Grow Vegetable Vines in Small Spaces

Backgrounder

Fresh vegetables can be costly to buy at the market. But you can grow them yourself at home. Even if you live in the city or the village and don’t have much space, you can still plant vegetables that grow on vines. A huge variety of these grow in the tropics: cucumbers, gourds, pumpkins, climbing tomatoes, some leafy green vegetables, and beans of many kinds. You can even eat the tender leaves and buds of some of these vines so that you get more food from the same space and plant.

Vines only need a little ground space. Once they are established, they don’t need constant care. And they will give you surprisingly large harvests. For example, you can pick about half a kilogram of fresh pods every 5 or 6 days for 3 months from a single vine of lima beans.

You can also let some pods ripen and dry on the vine so that you can store them for use in the hot, dry season. One vine of perennial chayote, or chow-chow, will give you 6 to 8 fruits (each weighing about one-fourth to half a kilogram) every 10 or 15 days for at least 6 months of the year.

If you have young children, have them help you plant and look after vegetable vines. This way the children think of the plants as their own. They feel proud to contribute to family meals.

Where to plant Look around your house and land. You will find many small, neglected spaces left unused or piled with junk. They may not look like garden areas, but you can turn these into productive spaces. It isn’t necessary to have large beds with rows of one kind of plant. You can plant one or two vines in every small sunny space.

Start with the spaces nearest to the house, so that you can water the plants easily and pick the vegetables as they are ready. Here are some examples of spaces you can use:

1. Grow vegetable vines at the corners or along the sides or back of the house, storage shed, or other building. The vines can be trained up pillars or string trellises and spread out on the roof.
2. You can also grow vegetable vines in large containers, such as big clay pots, tins, or barrels. Baskets filled with compost make good containers for growing vegetables.
3. Grow vegetable vines along fences or hedges. This way you will have a readymade trellis to support the vines.
4. If you live in the country you can grow vegetable vines along field bunds. Vines that bear large, heavy, thick-skinned fruit are especially suited to this.
5. Vines can grow up and spread on haystacks or manure mounds. In northern India farmers store cow dung in the open in neat mounds about 1 to 1.5 metres high, protected with a covering of straw or soil. They plant a pumpkin or squash vine beside each mound and train it to grow up the mound.

What to plant What you plant will depend on what vegetable vines grow well in your area. But whatever you grow, here are some points to remember:

1. Choose varieties that have the fewest insect and disease problems.
2. Plant a good mix of vegetables for a year-round supply. Plant both fast-growing kinds that will give you an early harvest and slow-growing ones that will mature as the early ones are finishing.
3. Plant both vegetables that must be eaten fresh and those that can be stored. Some vegetables, such as cucumber, snake gourd, or bitter gourd, must be eaten soon after they are picked. Others, such as pumpkin, ash gourd, or bottle gourd, keep well and can be stored for several weeks after they are picked. Plant some of each kind of vine, so that you will have a steady supply of vegetables.
4. Some vines, such as pumpkin, have edible leaves and flowers. Most beans can be eaten as fresh pods and seeds, and some seed can be dried for later use during the lean season. By planting vines that have many uses, you can get more food from a single space.
5. Find out which vines will bear during the dry season, when it is hardest to get fresh vegetables. Try planting these.

How to plant Most vegetable vines thrive best when planted in the rainy season. Dig pits at least 30 cm square and 30 cm deep. Mix the dug out soil with plenty of organic matter or compost. Fill the pit with this mixture to about 5 cm from the top and press it firmly down. Plant 3 or 4 seeds in the center of the pit. Water gently, without disturbing the soil. When the seedlings are about 10 cm high, pull out one or two so the rest have room to grow. Keep the soil moist until the seedlings are well established.

If you have the space, plant three or four lots, at intervals of 12 to 15 days. This will let you harvest vegetables over a longer period.

Use waste water from cooking and washing to water your vegetable vines. Make sure the water contains no soap or chemicals. If the vines are close enough to the house, you can dig little channels or use bamboo pipes or hollow logs to carry the water straight to the plants.

Mulch the plants to save water. If the soil is open to the air and sun, more than half of the water evaporates. So cover the soil around the plant with straw, paper, pebbles, sawdust, or plastic sheets.

Another good way to save water is to pour it only near the root tips. As the plant grows, its roots spread outwards, so pour the water in a circle around the plant, a little distance away from the stem. As the vine gets bigger, water it further away from the stem.

How to support vines Vines have weak stems. They cannot stand on their own. They need to be supported. You can train them up pillars or posts. Or you can make string, wire, or bamboo trellises to support the vines. You can even train vines on trees, as long as they are not shaded too much.

Vines that bear light, thin-skinned fruit (cucumbers, chayote, tomatoes) should be supported in such a way that the fruit does not lie on the ground. If the ground is wet, the fruit may rot or be attacked by insects.

Vines that bear heavy, thick-skinned fruit are hard to support on trellises. Plant these where they can spread on the ground. Sow seeds of pumpkin, ash gourd, or bottle gourd at the edges of field bunds and let the vines grow down the side of the bund. This also helps protect the soil from erosion. You may need to raise the tender fruit off the ground, but as the fruit matures, its thick skin will protect it, even if it lies on the ground.

Remember Use waste spaces around your home to grow vegetable vines. Use waste water, which you would throw away anyhow, to water them. Take the time to stake and support the vines. With only a little effort, you can give your family fresh vegetables to eat the whole year round.

Notes Vegetable vines suited for training on pillars, fences, or trellises –
Beans: Lima bean, double bean (Phaseolus lunatus); climbing or runner bean (Phaseolus vulgaris); lablab bean (Dolichos lablab); winged bean (Psophocarpus tetragonolobus).
Gourds: Snake gourd (Trichosanthes anguina); cucumber (Cucumis sativus); bitter gourd or karela (Momordica charantia); chow-chow or chayote (Sechium edule).

Other: Climbing tomato (Lycopersicum esculentum); Malabar spinach (Basella malabarica).

Vegetable vines suited for spreading on the ground –
Pumpkin (Cucurbita maxima); ash gourd (Benincasa cerifera); bottle gourd (Lagenaria vulgaris).