Avante Gardening
by Derek Fell
by Derek Fell
My first introduction to the joys of gardening occurred when I was five years old. I remember my grandfather gave me a packet of garden peas and told me to plant them in a strip of soil at the back of our house against a sunny wall. I built a makeshift trellis with some spare lumber and string for the peas to climb up. About the seventh day I was thrilled to see green sprouts emerge. I guided the stems so they gripped my trellis with their tendrils, and watched them develop pea pods. I picked a basket full and proudly showed them to show my grandfather, and I have been hooked on gardening ever since. I never miss a season without growing the remarkable ‘Sugar Snap’ pea that can climb to six feet high and produce a generous harvest of edible podded peas for snacking straight from the vine, crisp, sweet and crunchy.
Most people are familiar with climbing roses and the pillar of flowers they can produce—far more than any shrub rose because the canes grow up, some varieties reaching to a height of 25 feet in a single season, presenting a pillar of bloom. The same is true of pole snap beans versus bush beans. Although a bush snap bean can give you an earlier harvest, the harvest is soon finished, while a pole variety will grow to a height of 10 feet, bearing snaps non-stop all summer until fall frost, and yielding ten times more snaps than a bush variety. It occupies no more space than a bush variety and therefore saves labor. You will save on watering, fertilizer, and mulching to deter weeds.
There are many ways to grow vertically besides choosing a climber and training it to grow up a trellis or garden netting. For example, a simple A-frame ladder can be set up at the side of a sunny deck or patio so that the steps form shelves on which to place potted plants, such as ever-bearing strawberries, herbs, lettuce and cascading tomatoes like Tumblin’ Tom. Inexpensive bamboo canes can be used to build a trellis, either freestanding or against a wall. I even grow my own bamboo canes, using a clump-forming variety in a corner of the garden where it screens my property from a neighbor’s. The easiest support for a pole bean is a teepee, using four or more bamboo canes to form a tall pyramid.
To finish reading "Grow Up, Not Out," turn to page 78 in the Spring issue of "Bucks County Magazine."