Vertical Gardening on a Budget!

The things I am most looking forward to in my garden this spring and summer come on vines. Cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, peas (English and Sugar Snap), and beans. To make the most of my smallish yard, and give these little guys room to spread, I had to rig up some trellises and other vertical gardening set-ups, but as we are still in the "growing every day!" phase of our new business, I can't spend a whole lot of money. I have scoured the internet, but most of what I found and loved was beautiful and costly. Someday I will have gorgeous wrought iron Eiffel Tower plant stands, but not so much right now. Even the ones that required re-purposed wood would end up costing me, as I don't have much of that.  I finally came up with some plans that work for me.

Branch Arches (free)

I needed somewhere for my sugar snap peas to climb, and I love the idea of a tunnel of vines. We also had an abundance of branches suddenly, as we had a not-that-young-anymore cottonwood tree that was growing in a pot near the house that had to go. And by in a pot, I mean roots through the bottom of the pot very deep into the ground, and by near the house I mean two feet away from the house and banging up against our second-story bedroom window at every little breeze. Since moving it wasn't an option, being so firmly rooted, it met a sad demise at the hands of my husband's hatchet. Not being willing to let its sacrifice be in vain, we chopped and sorted the branches by size. The long, skinny, bendy ones became my archway. I stuck groups of three branches into the ground (about a foot and a half deep), and arched them together, securing with wire (that my dad had in the garage, that my grandfather saved for "just in case" and over thirty years later we found a good use.) As the Sugar Snap Peas grow, I am slowly training them to grab onto the branches with loosely tied twine.
Later in the season, I'm going to start some beans up the other side of the arch.


Hanging Baskets ($5-ish)

I read somewhere that peas and beans can grow in hanging baskets. Also, tomatoes that tend to vine, such as cherry tomatoes, can be done in baskets. I had some wire fruit baskets lying around, so I took an exploratory trip to the dollar store to see what I could stuff them with. I chose a woven basket that fills the bottom level($1 each), some spanish moss($1 per bag, fills one basket), and light brown dish towels (2/$1). If done over, I'd go with a different color towel. I was going for the burlap look, but I think it looks more like a formerly-white-but-now-stained towel.
The bottom level was easy. Basket + some moss + a coffee filter (to keep the dirt in) + potting soil.
The middle level was just the folded up towel + coffee filter + soil.
The top level was moss + coffee filter + soil.
I stuck English peas in the top two and green garden beans in the bottom. I hung them in the sunniest corner inside my screen porch.

Variation: Tomatoes!

Same layering process, only this time I planted some baby cherry tomato seedlings that I have been raising from seeds in my Guest Bedroom. These claim to be viney and very prolific yielders, so I'm excited about that.
Something I like about the hanging basket is that I can easily move it into the screen porch and back out again as weather changes. We had a really hard rain this week and I didn't trust little bitty seedlings to it. Bonus: The wrought iron bracket I hung it on was made by my grandfather 50 years ago.

Twine Pyramids ($14)
I had the great idea to grow beans and peas on the sides of my screen porch so that in the summer, maybe I'll get a little more shade. Then I realized that the vines may invade the screen itself and I needed a way to keep them back. I found the solution at the hardware store. I got some screw-in hooks ($5 because the only ones I could find were in a picture hanging kit but now I have a lot of them), a roll of twine ($3), and two packages of tent stakes ($3 for 6).


I installed the hooks as far out on the awning as I could get them, ran some twin through them, and staked the ends down in a triangle shape. The bonus to this (other than making a bunch of them for cheap) is that I can always add lines of twine between the three pieces to add more support, or more big lines just by throwing another stake in the ground. So far, my English peas seem to approve. Later there will be beans, too.