Growing Vegetables In Containers

Versatility is the hallmark of growing vegetables in containers. On balconies, decks, or patios, vegetables can grow in boxes, tubs, bushel baskets, cans, and planters of all shapes and sizes. Any of these containers will work ~ the depth of the box is what matters.

• 4 inches deep ~ Lettuce, turnips, radishes, beets, and all the low growing herbs.
• 6 inches deep ~ Chard, kohlrabi, short carrots such as 'Baby Finger', and the root crops listed above.
• 8 inches deep ~ Bush beans, cabbage, eggplant, peppers, and bush cucumbers.
• 10 inches deep ~ Cauliflower, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts.
• 12 inches deep ~ Parsnips, salsify, long-rooted carrots, squash and tomatoes

The choice of which vegetables to plant in a container garden also depend of which ones give the highest yield per square foot of space. So, those that can be spaced mostly closely in the row will produce the most return. Some of these are carrots, beets, chives, leaf lettuce, mustard, green onions, radishes, and turnips.

For a continuous harvest you might plant a total of 6 boxes ~ 2 early; 2 more three weeks later; and the last one 2 weeks after that.

How vegetables grow in your climate will determine your choice of late spring and fall plantings. Box plantings make it easy to think of harvests in terms of the number of meals instead of the total quantity of plants.

Out of necessity, the gardener without a vegetable garden can neither over-plant nor waste the harvest. No time is spent guessing how much a 20-foot row of beets will produce when growing vegetables in containers; instead, seeds are simply sown, a box or two at a time.

You can also try growing vegetables in raised beds if you are limited on space.

An added bonus is that raised beds can lengthen the growing season. In the spring, they warm earlier than the surrounding soil, since air circulation is freer in looser soil.

All of us might like to have a huge, country garden, but most of us don't. Nevertheless, small-space gardeners are a determined breed. If there is a will, there is a way.

Take my husband, for example. When we are cooped up in the winter months, he gets the itch to grow something. So he'll dig through my dried beans~the ones I use for cooking~and plant a few of them in a regular clay pot. Then it goes into our sunniest window while he waits for the beans to sprout. He waters and cares for these little plants until finally a bean matures on the vine, which he picks immediately and pops into his mouth. Ah, the joys of growing vegetables in containers!