| Abstrak/Abstract |
With the over-population of the world ever increasing and water and land being finite resources, alternative options are being sought for food production, whilst minimizing land use. Vertical gardening is a method of growing plants in an upright form by making use of stakes, cages, bamboo and other vertical supports. The purpose of an intensively grown garden is to harvest the most produce possible from a given space. An experiment about vertical garden was done at the Centre for Land Resources, Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Raised beds (shelf, a place holder) or growing beds are the basic unit of an intensive garden. Several of these beds were made with 6 levels of 6×4 m2 and 4 levels of 4×1.72 m2. Nutrients were supplied by organic matter (manure and compost), while water was supplied as treated wastewater. Then several vegetables (chinese cabbage, lettuce, water spinach, chili red) and fruits (lemon, guava, mango, passion fruit) were planted. The results showed that vertical gardening is best suited for plants that require maximum sunlight such as fruit and also several vegetables. Plants grown in a vertical garden are less accessible to diseases and pests, and crop harvesting and cultivation is easier. Vertical gardening provides adequate aeration to the plants, and also increases the beauty of the garden. Overall, the yield of vertical gardening is higher than traditional plantation methods. For example, we found yields of chinese cabbage of 45 t ha-1, while the average production in the field is 10-25 t ha
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