Welcome to the summer garden, have you used any vertical gardening elements with your vegetables? What has been your favorite?

Keep a bird bath near your grapes and keep it full. They only eat your berries for the water content. If there is easily accessible water nearby (very nearby) they will go for that instead

Finished my trellis❤️ I love it so much, headed to get more hog panels. Green house is next. Wish I could post my final results. Not bad for 63 yo and working alone. It's not bragging if you back it up, right?

My dad grew up near Mobile Alabama during the 1920s and 1930s. In the days before air conditioning, you can imagine how hot the house was. The house had a huge wrap-around front porch. I'm not sure what they used for trellis or mesh panels but they grew crops vertically. The entire porch and walkway to the front door were covered with several kinds of food crops including tomatoes and beans. During the depression, they ate the food they grew, of course, and in hot weather, they pretty much lived and slept out on the porch because it was much cooler than inside the house, especially upstairs (bedrooms) and kitchen (wood-fired cookstove).

Best trellis ties-cut circles from a leg of a pair of pantyhose-then cut the circle-you now have a tie that is stretchy, won’t harm tender stems.

England here: Good channel you have, just discovered it. So Pole beans (which we call Runner Beans). Your frame is the best idea. Here's what I do. Running East to West set a row of stakes in the ground about 12 - 18 inches apart. The number of stakes depends how many bean plants you want. Set the stakes so they are about 5 foot high, out of the ground. With your back to the stakes and facing SOUTH, set another corresponding row of stakes about 4 or 5 feet away. Make these stakes about 7 foot or 7 foot six inches out of the ground. So you will have two rows of stakes running East to West with the shorter stakes on the North side and the taller ones to the South. Tie in a ridge pole at the tops joining each shorter stake to its corresponding taller stake. These poles (bamboo will do) will obviously be on an ascending angle as they rise from the shorter to the taller side. Plant a bean plant at the base of each short stake. I start mine in pots indoors for a good start and to avoid the slugs that will munch the seedlings as soon as they emerge out of the ground if planted directly from seed. Tie in the bean as it begins to grow up the shorter pole. When it reaches the five foot height start to weave and tie in the plant along the sloping ridge pole. The bean will naturally want to grow in that direction (South), where the sun shines and will make a thick canopy along the ridge poles. By the time the bean reaches the end of the ridge pole, if it's about 5 feet away, it will be the end of the season. You will get an immense crop of bean pods that hang down perfectly inside the structure. Very easy to harvest as you noted. Most people will be able to fit underneath the canopy without bending, particularly on the tall side. The wigwam or tepee method is still traditional here for most people growing beans, but it's just not as efficient or productive or as easy to harvest.

Vertical gardens really saves gardener energy. No need to walk miles because you have the land. Good gardening

Here in northern Florida, the "cattle panel" (50inch tall X 16 ft long) at Rural King is $19.99 ea, and at Tractor Supply is $21.99 ea. Both give discounts for bulk or multiple buy. I use them for EVERYTHING {pole & bush & Chinese 3ft long beans, peas, cukes, zucs, squash (including the heavy winter types), loofa, tomatoes, and more}!!!!!! I even use them to keep the potatoes and yams off the ground to allow airflow under them. My yard is full of cattle panel arches. Harvesting them from underneath is so much easier and back saving. They are farmers and homesteaders must-haves. GREAT VIDEO!!! GOD BLESS

FYI, use the cattle panels for tomatoes too. We have ours on the panels and we have no problems with blight. They’re now over 12 feet high and we are in the second round of tomato crop. We are 7a/7b so try it. We use stretchy green plant tie, it comes on a roll.

I think you do a good job of showing the fruits of all the hard labor required to get these gardens started. It makes me think back to when I was a kid working in my parents garden and just hating all the bugs, the heat, and having to do manual labor. Now that I am a professional working inside most days I think to myself, "She makes this look so easy. I could do this." Then I think back to when I was a kid and I remember all the labor. This is not an easy lifestyle, but you make it look really enjoyable. Well done.

Thank you for doing this video. Our climate here on the West Coast of New Zealand is very similar to yours, and I have been planning to do more vertical gardening this year. Your tips are helpful!

Just came across this and love it already! Love to see someone sharing good information and not filling up time talking about nothing! Thank you! I am now subscribed

Thanks for all of your great videos. I love to watch you and see your commitment to growing healthy food. You're the best. You Rock

Getting full leafy growth on the arched cattle panel was very beautiful in our backyard garden. 👌 garden

Smart gardening. You are very talented. Lots of smart ideas. Keep going forward.

I started using wide strips of fabric from old t-shirts to tie up tomatoes and cucumbers etc. They're soft and stretchy and don't damage the stems at all :)

I love my cattle panel arches in my garden too! I have two 12 foot long raised beds and have a cattle panel trellis from one to another on ends. It’s worked great for me so far.

