08/18/13: Vertical Gardening

To save space in the garden, this year I've been experimenting with training flowers and some vegetables to grow up vertical structures. I took several ideas for trellising and tips on suitable plants from Derek Fell's useful book, Vertical Gardening. 

The laundry pole in the backyard supports vining black-eyed Susans:

Christmas lima beans, scarlet runner beans, and dwarf Italian shelling beans trail up a bamboo tripod in a large wooden pot on the front steps. They're still a little puny:

 

For the side of the front porch, we purchased six 6'x3' cedar trellises, attached them end to end, and anchored them to the top so they span the twelve feet from the porch's roof to the ground. Here's the area back in April, before the trellis was erected:

And here it is now, with a giant 12-foot high ornamental gourd and some morning glories and moonflower growing up it:

 

 

A gourd

A view of the trellis from inside the porch, looking out. I'm trying to direct the gourd back down the trellis, but it's stubborn and keeps attaching itself to the roof:

 

08/18/13: The August Garden

Here's the latest from the raised bed in the backyard. The nasturtiums have taken over the sides of the bed, and the tomatoes are losing their minds in the back:

 

 

 

These are Cherokee Purple heirloom tomatoes. The ones in the background are called 'Cosmonaut Volkov':

 

 

The cucumbers never did take off, probably because they had to grow in the shadow of the tomatoes:

 The recognizable bullseye pattern of Chioggia beets, from the garden, preparing to be someone's lunch:

And here's some dill growing in a pot on the patio. I've let it go to seed so I can have dill seeds for pickling: