Do your vegetables grow up, or out or both?

I let mine sprawl - the only thing I do is pop an upturned basket under the melons to keep them off the ground to prevent rotting.

I try to tell my veggies "UP!" but they usually have a mind of their own, especially tomatoes and cukes....

I cage my tomatoes and every thing else sprawls. I am lucky to get my vegetables planted, much less staked.

Courgettes sprawl, beans up poles

Resin

Everything but melons and squash Up... Less bug problems

Dusty

I'm still experimenting as this is my first year with anything other than tomatoes

This my Very First Time growing anything edible (except for mint) and I'm growing cherry tomatoes that hang down, so my answer is DOWN.

xxxx, Carrie

Everything is mostly growing up here. Lots of tomatoes, cukes, and peas (though this heat wave may kill off the peas very quickly). A few bush-type eggplants and peppers, though they need no support... But they too are growing "UP!" thankfully :-)

Tomatoes - I put cages around them and try my best to keep their stems coming up through the cage, but inevitably I fail to see some of them until it's too late and they're too big to bend back into the cage. So they end up up, down, and all over the ground :-)

Peppers are well-behaved and I always use salad bush cucumbers, which are also fairly well-behaved. Beans and okra never came up - immediately after our traditional planting weekend we had a prolonged cool spell. Every gardener I've talked to in my area had total failure of their beans - they sat too long in the soil. If they had come up, they would be allowed to sprawl wherever they pleased.

I don't do a veggie garden. Why you ask? I would then be expected to not only cook them but eat them as well. Can 'em, pickle'em, freeze 'em......... Wouldn't know where to start or how. so...... I make it easy on myself. Just don't do veggies

Tomatoes staked; cucumbers & pole beans trellised; eggplants, peppers, etc. staked as needed; squash, pumpkins, etc. sprawl as they are too big to even attempt to contain.

Tomatoes trellised, Peppers in tomato cages. Bush beans do as they will but generally grow up. Didn't grow anything else this year that needed a decision re sprawl or support but in the past, melons and pumpkins sprawled

My squash, Melons and tomatoes are caged. The beans and peppers are uncaged.

I voted no vegetables. 'm still trying to solve the gopher problem around here. I know that I would only be heartbroken if my veggies all disappeared down a hole so I'm looking at alternatives. A contractor that was at my place the other day said he went to the time and expense of building 3' high raised beds with chicken wire under them. The gophers climbed the walls and now they have a nice little family in his 3x20' beds. I can't wait until I figure out a solution so I can grow some fresh veggies.

Most of my tomatos are staked or caged - don't quite have enough stakes yet. I have 3 cages that I bought a few years ago when all I had was 3 tomato plants and a hill of cukes. Most of the stakes are green metal poles, which are not quite heavy enough to told the plant up as it gets bigger. This year I found some really hefty black plastic stakes with hooks of various sizes... at Home Depot for about $2. I bought 10.
This year, I have pea fences for the first time. I got them from Park Seeds. They made it a LOT easier to pick the peas, and to keep weeds under control, because I could see and reach the weeds without uprooting the pea plants in the process.
I plant bush beans, so they don't need poles. Everything else sprawls.

Other. My tomatoes are Topsy Turvy and my herbs are in pots. No room (or sun) for anything else.

A bit of both methods here. Tomatoes are trellised/supported using 4' tall pieces of hog panel tied to t-posts. Pole beans are trellised up twine strung between some old shepherds hook plant hangers. Peppers are self supporting as are the bush beans for the most part. Squash, cantalope and cucumbers are left to sprawl about as were the peas that are done.

No veggie garden -- YET! Just moved to where I have a back yard and come spring it will happen. I have grown peppers and gourds in pots, but they just barely count.

Tomatoes are staked and the squash is supported (well, it was supported) with heavy twine. The broccoli and peppers hold themselves up.

I used to have a fairly sizeable veggie garden. Now I'm down to a couple of containers. So I picked 'a little of both'. Tomatoes are caged, peppers are not. I'm planning on expanding on the container gardening....it's working out pretty well. Plenty for 2 people.