Particularly enjoyed your practicality in using everyday items for alternate uses; my kind of gardening. Very pleasant presentation and easy to follow/listen to. Good work!

love it. I live in Seattle and have been experimenting with vertical gardening because backyards are so small. I didn't realize that people who are not space constrained would want to be so space efficient

This might work perfectly in our small Zimbabwean garden ... will try it, thank you ... will share in a video

We use concrete reinforcing wire to make tomato cages. 6 inch squares and heavy duty for years of reuse and you can make them as tall and wide as you like.

I'm a brand new gardener and love growing different types of beans. This year I had to make do with some DIY trellises but next year I'm going to plan ahead and get the cattle panels in place. They look neat and sturdy compared to my twining trellis. Thanks for the informative video. I'm better prepared. I am also in PNW zone 8b.

Love your trellis system. Here in Connecticut zone 6a I do a lot of vertical gardening. I may be eccentric but I grow butternut squash: watermelons an cantaloupes on Aframe trellises with great results. Little insect damage and perfect shaped fruits

When I put up my ranchpanel arch for grapes, I "wove" the T-posts between a couple of rows of panel squares to attach it. I put the panel on inside of T-posts up high about half way, then pushed the upper part of the panel arch out enough to capture the top of T-post between a row of panel squares and finished pushing panel down to ground. That sucker is not moving regardless of wind with no clips or wiring to posts. Really quite easy to put on or take off as the arch has enough play in it to sway as you need.

Great video Thank you for taking the time to share your gardening wisdom😊

Thanks Melissa, I experimented with vertical gardening this year but I either did not have my structures tall enough and indeterminate tomatoes flopped over or I put my vertical trellis up against a brick wall which prevented uneven airflow and I started to battle powdery mildew. The hog panels look like a great idea and are flexible enough to solve my two previously mentioned problems. I like the shade the plastic gives and the option you have of growing outside the frame and inside the frame. Kudos!

Thank you for posting on this subject. I have had c-spine fusion and discovered this past year at a new house that bending over to pick anything is really painful. so this next year its all going up, no bush anything. Im even going to train my squash plants to go up.

Thank you so much for mentioning the zone thing. I'm in zone 9a but also in the Pacific northwest, coastal southern Oregon. Which means I get a lot of conflicting information about what I can grow and when.

Great video and your brussel sprouts look amazing. Hard not to get aphids here in the Pacific Northwest with this crop but your bean shade looks like a winner. I hope your husband appreciates your beautiful hair, it’s absolutely mesmerizing.

I grow a lot vertically. Even my squash, zucchini, and cucumbers. At the end of the growing season in late September, my squash look like 8’-9’ tall trees because I remove the old leaves as it grows upwards.. I grow 8-9 varieties of tomatoes every year and 6 ft tall plants ain’t nothing. All my plants reach 15’-17’ tall by late September. The tallest tomato plant I’ve ever grown was a better boy variety and it reached 21’ 5” by late September to mid October! I plant in late February to early March in Georgia, zone 8a 30 miles south east of Atlanta...

OLD LEATHER SMITH here, I live in Texas and grow strawberries, figs,pears, Extremely hot peppers, and tomatoes, grapes next year, suggestion, I painted Red Rocks of different sizes and placed them around the strawberries just before the real berries and had a friend do the same thing 4 his grapes which he hung with string and wire 2 teach the birds and it worked on my berries and on my friends grapes, GOD'S BLESSINGS ✝️⚾🙃

Now I know why my pole beans did not grow,I tried to grow them in a hanging planter. So glad you did this video,it helps me a lot. Thank You

Love this video. We hope to try this technique this year at our cottage in zone 4A. Cannot wait to get started. 🤩

so many great ideas for vertical trellising. 👍 thanks for sharing

5 am here and what a lovely voice to hear first thing in the morning 😋😋😋

Wow! Melissa has it all. She's intelligent, well-spoken, knowledgeable, feminine, beautiful, and successful. Her husband is blessed with an amazing wife. Congratulations to you both!

Thanks for the inspiration for a gardening spot for next year in my yard...new subscriber from Missouri :0)

Nice video, thanks for sharing your garden, it's beautiful

I've constructed trellises from all baling twine. Cantaloupes, cucumbers, squash, & tomatoes all on baling twine trellis. Did have to build frame work w t-posts, wooden stays & poles, but am very happy with the results. Yeah, the twine is repurposed. It was once on hay. I'm pretty good at tying knots. Cage clips work well, too.

I just found your channel, your homestead is amazing! We live in 7B , Virginia. I'm definitely going to do more trellis this year. Thanks for all the great information.

