Nowadays, people are fond of growing their vegetable garden in the comfort of their homes. It is now a great idea to grow vegetables and produce on your own as it allows you to eat clean, save money, and ensure that you know the exact source of your foods.
If you want to have your produce, then you can rest assured that you can also make a vegetable garden. In that case, you may want to give hanging baskets and planters a try.
With the help of the hanging garden vegetable ideas in this article, you will surely feel proud of growing vegetables on your own and having easy access to them.
Benefits of Having Your Own Hanging Vegetable Garden
Hanging vegetable gardens have gained widespread popularity nowadays because of the many benefits that they provide to those who love gardening in general. These gardens mainly make use of vertically placed hanging pots, resulting in what we call as a vertical vegetable garden.
Aside from that, this specific gardening format also offers the following benefits:
Gives you freedom on the specific sets of plants you intend to grow
It is even possible for you to create your own flavors since you are given the freedom to express your desired art in your garden. You can even make your vegetable garden more diverse by allocating a specific row for vegetable plants, such as salad greens, and assigning a vertical space designed for the delicate varieties. This means you have the freedom to experiment, especially in your vertical garden.
Saves space
Designing your hanging garden can also save floor space. This type of garden is ideal for you, especially if you do not have enough space outdoors for it. This is a good thing if you live in an apartment or any other limited and small spaces.
Lowers risk of pests
Cultivating hanging gardens also means that you will grow plants off the ground. This can provide the advantage of having a lower risk of inviting pests. Your crops will also be protected from the possible damage caused by pests that tend to dig up gardens in outdoor spaces.
Easy to maintain
Growing plants in a hanging basket and planter also has the advantage of being easy to maintain. In most cases, they are vertically arranged, too, promoting ease in reaching them. With that, you can conveniently and easily fertilize, water, prune, and harvest your produce.
Aesthetically pleasing
Undoubtedly, a hanging or vertical garden looks aesthetically pleasing. You can even use it in transforming any empty space in your home, specifically the wall, into an attractive one. You can creatively stimulate more space through a vertical vegetable garden.
It is also possible to use it in creating a green wall, window boxer, hanging basket, or gate decoration. You will learn more about some of the most creative ideas for your hanging garden that will definitely make your home even more appealing later in this article.
What Can You Grow and Cultivate in a Hanging Vegetable Garden?
A hanging garden gives you plenty of options on the specific plant varieties you can grow and cultivate. Whether you intend to use a hanging basket or planter, you can expect the following vegetables to thrive:
Cherry tomatoes
Cherry tomatoes are among the most popular vegetables you can grow in a hanging or backyard garden. What makes them perfect for a small garden, raised beds, and containers is that they are easy to grow. If you plan to use a hanging basket, go for the bush varieties.
Carrots
Carrots also seem to work well in a container. They have foliage that is almost fern-like, making them appear like an ornamentals, instead of a food crop.
With that, you can use them to decorate your outdoor living space. What you have to do is hang them in a container. Just make sure to choose the shorter variety as it needs less room for plant growth.
Radish
While the leaves of radish are not as visually pleasing as the foliage you can see in carrots, you will still enjoy growing it in your hanging baskets considering the fact that they mature quickly, are easy to maintain and grow, and survive well in those planters.
In most cases, you can pick radishes approximately 30 days after they germinate. This allows you to obtain a minimum of 3 to 4 harvests before you notice the weather heating up. If that happens, you will need to fill the basket with another crop.
Spinach
Another great hanging garden idea is to grow the nutrient-dense and leafy spinach in a hanging basket, container, or planter. Spinach is easy to grow and lightweight, making it a truly great choice for a hanging container and vertical vegetable garden.
You can use those planters so you can make spinach a part of your garden without having to consume a lot of space from the ground.
Lettuce
Lettuce is also another lightweight vegetable that can survive well in containers. With that, they are definitely perfect for your hanging basket garden, especially if you plan on putting them in your outdoor living space.
What’s so great about lettuce is that it is not that hard to control, which means you can maintain its look even with the least care and maintenance. Most lettuce varieties favor a cooler climate more, which makes it a good choice when making your winter garden. You can then change into another vegetable patch or fruit once the summer comes.
