Our Garden: gardening with trellises

I like the look of a garden that rises above the group with the use of trellises.

north of our house Not only is space used more efficiently to boost the production of the garden, but that openness and increased use of space allows for more air flow, decreasing the spread of disease--in my opinion, anyway.

Here are some photos of my garden from Memorial Day weekend.

a view from the east
in the southeast corner of our yard We are using the A-frame trellises for butternut squash and cucumbers. The vertical lattice that uses twine for runners is for Kentucky Wonder pole green beans.

The 4 x 8 raised bed growing boxes were built because the underground cables to our house all pass over that spot. Rather than just growing grass since we couldn't dig down, we decided to grow above the soil level with raised beds.

We have been eating greens out of our garden for about two months, since we covered the raised beds with plastic in March to warm them. Last year, we had fresh greens from the same beds in November. We hope to extend our season as much as possible.

Copyright 2011 by Thomas L. Kepler, all rights reserved