Member Reviews

Due to a passing in the family a few years ago and my subsequent health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for years after the bereavement. Thank you for the opportunity.

Was this review helpful?

This amazing book shows you how to grow vegetables and herbs by growing upwards, which is great for not just an apartment or city dweller but also has fun ideas and projects for those who have more space but want to maximize their growing options. There are ideas and plans for building your own verticle projects, you will also learn about which vegetables are best suited for growing vertical.

Was this review helpful?

A fun book filled with beautiful inspiration to grow up instead of out. These ideas are great for gardeners with small spaces or just those who want to mix things up a little. A lot of the projects are a little much for me, but it's inspirational for garden planning and full of great photos. Perfect for winter reading and garden planning.

Was this review helpful?

Vertical Vegetables is a DIY tutorial guide for gardeners who want to increase the efficiency of their space use. The book contains numerous projects for hardscaping extra usable growing space vertically by incorporating trellises, living walls, towers, vertical containers and hanging planters.

Released 6th Nov 2018 by Quarto on their Cool Springs imprint, it's 192 pages and available in ebook and paperback formats. Author Amy Andrychowicz is a gardening and DIY blogger and this book showcases those talents well.

I'm one of those people who spends a LOT of time in the garden. I have drawings and plans and notes all over the place and generally fill in a couple of journals a year with ideas and plans to try next year. I'm also the person who is critically short of planting space and can usually be found wandering around in my garden with a plant in hand trying to find a little space to slot it into. This book is full of creative ideas and tutorials for spreading planting space upwards instead of outwards.

Like any DIY book, not all of the ideas will be practical for all applications or gardens. There are quite a few which were intriguing to me and look nice or have enough whimsy and humor to fit well into my very informal garden.

The intro covers concepts and benefits of vertical gardening and takes up about 12% of the page content. There's a chapter on plant selection, followed by tutorials on building and using trellises and other structures. The next chapter covers living walls and hanging gardens and the book finishes up with a chapter on container gardening.

The entire book is peppered with full color photographs of healthy and appealing plantings and structures. This is a nice resource for inspiration pictures as well and includes a lot of material which can be adapted to suit most needs.

This book is slanted toward the suburban gardener. There are clever ideas for increasing planting space in attractive ways, but readers are not really likely to increase food yields overwhelmingly. Decorative plantings intermingled with herbs and some small fruits would be ideal and provide at least some food and flowers for use.

There is an adaptable trellis box planter which could easily be used with raised beds which could potentially produce vegetables if used with succession planting.

Lot of good ideas here, many of which are good starting points.

Four stars.

Was this review helpful?

I had a friend who was experimenting with vertical growing but was not very successful. We both read this book and have spent this winter developing the vertical structures we will need to put our "up" gardens in place. This premise has very many good points and very few bad ones. I think the best one for me is less bending over and less weeding. The book is user friendly and would make a great gift for any gardener.

Was this review helpful?

Amy Andrychowicz's Vertical Vegetables makes me wish I did not have piles and piles of free range chickens. Otherwise I would fill my yard with her vertical creations. The book starts off with gardening basics and choosing what to grow vertically. The next three chapters are filled with guidelines and plans for building a variety of projects including trellises and hanging planters. My favorite project is the self-standing living art - a planter/picture frame combo displayed on an easel. I will make a spot for one or maybe more of these in my yard come spring.

Was this review helpful?

This is a fantastic book on gardening vertically in order to maximize space. My gardening space is very small so i am always looking for new ideas that i can implement to get the biggest harvest possible. The author is very knowledgeable and the book has a lot of unique ideas for growing vegetables in small spaces, like trellising and then growing veggies that need some shade underneath in the same small space. I can't wait for spring to arrive so i can try out some of these ideas! Highly recommended. I received an advance reader copy of this book via netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

Was this review helpful?

This book is a must have for those who love to garden and for those who don't necessarily have a large yard. The book gives you directions on how to build a covering or an arbor for the plants/vines to grow up. The author gives you so many ideas on how to grow your garden that it is highly recommended and I will be adding this book to my library in the future.

Was this review helpful?

A fantastic primer to porch, deck, and small plot vegetable gardening.

Included are clever “how to” sections with useful blueprints. My favorites include: the small arch trellis, contemporary obelisk, and corner tower garden planter.

Honestly, I’m confident I’ll try the small arch trellis in my hobby garden next growing season. What an ingenious idea. It’s much more used than a huge traditional sized arch. Wish I would have thought of that idea!!

Thanks to #NetGalley, I had an advanced PDF to read and review. #VerticalVegetables

*All opinions are my own and I was not require to post a positive review. *

Was this review helpful?

If you're into gardening, then this is the next book that you need to read. I've been really into gardening for the last couple years, and whenever I find a book like this, I just have to read it. This is perfect for someone who struggles with garden space, or just wants to get the most out of what they have. If you're looking for a cool way to have the best version of the garden than you want, then this is the book for you.

Inside is not only a easy to follow and really interesting tutorials on how to build the beautiful garden of your dreams with extra parts lying around, but also stories from the author's own life and personal gardening adventure, and the care that the kind of plants that thrive in vertical gardens need. It doesn't matter if you're new to gardening or an old pro, I think everyone could benefit from this book.

