Vegetables For Vertical Gardening: What Are The Best?

Ready to Learn All About the Best Vegetables for Vertical Gardening?

Since I’m in the throes of experimenting to add more vegetables to my range – as well as using old favourites – this is a perfect time to sum up which vegetables for vertical gardening have worked best for me so far. In this article, I will highlight which vegetables need to be repositioned because of their growing habit, or which need to be abandoned, because they promised much more than they delivered.

In my experience, the best vegetables for vertical gardening are beans and squash. This is because both like to vine upwards and are relatively simple to grow and maintain.

But, don’t take my word for it! There are a range of options out there if you’re interested in experimenting. Which I most definitely am. Overall, I hope you find this article useful and can feel more confident moving forward as you learn more about the benefits of vertical gardening.

Table of Contents

Best Vegetables for Vertical Gardening: Successes

Let’s start with looking at the vegetables I succeeded growing in my vertical garden this year…

Beans

This year, I was very successful with my French beans, which produced mightily. I didn’t bother with runner beans this year, as these didn’t get going until September last year, because of the intense heat here in the UK.

Luckily, the boiling summer predicted didn’t seem to come about this year. But, I will be experimenting with using more varieties of beans as one of my vegetables for vertical gardening next year, as I want to find varieties that can stand up to our increasingly unpredictable climate.

Squash

I love growing squash which is definitely one of the best vegetables for vertical gardening because squash enjoys vining upwards. This year, I tried smaller squash on my netted arch and larger squash on my interlaced bamboo cage and had some good results.

Now, toxic squash syndrome is a thing everyone should be careful of – since squash can cross-pollinate very easily. I always buy in new seed each year, but this year the packets stated ‘courgettes’ or ‘cucumbers’, but what actually came up looked more like butternut squash!

The uchiki kuri squash seeds produced obvious uchiki kuri squash, which was a relief. With the possible butternut squash, I’m going to do the taste test to check it’s ok (simply slice a bit of squash and lick it and if it tastes bitter, throw it away).

Apart from the seed surprises, I love growing winter squash, because it can keep in a cool dry place for months. My favourite squash is tromboncino squash, because you can either harvest that early and use like a courgette, or you can leave it growing and harvest much later for a winter type of squash.

Tromboncino also grows up to four or five feet long! If you have the space, you should definitely try growing this vegetable, which is brilliant for vertical gardening.

Sunflowers

I’m really happy to have succeeded growing tall sunflowers, which truly went mad this year. According to some people, every part of a sunflower is edible (which is why it’s included in this article), but I haven’t tried them…yet.

Overall, sunflowers tend to grow in completely the wrong direction for full support from the arch. When I started growing sunflowers, I believed they’d just grow straight upwards, but instead they listed to one side, presumable to take advantage of the sunlight, so next year I will place them close to the arch so if they list, they will lean onto the arch from the outside.

The problem was that they overwhelmed the straight supports I’d given them, even though those were tied in. But generally, sunflowers are one of the vertical gardening vegetables I will be growing again, but in a different location where they will have more support.

Vegetables for Vertical Gardening: Failures

Now, let’s look at the failures I’ve had. This isn’t to discourage you from growing these vegetables vertically, but here are the vegetables I tried that didn’t quite work out…

Tomatoes

I usually get a good crop with tomatoes when growing them up a support in their own container, with some companion plants like basil or borage growing at their base in the container. This year, I tried growing them up netting and over an arch, with the veg at the base being leeks.

Unfortunately, this year my crops were overwhelmed by blight – that’s plant disease – and I got very few nice tomatoes, but loads of blighted ones. I therefore spent a lot of time removing blighted detritus of stalks, leaves and nasty tomatoes!

I’m not sure why this happened – It may be they were too close, or they didn’t like an arch, or that everyone has said this was a terrible year for blight. So to conclude, I think tomatoes can be part of a variety of vegetables for vertical gardening, but are better spaced far apart, with containers of other veg in-between tomato containers.

Nasturtiums

Nasturtiums are edible plants that have a peppery taste. A great addition to your garden. Ok, I’m stretching the definition of ‘vegetable’ somewhat, but I thought to explain why my nasturtiums failed this year…

Well, it’s because generally climbing nasturtiums don’t climb nearly fast or high enough. Instead, they tend to rampage across the ground below. The only way to hold them back is to tie them to stakes or netting – and even then it’s tricky!

And, they didn’t get going until much later than the vegetables in the bottom of the bed below them, so when they did arrive, it was too late for them to provide shade – and they tried to grow over the veg already there. Not helpful at all! So this is not one for my list of future vegetables for vertical gardening.

Vegetables for Vertical Gardening: My Future Plans

As a keen gardening experimenter, I like to read gardening catalogues – not only to replenish my seed stocks, but also to look for new vegetables to experiment with growing.

I am planning to buy Sunzilla sunflower seeds, as these are said to have huge heads, hence the name! And, I recently saw a video of people harvesting huge-headed sunflowers, where they take the heads and beat them like drums to loosen the seeds – looks like great fun and something to definitely try next year.

Then onto the incredible vegetables website. I’m experimenting with gradually moving over to growing more and more perennial vegetables.

This isn’t as essential for container gardening, but with the recent flooding, can be really beneficial. This is because many have longer root systems than annual vegetables, and hold the ground better, which prevents soil erosion and flooding.

In any case, vegetables that you can just buy once and grow for years has to be good – especially for those gardening on a budget.

My choice is to try Caucasian spinach, which is a climbing plant. It apparently needs seed stratification [SS] (this where the seed needs cold before it can germinate properly).

Therefore, I either try sowing outdoors and hope for snow (unlikely), or I can try sowing and placing in the fridge. Personally, I’m going to try the winter sowing method, but that’s too long to go into details here…

Vegetables for Vertical Gardening: Final Thoughts

There are so many vegetables for vertical gardening to try out. It’s definitely worth getting into growing things upwards, to really maximise your growing space.

Gardening is all about having things go wrong as you work your way towards having consistent successes, so the failures are an essential part of the process.

If I had to recommend two vegetables to get started with, it would be French beans and Tromboncino squash. I’ve had repeated success with these two veg because they love to vine vertically and they are a great way to get started for those looking to succeed growing their own vertical gardens

Gardening to me is a lot of reading what other people have tried, then deciding if I want to try that or if I’m going to avoid trying that at all costs! I like a ‘pick ‘n mix’ approach to trying out ideas. But I always try out something new each year, as that makes me happy!.

Thank you for reading, and good luck!