Container Gardening Ideas: Starting a Garden in a Container

This post is for everyone out there who does not have the luxury of a big backyard to plant row after row of fruits and vegetables.  If you live in a condo or apartment and want to start a garden, YOU CAN DO IT!  Granted, you may not be able to grow as much food as someone with multiple garden boxes or garden beds galore, but you can still have a garden.  Just on a smaller scale.

A few months ago as we were clearing the backyard to make room for the new greenhouse, I suddenly noticed there were a ton of saplings to remove.  Instead of tossing them onto the “burn pile” I set them aside for later use.

So far I have built a trellis for the peas and beans, and I have also set aside some of the larger saplings we removed for another, much grander project.  As I was sorting through the wood, I happened to notice one {6 ft} tree we had cut down.  It was perfect.  Perfect for a container garden.

After filling both pots with potting soil I tossed in about 40 sugar snap pea seeds, covered them with soil and gave them a drink.  A few weeks later, and once the peas were about 2″, I carefully inserted the tree into the soil towards the center of the pot and added 6 lettuce starts {3 romaine & 3 red sails}.

As the peas grow, they will start to climb up the tree and in time completely cover the tree with vines, and eventually peas.  This is the type of container gardening that I adore, and best of all it can be re-created so many different ways.  The possibilities are endless.

So there you have it.  How to plant a garden in a container.

Be creative.  Think outside of the box. You can do it!

Here are a few more books on container gardening I think you might enjoy:

Amazon: The Edible Balcony: Growing Fresh Produce in Small Spaces
Amazon: McGee & Stuckey’s Bountiful Container
Amazon: Apartment Gardening: Plants, Projects, and Recipes for Growing Food in Your Urban Home
Amazon: The Complete Guide to Growing Vegetables, Flowers, and Herbs from Containers