Hanging Plant Ideas for Your Vegetable Garden

Hanging plants are most commonly used in flower gardens, but did you know you can also add them into your vegetable garden?  I grew up with hanging plants around our front porch awning to add color to the house, but I also remember many occasions where I snuck a ripened tomato, green bean, and even lettuce out of a hanging basket that had been planted with vegetables.  These Hanging Plan Ideas for Your Vegetable Garden help you to create hanging plants that are not just beautiful for flowers, but functional for your vegetable garden!

Hanging Plant Ideas for Your Vegetable Garden

Use hanging plants for items that need indirect sunlight.  One of the best uses for hanging plants in your vegetable garden is to keep items out of direct sunlight. Some aren’t able to have shaded gardens, but have vegetables they wish to grow that require limited or indirect sun for a large portion of the day.  Hanging baskets are ideal since they can be hooked on the edge of a porch for direct sunlight, then easily transferred to an interior hook for indirect sunlight the rest of the day.  The versatility of a hanging plant in your vegetable garden is wonderful!

Create themed gardens.  Hanging plants are ideal for themed gardens.  Things like an Italian garden or a Mexican garden can be created easily with just a few hanging plants around your home. You can use some for herbs like oregano, parsley, or cilantro.  Others for Roma tomatoes, garlic, onions, and even peppers.  Creating themed gardens gives you a chance to grow fresh produce in limited spaces.  A vegetable garden doesn’t have to be large or even built in a traditional garden space.  In fact, the best gardens are often in small spaces that can be easily managed and utilized regularly.

Manage plants with vines by using hanging baskets.  If you plant to have things like beans or peas in your vegetable garden, you can easily create a great hanging plants garden instead.  Plants that naturally have vines that trail up and down arbors, stakes, or in cages can work wonderfully in hanging baskets instead.  Simply plant as normal and train the vines to hang over the sides of the hanging basket for a hanging plant that is versatile, easy to move around, and allows you to use limited space to grow favorite vegetables.  You can even train the vines to grow up and around porch railings or posts if needed.

Hang indoors near sliding glass windows year round.  If creating a hanging plants vegetable garden is a goal and you live in a cooler climate, you can easily utilize this method indoors near sliding glass doors that would allow direct sunlight year round.  This gives you a much longer plant life for producing larger crops year round.  It’s a great way to begin plants inside and move outdoors as temperatures rise.  It also makes it easy to bring plants in and out as temperatures fluctuate in late Spring and early Fall months in areas with a typically cooler weather.  It is a great way to protect your plants and still have a vegetable garden that thrives for multiple months each year despite the local temperatures.

Use hanging fruit baskets.  A simple garden hack that is popular for many is to create your own hanging plants by purchasing wire or mess fruit baskets you would use in the kitchen.  You can then line them with moss, add soil, and your plants.  Depending on how sturdy they are, you can even create a tiered garden with this method adding smaller plants on the top basket and larger on the bottom.  It’s a great way to build hanging plants vegetable gardens in limited spaces.

Utilize hanging plants for your herb garden.  An herb garden is a wonderful accent to your vegetable garden.  Hanging baskets are a great way to do this.  There are so many different herbs to grow, including beautiful flowering varieties like lavender.  Many are excellent in cooking, while others may be more aromatic and perfect for using in homemade beauty products and gifts.

When creating a hanging plant herb garden, remember that many herbs like lavender and mint can easily take over an area as they populate so fast.  Keep them separate from other herbs and give each their own basket to grow within for best results.  Adding things like herbs for different themes as mentioned above is a great way to create your herb garden.  Planting heartier varieties together and those that need more or less water together makes it easy to maintain multiple herbs in one easy location.

Plant fruits as hanging plants for year round crops.  As a supplement to your vegetable garden, you may find yourself wanting to plant fruit as well.  Many berries are ideal for planting in hanging baskets. Graps, strawberries, and blueberries are favorites for hanging plants ideas that produce great delicious crops.  Hanging these plants indoors can also be a great way to have fresh fruit year round as they are rotated around and continue to grow after their initial growing season.

If you have hanging plants as part of your vegetable garden, these tips are a great place to begin in creating a wonderful and easy to manage garden.  Vegetable garden ideas come in many forms, and hanging plants or hanging baskets are just one of the many ways you can create budget-friendly gardens to feed your family this year.

More Vegetable Gardening Tips:

10 Tips for Growing Vegetables

Tips for Fertilizing Your Vegetable Garden

Growing a Vegetable Garden in the Southwest

How to Prep Soil for a Vegetable Garden

7 Gardening Tips To Produce Larger Harvests