Strawberry
In addition to your favorite vegetables, like root vegetables and leafy greens, you can also grow some fruits in your hanging basket or vertical garden. In that case, grow some strawberries. They are perfect for container and vertical vegetable garden because they have compact root system.
It is even possible for you to hang strawberries indoors provided they receive around 6 to 8 hours of sun daily. One thing to note about strawberries is that they are perennial. However, after around 3 to 4 years, you can no longer expect them to bloom, which means you should replace them with a new variety.
Herbs
It is also a fantastic idea to grow herbs for hanging gardens. You can actually grow herbs, like lavender, mint, chives, sage, parsley, and basil in a hanging basket. Just remember that if you intend to grow several herbs in just one basket, it would be ideal to grow the smallest ones outside while the tallest varieties should be in the center.
Other Fruits and Vegetables you can Grow in Hanging Baskets
In addition to the plants we have already mentioned, here are some other incredible options that will let you raise crops in your hanging planter or basket and in a vertical vegetable garden.
- Peas
- Peppers
- Swiss chard
- Cucumbers
- Beans
- Parsley
- Basil
- Mint
- Spring, pearl, and green onions
- Shallots
What are the Best Hanging Vegetable Garden Ideas?
You definitely have plenty of options when it comes to making your hanging garden, so let’s tackle some of the best vegetable garden ideas that can help you make that possible.
Here are some of the best ways for you to create your own magical garden even in a small space:
Build your vertical vegetable garden
If you have limited space, vegetable gardening is the ideal choice for you. This is one of the best vegetable garden ideas for those who wish to grow plants and vegetables at home but their outdoor space is very limited.
You can look at a vertical garden in a similar way as high-rise buildings. This means you lack the floor space for building and cultivating outwards, so your only choice would be to develop and build something upwards.
This is the key to forming masses of space even if you only consume a small footprint. For you to create your vertical vegetable garden, you can put some vessels on your fences or walls. These will serve as the containers where you will be planting and taking care of your growing vegetables.
Another way to create your vertical vegetable garden is to build your succulent tray. You can use it in filling your somewhat unsightly wall with green plants, such as succulents known for having a shallow root system. This root system makes them easy to grow in a tray, which you can also pull off with the help of a wooden frame.
Use hanging baskets
The use of hanging baskets kind of resembles flowing flowers. Note, though, that these baskets are incredible receptacles for the produce you intend to grow, especially herbs since they do not need a lot of growing space.
To take advantage of these creative baskets, you can just hang them on your balcony or backyard. You may also focus on growing herbs in the baskets and hang them in such a way that they blend well with the vegetables you decided to grow somewhere else.
Make your green wall
In this case, you may want to seek the help of wall planters. These planters will let you build your vegetable garden even if you only have very limited and small space. You can find metal or wooden planters that you can screw or hang into a wall, giving you a place where you can grow your produce.
Do you want to position many planters on your wall? Then make sure to provide sufficient space above each hanging planter. This is to give your vegetables sufficient room to grow upwards.
Grow veggies in hanging planters
You may also want to use hanging planters to grow vegetables so you can save some space. If you want to take advantage of this idea, then note that you can choose to use planters in bulk or just a few of them.
One advantage of using this type of planter is that it lets you keep various kinds of vegetables separately. This is beneficial for the plant and convenient for you.
It makes the process of growing and caring for them easier, especially if the different veggies you decided to grow also need different treatments. They will most likely have different needs, particularly in the amount and frequency of watering.
It would be a great idea to hang the planters from metal frames as the material is known for being stable and strong. Having strength and stability is necessary for the frame as it may get heavy once it gets filled.
As for the planters, you can choose those made of metal, plastic, or wood. Your choice of material will depend on the look you are after as well as your budget.
Take advantage of a cedar raised garden bed
You can actually make your garden box for this purpose. However, if you have no plans of making one yourself, you can just invest in a tiered garden box. The good thing about the tiered garden box is that it promotes ease in keeping out the weeds.
The fact that it is something that you can bring to a workable height, meaning you can turn it into a raised garden bed, is also a big advantage in separating each plant. This will let them grow well individually and separately. You will also love the fact that it no longer requires digging a hole in your yard or grass to make the garden vegetable bed.
Use tin cans
You can also repurpose an old tin can to create a container that you can use in your vegetable garden. All it takes is to fill them up with the plant species you wish to grow and cultivate. After that, hang the cans on your wall, so you can build a container garden, which will truly look appealing.