Wow! This is my first time watching your program! It is wonderful to see one of my people on KZfaq showing gardening. I am part of the Cree nation and live in Canada. My garden is very small and I am looking for ways to plant more in my small space. Thank you for the great ideas! Keep up the great work!!!😊

Watching this now in December as Puget Sound Native, everything in my garden died out with the killing frost that came very late this season in October. BUT my Parsley and Sugar Snap peas from my 4th round of plantings are still going, besides my winter greens that is. It's been surprisingly mild this winter. Of course, my winter hardy greens are loving it and I am loving them. Here is to hoping we do get a hard frost that is accompanied by some snow down here and not mostly up in the Olympics/H'oh Rainforest and Cascades in the coming winter months for that snowpack for the summer months.

Informative trellis video. Thank you ! 🎉

Ty so much. I definitely need to incorporate vertical produce. I have a small property as and this will give me soooooo much more produce. Ty for sharing. ♥️

Yay cattle panels! I just got one! Also in the PNW and looking forward to giving vertical growing a try ☺️

Melissa, those are all fantastic tips. I recently moved from Eastern Washington to Essex, NY. A small village in Zone 5. This will be my first time growing a garden on the East Coast. Before I moved here, I lived off the grid on Badger Mountain for 4 years. Prior to that, I lived in East Wenatchee out past Pangborn airport. I became a hobby farmer in 2010 with 2.5 acres. I have raised a lot of meat chickens, laying hens, turkeys( Broad breastfed bronzen and Narragansett). Raised hogs twice, had 4 male alpacs for fiber to spin, and 3 goats. It's been a rewarding experience learning about permaculture practices and raising animals! Happy farming to you and yours, and thank you for the great garden tips!

You are an incredibly fortunate person! I dream of owning land like that! I just got my 1st deck to grow on and I'm elated! Lol # GOALS.😄✌🌱❤

Thank you Melissa for showing us your COOL vertical garden as well as sharing your expertise and knowledge with us, and from the beauty of your garden, crossing my fingers and hoping ya all get a late frost at October 10th! :)

This so great. I am going to start a garden next year .... thanks

I really enjoy your videos Melissa. I know it's part of "free" YT content, but it's incredibly nice not to see commercials on your channel!

I subscribes because I’m also in the PNW and yes I thought it was weird that we got rain pretty much every other day but I also was thankful because I didn’t water anything for months and I loved it.

Wow. You came to the same tomato trellising system conclusion i did. I don't high tunnel yet but the system of string and wire works well for me. I subsidize with a little native bamboo also.

4:00 I was watching a video the other day of a couple who grow potatoes in straw, they cover them with a black sheet to stop the sun from getting to them and when it came to harvesting the plants were already clean, they just took them out of the straw.

Thank you awesome awesome video. You’re garden is amazing

great advices, defenetely trying , BTW, beautiful land and those mountains on the back,stunning place. suscribing right now.

yes! my winter squash has never done so well, 1st year with hog panel trellis

Cattle panels! I finally got one this season too ($24.00 at Coastal Farm and Ranch). It worked out so well I'll be adding another next year. I grew sweet peas, and pole beans on mine. When the sweat peas died, I succession planted Kirby Cucumbers and made pickles for the first time. Pickles for the win! I'll have to rearrange mine to make more room for lettuce underneath. I'm just a bit down south of you in Oregon, Zone 6a. Last frost in mid April, All in by Mother's day, First frost late Oct. But yea, Strange spring last year got everything off to a slow start.

Your comment about frost dates was so interesting! I live near Madison Wisconsin which is Zone 5a. However, your first and last frost dates make your growing season shorter than here, despite having the zone differences

Tips on the tomatoes. Plant them on both sides of cow panel and tie them to the panel. I use concrete blocks so the panel is 1/2 foot from the ground.It works perfectly

Oh, Melissa - I love your channel...and I am seriously thinking about signing up for your classes. Might be relocating, so we'll see. Good job!

Nice to meet you. Lots of great ideas. A truly stunning garden with lots of hard work and planning. Im in upstate NY where now its just started averaging 50° soil temp. 3rd year trellessing. 16' cattle panel $70 in a local garden center. This will be my second year cucumber cacuzza squash and naysurtium. This year 3 more Japanese style wooded treles's coming. Glad you came up recommended. Thank you.

I love your garden! Beautiful and smart ( I meant the garden but definitely you too 😄), you must be so proud! You are very right about growing zones. I'm in zone 7A NJ, but my last frost date is about the first week of May, and my killing frost is the first week of November. I'm near the water so that makes a big difference.

Greetings from Vancouver Island. We have very similar weather, don't usually get a true killing frost until early Oct. Close to sea level. I'm going to try this next year, one more consideration is my disability, picking veggies on a trellis is so much easier than stooping over to get them. Cukes are notoriously hard to spot on the vine, they are masters of camouflage, and if you miss one the next time you pick it's all swollen and bitter. They would be easier to spot when at eye level.

