Rule of Thumb: if the edible bit is actually in contact with soil, then you have cause for concern. If the edible bit is waving in the air, not to worry too much. Lettuce is debatable, but usually the faster it grows the less problem it is. The real problem is long lead time crops actually in the ground, like potatoes.
Thatās good - if things like zucchini and squash were trellised they would be fine?
And root veg would need grow bags or pots
Zucchini and curcurbits in general are usually no problem if the fruit is off the ground, so trellising sounds like a good idea. Heavy fruit like pumpkins canāt be trellised and take up a shittonne of room, so might not be the best use of space. If you do have a try at pumpkins you might need to put a tile or plank put under each fruit to keep it off the ground.
Root veg would be better in pots or similar. As I didnāt have room or good soil for spuds in East Brunswick, I grew spuds in car tyres stacked up on a concrete base. Made harvesting easy too as all I had to do was pull each tyre off in turn and fumble out the spuds. Very very productive way to grow spuds. Round carrots & beetroot went in milk crates lined with shademesh - these worked very well and also worked for leeks and silverbeet. I am too cheap to buy large pots from the green store. I found 1 bag of potting mix fitted nicely in 1 milkcrate too which made planning easier. Milk crate gardens did need extra watering in summer as they did dry out a lot if I didnāt watch them. One benefit was they were easy to move about in accordance with the weather/sunlight. Iāve tried using growbags, but I find them a bit heavy to move about. They do hold a lot of soil so could be good for big carrots etc that need a deep soil bed without lumps in it.
I was considering the tiny sugar pumpkins that wouldnāt be very heavy, or snow peas but chose some zucchini seeds. Iām thinking to stake them up or maybe improvise a lattice.
The milk crate pots are ingenious. Iād probably forget to water or have to bring them inside though so maybe notā¦ I wouldnāt be able to lift the grow bags or the tyres but these are some good ideas
If you have room for 50cm pots, you can grow pumpkins and watermelons in them with one of those tripod trellises. MUCH smaller yield and fruit, but perfect for 1-2 people
