bed, housewives do not need to weed out weeds and fight pests, because due to the lack of contact with the soil, they become much less

The darker the material of the containers for the vertical bed, the faster it dries in the sun, which means that frequent watering is required

During the existence of the idea of vertical beds, summer residents have invented a lot of interesting designs, many of which require the simplest consumables.

Method # 1 – growing in containers

The most accessible way for summer residents is fixing containers on the support. They are bought ready-made in stores or made from boards. Or you can even collect empty plastic bottles to create vertical beds and make containers from them. If bottles are used, then the neck is closed with a cork, and an oval hole about 5 cm in length is cut from above, the containers are nailed in an artistic order to the wall or fence, filled with soil and the seedlings are planted.

All options with containers do not provide for drip irrigation, therefore, adding a hydrogel to the soil is a prerequisite for a comfortable life for plants.

Vertical bed from an old chest of drawers

An old chest of drawers can be an excellent container if you pull out its drawers to a different level, and the white color will reduce the heating of the wood.

Method # 2 – vertically placed pipes

When creating vertical beds for growing strawberries, most often they build a structure from barrels or plastic pipes that will last for several seasons. Let’s consider how such a “hostel” for strawberries is created.

When creating a vertical bed for strawberries, it is important to think about drip irrigation, because berries require a lot of moisture during the ripening period.

Work progress:

To create one vertical structure, you will need two plastic pipes of the same length and different diameters. One is thin, for creating drip irrigation, the second is the thickest you can find.
In a thin pipe, using a drill, we drill many holes through which water will flow into the ground. Leave the lower part (about 10 cm) intact.
In a thick pipe, mark the future seedling holes in a checkerboard pattern. Usually they are arranged in three rows: a central one and two side ones (the back wall will be attached to the support). There is no need to make holes at the bottom (10 cm).
We drill holes using a drill with a nozzle and a chisel. The diameter of each is about 5 cm (taking into account the thickness of the pipe).
From below we put a plug on a wide pipe and attach the workpiece to the support (fence, wall, mesh, etc.).
To protect against soil ingress, we wrap a thin pipe with burlap or non-woven material and rewind it with twine.
We wrap the lower end of the pipe with tape or rubber so that water does not leave the structure.
We insert a thin pipe into a thick one, hold it so that the inner one is exactly in the center, and fill the inner space to the first holes with gravel or expanded clay.
Mix ready-made or self-made soil with hydrogel and crushed foam. Foam balls will prevent the soil from compacting and will provide free air access.
We plant prepared seedlings, the roots of which should be dipped in a clay-dung mash in order to better keep moisture.
We fill the inner pipe with water.

In the conditions of the northern regions, such beds can be made in the form of free-standing racks, connecting three or four pipes into one frame. Then for the winter you can clean the garden in the shed so as not to freeze the roots.

Having mounted such a vertical bed of plastic pipes fixed by a house, you can always move the structure to another place or hide it for the winter

Method # 3 – pocket vegetable garden

A very profitable idea is to create a pocket vegetable garden, i.e. a vertical bed, resembling a piece of cloth with many pockets. This technology was invented by agronomists and demonstrated it at one of the exhibitions. The material for creating the pockets is thin foil-lined insulation. Due to the shiny surface, it reflects the sun’s rays and does not overheat the soil, and on cold days the polystyrene layer will additionally retain heat, warming the roots. Such vertical beds are suitable for cucumbers, beans, herbs and the same strawberries.

The technology of creating a “pocket garden”:

We buy double-length insulation. That is, if you want to create a bed 2 meters high, then you need to take 4 meters of material.
Fold the insulation in half and sew a horizontal line at a distance of 5-7 cm from the top. This drawstring is needed to hang the garden bed.
Next, we cover all the edges and bottom of the insulation, creating something like a bag. The top 5-7 cm around the edges do not need to be overlaid.
We draw the surface into rectangles, from which we will create pockets. It is advisable to make no more than 3 pockets per meter of insulation so that more soil can be placed in them.
Sewing all the markup.
In each resulting rectangle we cut a hole at the top, leaving 3-4 cm from the seam.It is advisable to cut it not in a straight line, but in a semicircle, so that a kind of valve is obtained on top. On it, when watering, water will flow into the pocket.
When all the pockets are cut, we hang the bed on the support. To do this, insert a plastic tube with a twine inside into the upper drawstring.
Outside, we twine the twine to the knot, making a loop. We hang the entire structure for it to the support.
We fill each pocket with a nutritious soil mixed with a hydrogel.
We spill the soil with water and plant seeds or seedlings.

The mobility of the fabric bed allows you to position it on any support, even when entering your own summer cottage, fixing it to the doors with several hooks