Alright this is John Kohler with growingyougreens.com.
we’re here in a local community garden in Petaluma, California, and I have all these...
there’s six trees here on both sides of me are total of espalier apple.
So what that means is... espalier is a fancy French word means growing the plant, you know,
basically horizontally in one plane all the way down.
So the branches don’t extend further than this, basically, this four by four post right
here.
So that kind of like, makes, like, literally a wall of just apples.
And as you can see, it’s March, so it’s spring time, and it’s flowering and...
Let me show you the construction on this, cause this could be really handy to build
a trellis for people that are growing in their front yard or back yard where they need to
grow vertical.
So, growing vertical is really important.
There’s several really good examples here at the community garden.
I’m gonna show you each one of them, but first let me go ahead and show you this side.
I really like... this is my favorite apple in the world.
This is called the pink pearl apple.
So actually, you could see the flower are, like, really a nice vibrant pink color, and
the fruit is, you know, not commonly sold in trade because, you know, it doesn’t ship
well and it doesn’t last too long.
But they have almost a translucent color to them.
And they have a really good crisp flavor.
I love them.
They’re grown locally here.
So this pink pearl apple...
oh, so, in, so basically they’re using four by four post.
Looks like, I don’t know, eight feet, and then they basically at the end here, they
use an eyehook.
And they use an eye hook, and then at the end of the eye hook they have a just wrap
with a galvanized wire, and if we move down to this other, the middle post here, you can
kinda see, is, in the middles, basically, they just drill a hole through the four by
four post, and the wire runs through that hole to the other end, and continues down
to the other end, where they have on the end, once again, an eye hook.
So, if you do need to tighten up these cables, it’s as simple as, you know, twisting in
the eyehook legs, you know, a little more.
And, that’s how easy it is.
So, so these are just, you know, horizontal lines, and you could also, you know, also
do some strings from here down to the bottom as well, you know, if you want to make a grid
shape for your vertical trellis.
I’ve been thinking about doing something like this, maybe against my back fence and
going, you know, really tall, and I wanna grow some kiwis that are trellised up the
back fence.
Alright, so they’re growing some, looks like Snow peas here, and this is their trellis
design.
Literally all they took was some really thin sticks, and they literally just tied it off
with string and tied it to the next stick.
These are probably about, about, maybe three feet, two and a half feet apart.
And, you know what, that’s good enough to support these snow peas or sugar snap peas
or other peas like that.
You know, they’re not very heavy.
Now I’d never use a set up like this for something like tomatoes.
I’d definitely maybe use some metal, metal posts and some more high quality string.
This is just some inexpensive twine.
But it’s good enough to grow vertically and it’s really important to grow vertically
when you have limited space or growing in a, you know, small space or grove where you
don’t have the space.
But, you know, some things also do better when they’re grown vertically.
So let’s check out another part of the garden here.
Alright, so here’s another way to grow vertically.
This is basically, like, concrete grids to help you, basically, sink in concrete.
So they would use rebar and a heavy-duty avocation, and this is using a lighter duty avocation.
It’s usually just sunk in concrete.
One of the negative things about this is that it rusts, and you can see the rusted color
here.
But these are pretty inexpensive.
I think they’re less than $10 per whole sheet here.
And so, you know, they have it secured to their, their wooden raised bed here.
Looks like with some staples, and then it just comes up.
They have it folded so it’ll, like, have some support than if they did it just straight
away, they wouldn’t want it to flop over.
So, let’s check out some other supports they have built here in the community garden.
Alright, so here is another example of vertical growing.
These are about, I don’t know, maybe 5 feet tall, or so.
And once again, they’re using the concrete grids that you would lay in concrete before
you pour it to keep it stable.
It’s not rebar, but it’s a concrete grid.
I don’t know the exact construction term, but they do rust.
But these have a multi function.
So, you know, these are actually strong enough to support a tomato plant.
So you could plant one tomato plant in here.
The holes are nice and large, so you can reach in the tomato plant.
