Gardening Up in a Wine Barrel

There never seems to be enough ground space for gardening. When I'm searching for added garden space I usually bring in the barrels. Recycled wine barrels provide an overflow for the new things I want to try in my garden. They're perfect for combining herbs, flowers, vegetables, blueberries and strawberries. Wine barrels are just right for a dwarf citrus or fruit tree when you can't decide on a permanent spot in your back yard.

Here are my barrels filled with herbs. 



Here, we add vertical space and a striking garden element! 



  To use my space more efficiently, I recently started using my barrels for vertical gardening. I've added peas, beans, cucumbers and of course sweet peas and morning glories. For support I used chicken wire or bamboo poles, but as I stood back and looked at the barrels, I wanted something a little more elegant to support the climbing vines. Something that would add dimension, texture and beauty to the garden. I needed something that I could easily cover with shade cloth in the summer, frost cloth in the winter, and plastic in the spring to create a mini greenhouse for my seedlings. I needed something that would fit inside a barrel, large container or pot, and also withstand the summer monsoon storms.

My solution was to design something after the french tuteurs (meaning to tutor or train), a vertical structure used to support plants. Voila! I've created a dome barrel trellis... now available for a wine barrel or large container of your own! 

My dome trellises are only available locally, at 

Baker Nursery.

They will also be for sale at Caroline's,

Boho Farm and Home Flea Market on April 2, 2011 and at

  Lylah's, Simple Farm, Vintage Market, on March 31 to April 1-2.

    You can also contact me directly at

Jill@sweetlifegarden.com for more information and pricing. 
The trellises are around 60" high, we are working on a reasonable way to ship them in the near future.




 

Here's Caroline's trellis, protecting the strawberry plants from her chickens.

The trellises at Julie's house were custom made for her containers. We wrapped them in netting to protect them from the birds and the family pup, Ginger.

Now, let your imagination and your plants run wild with the dome trellis from Sweet Life Garden! ( This is my sales pitch. yeah I'm still working on it... )