Grow tomato plants upside down
If you love tomatoes, then you will also be glad to know that they are among the ideal choices for hanging vegetable gardens. One way to create your tomato garden is to plant them upside down. You can use heavy-duty buckets for this purpose.
After that, you can hang the buckets with the tomato plants from a wooden beam. The good thing about it is that it ensures that these tomatoes will be out of reach, allowing them to grow undisturbed. While growing, you will also witness their vines coming down beautifully on your green wall.
Use plastic bottles
Do you have some unused plastic soda bottles at home? Then now is the time to take advantage of them. You can get creative and recycle the plastic bottles in such a way that they will serve as planters for your lovely flowers.
To make this hanging garden idea successful, what you should do would be to form two holes in the soda bottles. You will be using these holes to let the string pass, allowing you to hang the bottles with the planted flowers on the wall.
Make a garden pot holder with a wooden ladder
You can also recycle an old ladder, one that’s made of wood, so you can create your hanging garden. This is an incredible idea if you only have limited space since you can let the ladder stand anywhere in the garden. This is also a great idea if you intend to grow your plants and vegetables indoors.
Make the old ladder look more attractive by painting it. Make it a point to use bright paint colors to bring out the beauty of the ladder.
Use staked pots
With this idea, you can create a unique vegetable garden, one that birds will also love since you can put a small birdbath on top of it. For you to create this nice vertical garden, you will be needing eight terracotta pots at the very least. Expect the end result to look great, even appearing like a unique sculpture.
Use a spray paint to paint the terracotta pots. You can then thread each pot one by one with the help of rebar. After that, get a hammer, so you can start pounding the rebar into the soil or ground.
It should be around two feet down. That way, you can expect it to hold the pot no matter how heavy they will become once you start hanging the plants.
How to Make a Hanging Vegetable Garden?
Now that you were able to gather some vegetable garden ideas on how to create a hanging garden, it is time to start working on this project. However, you have to make sure that you are well-guided throughout the process to turn this into success.
Whether you put your hanging fruit and vegetable garden on your patio or any other part of your home, you will surely find these tips helpful.
Give them sufficient water
Remember that just like other plants, the ones that you grow in your vegetable or hanging garden also require water. As a matter of fact, anything that you decided to grow and cultivate in a container, whether they are hanging or not, needs more water. You will also have to supply them with fertilizers frequently.
Keep a close eye on the moisture of the soil so you can water when needed. It would also be best if you set up a self-watering system to ensure that the soil will never run out of its required moisture. In addition, you have to set up calendar reminders to make sure that you feed the plants well and nourish its soil.
Install the planters and hooks properly
Remember that the hanging baskets and planters can get heavy eventually. With that in mind, you have to be one hundred percent that the planters and hooks are properly installed. This should help prevent the planters from falling, which may only lead to accidentally hurting a pet or person or damaging your deck or property.
Harvest on time
As soon as they are ready, you also have to harvest the produce. Harvesting in a timely manner will ensure that the baskets and planters will not get heavier than necessary.
While it is not a necessity, you may want to consider an extension wand with a spray nozzle for your garden hose. This will make it easier and more convenient to water your hanging garden.
Ensure that there is adequate sunlight
Note that planting crops in a hanging garden means that you also need to provide them with sufficient sun. Remember that some crops, like tomatoes and peppers, love the sun.
Also, remind yourself that there are other plants and crops, like lettuce and peas, that love cooler temperatures more. Research on the sunlight requirement of the plants you grow in your hanging garden beforehand so you will not fail to provide them enough of it.
Use pots with proper drainage
The pots also need to have proper drainage. While they need enough water, this does not mean that you also have to drown them with it as this may only cause the plants to die. Ensure that you use hanging baskets that drain well to prevent issues.
Conclusion
Probably, the most important tip in caring for a hanging and vertical vegetable garden is to be wise in making choices as far as the plants are concerned. You actually have plenty of options as to what you can plant in the hanging garden. It is even possible for you to grow other salad greens and herbs in it.
A wise tip is to choose smaller plants as they have the need for headspace and support inside the container or plant. Plants that grow vines also work well since they will drape beautifully over the basket’s edge. It is also advisable to prepare to treat plants that grow as annuals since most of them cannot overwinter well.
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