If possible all my vegatables go up. I have a sensitive back..op. a few years ago. It is much easier to harvest by this...special the beans.

Everything goes up. Easier to pick and keep cleaner.

In my experience, without human or other animal intervention (and even sometimes with), most plants grow whichever way they want.

I let everything sprawl around where ever they want to. We do have to move the vines once in awhile to save them from the lawnmower.

No vegetables growing here. Used to have a 2500 square foot fenced in area for vegetables and herbs with lovely antique brick paths, raised beds (built with old scaffolding planks), a central round herb bed edged with native boulders. That garden was my therapy and my soothing joy, as well as a show piece featured on more than a few garden tours. I loved the hours spent canning and freezing and drying the bounty. It was a regular occurance to come home from work and take a stroll through the garden to see what looked good for dinner. Alas, Bambi and friends moved in and slowly but surely ended the option of growing your own. In time, I turned the page, created lovely "kinda" deer resistant gardens closer to my house, and have plenty of room in the freezer for venison where the veggies used to be. ;-)

another view of the used to be

Caged the tomatoes and the zucchini plants
Sweet red Peppers not doing very well.. but the hot peppers are..no support.

The tomatoes are tied up. Some in the ground, some in EB's some in straw bales. Cantelopes trellised or running wild,,,got both. Watermelons, all over the place. Stevia in a bale, Green beans didnt make it. Egg plant hangin in there, in spite of the flea beetles or what ever is chowin down on em. Corn doin great. broccoli doin just dandy. Squash seems to have gotten a disease, that's ok, I dont like squash anyway. Just raise it coz its pretty. Same reason I raise bell peppers. Nasty tastin things., but my neighbors like em.
Kathy

Caged tomatos, caged egg plant, bush beans don't need propping up, and that's all the veggies I have. Don't want to pick, cook, can, freeze, peel, blanch, puree, or chop. Done it too long, with just two mouths to feed, and a good vegetable market down the road, I'm a happy camper. Also, most of the above are stuffed right in the middle of flower beds, I'm an equal opportunity gardener.

up to max out what small amount of space I have. Tomatoes, cucmbers, peppers, squash, bells, beans, and on and on and on and on

Though Down too. carrots, onions, beets, and such.

Up Up Up! Everything that can be is up. Saves a lot of room which is something I don't have a lot of.

i try to do up as much as possible. i went to a lot smaller garden and i can get more in it this way. also alot easier to take care of it. love my vegie garden.

I staked my tomatoes and peppers but they are so loaded and have a mind of their own so they are somewhat sprawling. They arn't rotting and I can pick them so I'm happy!

I use a mixture of both. Tomatoes are staked. I grow only pole beans because they are easier to pick. The gourds have a trellis. The cucumbers won't use a trellis. The zucchinis and banana peppers don't need any support. If the pumpkins come up, they'll get free run.

WHEN I grow a vegetable garden, I do both - depends on what I am growing. I stake and cage my tomatoes - I don't like the fruit touching the ground and rotting. I like my cucumbers to grow up to save space. If I am growing squash or pumpkins, I choose a very large area and let them sprawl on the ground. Peas or beans definitely up. Then other veggies, like carrots, potatoes, radishes or onions don't need any help since they grow "down".

My tomatoes, which are really the only edibles except my herbs, are staked - so UP. I have so many huge old trees on the border of my back yard that it is hard to grow veggies so I settled for 3 tomato plants in a border near the house. Maybe next year I will do a raised be in the middle of my back yard and grow just a few more goodies.

My DH made copper tubing "tables" and puts netting over them. The tomatoes grow right up through the netting and we pick from the tables: much easier than any other way we've tried.

He also made copper tubing with netting trellises for the cukes and the beans and peas.

In our garden, anything and everything goes up. Pickles, melons, squash, beans,,,everything.

pirl,

Why was the choice made to use the copper for the posts? What thickness & size are they? You have no garden journal... maybe you can start one & put the pictures of your copper trellises with & without veggies there! I'd love for you to group them that way. I want to see the netting/web fashion you use.

Thanks.

~* Robin