I guess in the off-season here, they’re planting, I don’t know, sugar snap peas
or snow peas like that.
And, you know, this could easily support the weight of a snow peas.
Yeah, they’re snow peas.
So, definitely good, but they will rust.
So, I don’t know, maybe paint them, or not paint them if you like that nice rustic, rustic
look.
Alright, so how do you grow up a concrete wall?
Well, basically, they got a brilliant genius here.
Looks like they ran a piece of wire down on the bottom, and then they also, you know,
in the top they basically, looks like they just literally glued on some eyebolts to the
fence and then ran some wire along the top.
And they ran a twine up to that wire.
And they made a whole trellis here out of literally wire and string.
And they’re growing these beans up this trellis.
And this thing extends for at least 25 feet.
It’s amazing.
So, you know, you can grow vertically.
It’s really easy.
Literally, you just take some wire and some string and you know, figure out how to do
it and how to set it up.
Here’s another great example of a vertical growing setup.
Basically, they have these, you know, round stakes they stuck in the ground, and they
have three of them.
And they’re using, basically, galvanized fence wire.
And, actually, it’s not even that tall.
They’re using, like, three or four foot tall.
And they have a seam here which overlaps, like about two squares.
So this could be definitely really good, cause you have access, you know, from the in...
from the middle, you know, to get all the plants that are growing on the outside...
So it looks like they’re either beans or peas, based on the plants that were still
attached here at the trellis.
I love vertical growing.
It gets me excited when I see it.
Here’s yet another example.
Basically, they have these two poles sticking on the end of their long bed.
I mean, this bed must be at least 15 feet long, 16 feet long.
And they basically drilled a hole in here and have some wire going through it all the
way to the other side.
There’s actually a fair bit of tension on this wire.
And then basically they, in the bottom of their bed, their wooden bed, they put a couple
staples in there, and then they basically ran this twine from the bottom up to the top,
and then back to the bottom, and just keep looping it up and down.
And then finally they end, and then they’ll start and use a new piece.
So, you know, the peas will end up growing up this twine, literally, and that will be
enough to support it, because, you know, peas don’t weigh too much.
So I definitely wouldn’t do this kind of system with the cucumbers or tomatoes.
I’d have something else, or even with melons.
I’d maybe even use a, you know like I did in my episodes at my home I did nylon trellis.
And the nylon trellis is really strong.
We did have many winter squash, you know, on there and it supported the weight with
no problem.
Alright, now I’m fully energized in the bamboo, tepee styled trellis.
It’s so peaceful in here.
Anyways, this is another excellent way to make a trellis.
You literally just have bamboo poles and string up at the top.
It’s really kind of a cool and decorative design.
It’s fairly sturdy, gonna hold ‘em plants.
This will probably work best for something like peas or beans.
That’s probably the best thing.
Some pole beans, actually, would probably be really good on something like this since
there’s not a... you maybe need to do some kind of, like, string between them to make
more segments if you did wanna grow something else vertically, like, maybe cucumbers or
even something like melons.
But this is actually a pretty dang firm system here.
I could probably almost hang on it, but I’m not cause it’s not mine.
Alright, so here’s our last example of vertical growing here in the Petaluma community garden.
This is basically a bamboo trellis, and it’s kind of like an accordion.
It kind of, like, folds up or gets smaller or get really wider, you know, depending on
how long or wide you want it, or how tall you want it.
It’s kind of really cool.
I’m using these actually to grow grapes against my house and also, I grew, using this,
with my chayote squash with... against my house.
So this works fairly well.
And you’re gonna have to deftly support it with some good fence posts to keep it upright
because it’s a little bit flimsy for growing anything more than peas or beans, something
like that right now.
So we’re coming to you from the community garden at Petaluma, California.
I’ve had a great time showing you, and learning myself on some of the different ways and things,
ways to grow things, cause every gardener has new and different ideas, and I’m always
interested in seeing what others are doing.
So, this is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com, and keep on growing.