Reddit mentions of YARDGARD 308302B Fence, 48" x 50'/4" x 2", Color - Galvanized

This spring I started a garden on my deck in Philadelphia. This was really the first time I gardened anything seriously and I’ve enjoyed myself immensely. Skip to the bottom for the album of it all.

I primarily started my plants from seeds without researching how they grow:

• Sugar Baby Watermelon
  
  
• Burpless Cucumbers
  
  
• Sungold Cherry Tomatoes
  
  
• Campari Tomatoes
  
  
• Spaghetti Squash (purchased plant)
  
  
• Green Bell Peppers (purchased plant)
  
  I quickly realized that I needed to be creative about how to manage these plants as a lot of them grow out instead of staying compact. Once the plants outgrew their medium sized pots, I needed a different solution. The major unlock for me was finding CaliKim's container gardening videos on YouTube that recommended planter bags. She also has a great method of making cage trellises that work perfectly in the bags she recommended.
  
  
• Container Gardening Video (there are more!)
  
  
• DIY Cage Trellis Video - I followed this one almost exactly
  
  
• Welded Wire fencing for the cages
  
  
• VIVOSUN 20-gallon planter bags were a major unlock to getting this system to work. The mobility is awesome. The red one with the spaghetti squash is a different brand (Root Pouch?) and is only 15-gallons. I strongly recommend getting 20-gallons for vegetables as they like deep routes for the most part. My squash is doing fine, but it’s definitely been slower than the bigger bags
  
  
• Half-Pallets I got for free from work to help get my plants off the ground and avoid rotting and promote drainage
  
  With this starting point I was able to get these plants into a compact space and still be able to thrive. Because I’ve got everything on top of each other there is some inter-mingling but for the most part things stay in their cages.
  
  My deck faces south and with the egregious Philadelphia summer I sometimes have to water twice a day to keep everything happy. I have done a lot of pruning to keep the plants reigned in and not way overgrow their plot.
  
  As the project progressed I realized I needed bamboo stakes to stabilize the cages and my non caged plants, and a few other random items listed below:
  
  
• Bamboo stakes for stability
  
  
• Velcro ties to guide plants where needed
  
  
• Shears for pruning
  
  
• Garden Netting used to make watermelon hammocks
  
  The watermelon needed hammocks to fend off gravity in this system, pole around YouTube for different ways people have done this
  
  In my research I got disheartened several times because many said growing watermelon or cucumber or squash in a compact space is extremely challenging and arguably not worth it. At that point I had already started the plants and I decided to give it a try anyway. To my delight things have turned out very well, and I wanted to share with any other urban gardeners who think they don’t have enough space for veggies.
  
  Next year I would grow more cucumbers and cage them instead of stake them (or maybe both). For the winter my plan is to leave the bags and soil outside and see how they hold up. It seems like they are able to handle snow / excess moisture without too much issue.
  
  https://imgur.com/gallery/jCqiEQH