Growing Up the Wall sample pages

Sue Fisher

Growing up the

How to grow food in vertical places, on roofs and in small spaces

wall

CONTENT S Introduction

7

PART ONE: Planning your space

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Practicalities

24

Edible living walls

50

Green roofs

91

Larger containers for small spaces

107

Choosing your plants

114

PART TWO: Plant directory

6.

7.

8.

9.

Vegetables

124

Fruit

144

Herbs

151

Edible flowers

163

Resources

171

Index

173

Chapter 2

Edible living walls While good old window boxes and hanging baskets have been popular for balcony and courtyard planting for centuries, now container gardening meets grow-your-own with a truly twentyfirst-century twist, as diminishing ground space encourages the growing trend for vertical edibles. Well-planted walls,

fences and other verticals can look fabulous just with edibles: a comb­ ination of beautifully shaped and coloured leaves, handsome herbs and a scattering of jewel-like edible flowers. There’s a wealth of opportunities to be creative, both with the containers themselves and the planting.

The size of your wall, fence or any other vertical feature is the only limit to the number of containers that it can hold. A surface can be packed with some of the more ‘traditional’ ones mentioned later in this chapter, or take the idea further and cover the whole area with plants.

There are now many commercially available products for this purpose, or you could use these for inspiration to make your own: troughs on frameworks, for example, perhaps combined with trellis so plants can grow up as well as out or down; or troughs in diminishing sizes, stacked up to create plantings that are both beautiful and edible.

Growing plants on the vertical

Flat modular panels can be combined for large displays. Photo: VertiGarden

4 Hot Beds

A wealth of ingenious container solutions which can be home-made, recycled or bought ensures that any vertical space can grow a feast of scrumptious fresh produce. While ready-made can be tempting, especially in terms of looks and convenience, inevitably it comes with a price – quite a high one in some cases. In these days of tight budgets and an increased awareness of environmental issues, budding ‘vertical gardeners’ will be relieved to know that there are plenty of recycled and home-made options. There’s a range of my favourites in this chapter, but the great thing about plants is that anything that can hold compost and have drainage holes made in it can be turned into a plant container. Keep this thought in the back of your mind all the time and a whole world of planting possibilities starts to open up.

CHAPTER 2 Edible living walls 51

Modular panels: with planting pockets Tiered panels made of rigid plastic are fixed to a wall or fence using wood or steel battens. (This type of unit is pictured on page 2). Planting pockets protrude out from the panel and hence have two advantages over the flat modular panels: it is easy to replant while the panels are in situ and plants have a larger rooting area.

Individual panels are approximately 60cm (24") high, and a number of panels can be fixed adjacent to each other to create a seamless ‘living wall’. Black is the most common colour, but white and terracotta are also available.

Irrigation (usually optional) can be installed out of sight within the system. The ‘Minigarden’ design also includes base trays to catch the surplus water, so this design can be used indoors or out.

Brackets attach unit to wall

62 Growing up the Wall

Stacking planters As an alternative to fixing units to a vertical surface, choose containers that can be stacked so, although attached to a vertical support for stability, the lower ones can take at least some proportion of the weight, rather than the building, wall or fence. For a long, trough shape, the Modu-wall by VertiFlora (pictured overleaf) is a sturdy design made of thick, rigid plastic. Inside the unit a thick layer of foam holds a reserve of water for plants to use. The slenderest type of planter is the Polanter, a cylindrical design made of rigid plastic, in a range of colours, with planting holes and incorporating a porous hose for watering. The rooting area is sufficient to grow salads, herbs, strawberries, or small trailing tomatoes. Several planters Framework can be placed on top of each fixed to wall for stability and other to form a tall cylinder. also takes This design is not self-supsome weight porting and does require fixing to a vertical surface.

Lowest trough sits on the ground to take some weight

CHAPTER 2 Edible living walls 63

Beans, dwarf

Beans, climbing

Height: 30cm (1') Minimum soil depth: 15cm (6")

Height: 1.8m (6') Minimum soil depth: 30cm (1')

Neat and low growing, little bush beans can produce an excellent summer or autumn harvest of slender and delicious pods over a number of weeks: most often green, but there are yellow and purplepodded types that look especially ornamental. Although frost tender, beans are quick and easy to grow from seed, so it is worth starting off a few pots on a windowsill. Start sowing under cover in small, deep pots in early to mid-spring to plant out after the frosts have passed, sow outdoors from mid-spring through summer. Beans do best in rich, moisture-retentive soil and in a sheltered spot: these compact plants can be grown in any upright container or site that offers a sufficient depth of soil.

More productive than bush beans due to obvious reasons of larger size, runner, Borlotto and climbing French beans are productive, pretty, easy to grow and give excellent crops over a long period. Their tall growth does need a greater depth of soil than bush beans: either in containers or in the ground – and a wall, fence or framework on which to grow. Runners produce larger pods and perform better in cooler conditions, while French beans have long, slender, finer-textured, thicker pods and prefer warmer summers. Both are frost tender: sow/ plant as for dwarf beans (see left).

Borlotto: ‘Lingua di Fuoco’ (Tongue of Fire) has pods brilliantly streaked with red.

French beans: ‘Blauhilde’ and ‘Violet Podded’ are purple, ‘Cobra’, ‘Hunter’ and ‘Isabel’ bear heavy crops of green pods, ‘Goldfield’ and ‘Golden Gate’ are yellow.

Runner beans: ‘Celebration’ AGM, ‘Painted Lady’, ‘Streamline’, ‘White Apollo’ AGM, ‘White Emergo’. ‘Moonlight’ is a cross between a French and runner bean and is self-pollinating.

Varieties French beans: green-podded good croppers include ‘Delinel’ AGM, ‘Laguna’, ‘Montana’, ‘Nomad’ AGM and ‘Primavera’.

Yellow-podded varieties include ‘Concador’, ‘Golden Teepee’ and ‘Sonesta’ AGM. Purple-podded ones include ‘Amethyst’ and ‘Purple Teepee’.

Bush runner beans: ‘Hestia’, ‘Pickwick’.

126 Growing up the Wall

Varieties

Beetroot The bushy runner bean ‘Hestia’ is ideal for tubs.

Height: Up to 15cm (6") Minimum soil depth: 10-15cm (4-6") Grown mainly for their roots but also for attractive leaves, which are a

CHAPTER 6 Vegetables 127