Vertical and Elevated Spaces

With a quarter acre of fairly tight management and development for over ten years, its become increasingly necessary to be creative to accomodate more food production. So going vertical, infill and looking for elevated spaces is now a more concious part of my project. This gallery of fotos shows a variety of examples of going vertical and elevated. If you have any fotos like these of your place, please show them to me. Its fun and likely very strategic to use space more productively.

A very important aspect of going verticle is making use of plants that elongate. That can be pole beans, grapes, kiwi fruit, even trees can be shaped to elongate. Plants can start their lives in a place with modest access to sunlight but as they grow, they can move into a sunnier location or even extend over a surface that can't be planted but the space above can be made use of to produce food. Both annuals and perrenials can be used.

Inside the green house. Limited space in 17 by 20 feet. Note pole beans to the left. Tomatoes, commonly going vertical, in the middle and see the entire back wall covered with field fencing to provide a place for cukes, melons, winter squash to climb.

Another green house foto. Closer up to the fencing. You can see a cuke and winter squash moving towards the trellis. Ready to climb.

Trellising of apple trees. A kind of espaliet. Branches are pruned and trained on wires to fill in between trees. These trees are ten years old. You can see a corner of the green house field fencing lower right.

Walkway to the front door. The rebar and bamboo structures will support pole beans. Food will produced above the walkway. The trellises are a slow performance art. Green tunnel. Nice!

Trellis located above the shed. The shed is located where the driveway used to be. This is the first summer for the trellis. Interlocken grapes. Bamboo and rebar in the foreground is for the pole beans.

Another view of the pole been tunnel with the shed behind. The banana trees are purely ornamental.

View slightly above the pole bean structures. Note the 2 by 6 and 4 by 4 structure in front of the fence. Also the container gardening on the flat roof to the left.

Marionberry hedge being trained to grow up to 9 feet high. The hedge is about six years old.

This space will become a tunnel of food, an edible pergola. Food forest planted along the fence. Guide wires will be added to the wooden structure, along with pruning, will shape grapes, mulberry, yellow horn, domestic blackberry into the tunnel over a period of 4 or 5 years. Again, turning space above a non productive area into a food production.

Roof top container gardening. Still working on my technique for this. Grew some melons up here last summer. Note the tellis on top of the shed and the bamboo. You can also see the marion berry hedge along the street. Tree to the right is a cherry with young English Walnut to the left where the driveway was.

View from the flat roof. Pole bean structures visible along with the marion berry hedge.

View from the flat roof looking the other [south] direction. Pergola to the right. Further beyond the bamboo shade part will become a grape arbor. Note winter squash in the container. Fence line to the right used to be a huge laurel hedge. My neighbor and I collaborated to remove it. Bill has espaliet plums on his side of the fence.

Recently installed wiring field fence up to the eaves of the bungalow. This space will become a kiwi fruit grotto and shade the west side of the bungalow.

Another view of the field fence trellis. Turned out really well. The space will both produce food and shade the wall.

Grape arbor from the front porch of the bungalow. Cool and shady for house plants in the summertime, water feature to the right.

That's it for now. Lots of benefits from going vertical