Back when I was a kid, we had a garden appropriately sized for all sorts of crawling and creeping crops. Set on a quarter of an acre, we had enough room for zucchini, cucumbers, butternut squash, melons, and pumpkins. We were even lucky enough to not need cages for our tomatoes. Instead we just let them sprawl across the ground.

So many gardeners nowadays don’t have the luxury of a quarter acre. In fact, 200 square feet is luxurious for many folks living in the suburbs. And some only have a patio or deck as gardening space. This is when the best use of space means growing up instead of out.

Cages in the Garden

My garden neighbors grow only three things in their small 80 sq. ft. plot each year—tomatoes, cucumbers and basil. Each of their plants is caged, or in the case of the basil, kept tidy with the help of stakes.

The accompanying photo shows how they control their cucumbers by encouraging them to grow up through a cage. You’d normally associate cages with tomatoes, but as you can see here, the cage is suitably supporting the vining cucumber. Since cucumber vine and cling on their own, the plant does much of the work of growing vertically itself, rather than require a human to weave branches in and out of the metal rungs.

Benefits of Caging Cucumbers

You can also see that the growing vines and developing fruit are held above ground. This has at least three benefits that I can think of:

– The vines are that much further above and away from pests that develop and emerge from the soil, such as squash vine borers.

– The cucumbers are suspended and do not touch the ground; this lets them develop color all around the fruit instead of a yellow spot where the fruit would be in contact with the ground.

– The cucumbers are easier to find among the leaves and you don’t have to stoop as far, an excellent idea for folks who have a hard time bending.