The idea's in this book are simple, and really beautiful. They can spruce up your garden really quickly, and make it the wonderland you always dreamed it to be. It doesn't matter if you have a backyard or even just your deck reserved for growing, you can make the most out of it. Vertical gardens don't just look unique, they help you get better harvests, and keep your plants healthy and away from pests. What more could you need from a book?

The pictures are crystal clear, and just really make me want to have the kind of garden in the pictures. It's split into five categories; basics, choosing what to grow, the structures available, living walls and hanging gardens, and planters and towers. All of these are very interesting to me and I can't wait to try it out. Another thing I liked is that I actually learned about a fruit I never heard of before, called a cucamelon. Now I want to grow them!

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and not only did I learn a lot, but I also got to know a lot of personal experiences from the author on the topic. It has everything you could possible need, and it didn't read like a textbook at all. Definitely check it out if you get the chance!

Thanks for reading.
(Radioactivebookreviews.wordpress.com)

Was this review helpful?

Most of us are space poor in our gardens, which means that we cannot have those enormous veggie gardens our parents had. Most of us also want to save money and eat food that is organically grown, which means we need to grow some ourselves.
This book not only shows how to grow and make your own structures to grow vertically along fences and wall, but also to make garden features with free standing structures to make for our climbing vegetables. Making them easier to pick, maintain and keep free of pests. Allowing sun and water to easily reach all part of the plants.
The patterns and instructions are easy and utilises some recycle material with bespoke results

Was this review helpful?

My husband and I are trying to make the most out of our cardboard box size backyard, so when I saw this pop up on Netgalley I was all over it. The book is filled not only with ideas on how to make the most of your garden by making it vertical, it also gives awesome instructions on how to build your own vertical structures. And if you’re not sure how to make your produce grow vertically, or which produce does well with it, this book has you covered on that too.

Definitely recommended if you’re looking for some space saving techniques in your garden.

Received via Netgalley and reviewed of my own accord.

Was this review helpful?

Thank You Netgalley and the Publisher for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

I am all about getting more out of less space. It is the future and I will back anything that explains how I can do that with concise information and great pictures. This is an excellent guide on how a gardener can achieve more with less. Plus! It isn't vague allusions on how achieving this is done. She provided technical information! This is how it is done. Definitely, recommend for the gardening enthusiast.

Was this review helpful?

Vertical Vegetables provides the aspiring gardener with clever tips and tricks for packing the maximum amount of garden into the minimum amount of space. Many of the projects in the book will require at least a minimum amount of handy person skills with tools. But even if you don’t have skills, there are plenty of ideas for growing plants up and around the small space garden. The beautiful photography will have you dreaming of spring planting.

Was this review helpful?

Growing vertically has interested me for some time now and is becoming evermore popular .
I was excited to read Vertical vegetables to gain more technical in site into this modern twist of growing.
I was not dissapointed, Amy covers a huge range of topics and provides in depth details for all areas covered.
The building projects , while quite technical and maybe a bit ambitious for some, come with so much information, measurements and step by step photos that anyone can give them a go.
There are alot of great ideas and alot of information to learn.
I really enjoyed reading and the photos throughout were lovely too.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Was this review helpful?

Amy Andrychowicz has a winner with Vertical Vegetables.. There are plenty of easy projects and beautiful photos which make diving into vertical gardening a breeze. Inspiration for a beginner and advanced gardener.

Was this review helpful?

When I first started my vegetable garden, I had large pots on my deck. Fast forward a few years, and every available space in my yard has raised beds(unless I bulldoze the house, I have nowhere to go but up). Vertical gardening is a great way to maximize space and this book provides lots of information, not only detailing what you can grow vertically using trellis, cages, stakes, tee-pees or pergolas but also plans to build some beautiful and functional structures.
Growing vertically not only potentially increases yield, but it also gets your plants off the ground increasing airflow and reducing the risk from soil-borne disease. Since I am not a beginner, I have grown tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, nasturtium, and cucamelons vertically(all detailed in this book), but I hadn't considered squash and watermelon plants which take up a lot of valuable space. I plan try growing those vertically next year and hope then to have additional room to grow more plants! I really liked the included plans to build a freestanding arbor and a classic obelisk and I will be using my D.I.Y skills to build both of these structures. It is great to have a productive garden, but also nice to be able to sit outside and enjoy an area with supports that function and look good too. To me, this is a comprehensive resource for growing vertically and I will be adding a hard copy to my garden resource shelf.
I received a DRC from Quarto Publishing Group- Cool Springs Press through NetGalley.

Was this review helpful?

Vertical gardening is something I am really interested in to optimize the production of my small garden without more room. In this book, we explore this special type of gardening through trellis, walls, hanging gardens, planters and towers.

Was this review helpful?

This is full of great information and accompanying photos. It is such a helpful resource that we'll be purchasing a copy.

Was this review helpful?

One of my favourite books. As a keen and professional gardener I'm always keen to maximise space for growing and in these days of small back yards, it makes sense to grow up. This book will give you gorgeous visuals, many many ideas and clear instructions on how to create your vertical masterpieces.

Was this review helpful?