I live in South Mississippi. Lots of rain plus extreme heat and humidity. Plus my ground is low and holds water when we get torrential down pours. Then we may not have rain for weeks. So the shade would be so welcomed. This will be my first garden and yours looks so nice and neat. I-am going to do exactly what you have done thank you for the video and I have to mention the mountains in the back ground are beautiful. No mountains where I live just flat ground and rain from the Gulf of Mexico. 🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂

Great content. Thanks for sharing.☺

Love your trellis ideas. The big archways are on my wishlist

Thank you for the ideas! Subscribed and I’m here at 3k feet Northern California. So many micro climates here. Thanks

love the view the mountains in the background are beautiful!

Thank you this was very helpful and informative!

Very cool for a bunch a different reasons.

Very well presented and good info! Tftv

I have used inverted hockey sticks with 4 foot extender stakes to support my single stem tomatoes the last two seasons. I train the tomatoes to grow to over nine feet tall! It's fun to have a hockey theme in the garden.

we are trying vertical gardening this year with hog panel arches. in the dry west, we're trying to get more plants in the same amount of watered and fenced dirt, plus get some companion planting advantage. hog/cattle 16' panels are in the $30 range. T posts are about $5 each.

Wow... !!! My best friend, Great... Awesome... Full watched. Thanks Have a happy day!

I really enjoy your videos. I'm a new subscriber and enjoy your way of speaking. I'll be watching.

What a lovely video!!!

Enjoying your videos, new subscriber!! Cheers from Arkansas!!

Tomato cages make it hard to prune tomatoes and pruning for me in East Texas keeps the plants growing longer into the season.

NIce!! Looking to grow beans this year for the first time. This was very helpful.

Inter- lake- n ..long a sound. Theyre from western NY. There's a town between seneca lake and cayuga lake called Interlaken. Niagara grapes originated in niagra county NY. Both are labrusca types that grow in cooler climates and are generally sweeter. Sometimes referred to as foxy grapes

Definitely great info and a good visual to have for my garden planning. I feel like I have SO much I want to plant and a million ideas of what might work but uts only my 2nd year planting a vegetable garden that is sizable.

Thank you for the hog panel trellis idea! My project for this year!

Your pole beans are incredible!!

Wow do you people to help harvest all this I sure hope so! Beautiful garden love the vertical growing ideas

I learned from last garden what I will be trellising this fall using the hog panel system

You’ve given me an idea for our plot at the Peapatch. Will be going vertical for many things. Will keep it at 6’ or less. Thanks.

I'm just now watching this video. In mid Texas by July to August we're putting in our second garden. And hoping it don't burn

i live in town but i have a huge yard for in town i took out most of the grass and replace it with gardens but i live in pa so im just now planting i worked all day today out there i had a great day i love being out there this is my first year and i went in big so i hope i studied and planned enough to make it worth it

Excellent! Beautiful & very intelligent garden & gardener. 👍👍👍

Well done, good tips Melissa

4x16 hog panels are $22 at tractor supply in southeast Kansas ... love em for grapes berries beans peas...cheers!

Im sure if you contacted MIgardener you could sell those heirloom beans to them and spread the tarheel bean all over the country!

Simple but effective solution.thanks!!!

Hi. I started using cattle panels last year. You've given me some great ideas. Good job on the videos. Just curious, how many bean plants do you put on each side of the your hog panel arches?

Love the bean trellis

beautiful garden it my favorite too guys thank

Amazing Information, Thanks.

I have been growing Cherokee Trail of Tears beans for the last 3 years, in pots, up a 10-foot trellis in a spot that gets afternoon sun, and have had good results. I think in a soil bed they would produce longer and taller, but I only have that space. They are delicious as "green beans", and if you get them while they're thin, there are no strings. When they're bigger they get stringy, but if you keep harvesting them smaller they keep producing. Right now we're having a heat wave here in the SF Bay Area of CA, so they are getting fat and stringy, and anything beyond now will be dry black beans, which are also delicious. They seem to be putting on new beans now after the craziest part of our recent heat wave, but I will save the rest of the beans that come on now for dry beans and seed. I really like these beans, along with several others, and I hope to grow them for many years to come. I wish you good luck with yours! Those trellises look great, for me the challenge is finding a supplier for cattle/hog panels in the SF Bay Area - perhaps we are just too suburban. If I do get my hands on some (like 20 of them!) I will also be growing more Cucuzzi/Serpenti di Sicilia vines on them. They are a climbing gourd eaten as immature fruit, similar to zucchini, except that they do need peeling, and taste even milder than zucchini (Baker Creek has seeds). I just used your Mustard Pickle recipe with them without the thickener, and it came out great.

Yes. You are 7a and average first frost is 2 weeks earlier than here with zone 5a! Our last frost is late may though.

I thought you said pole noodle…… took me a minute to figure out what it was. 😂 Great info, thanks.