I thought I would share a few pictures of the vegetables we have growing in containers on our back deck. If you are limited on garden space, live in an apartment or condo but still want to grow a little produce, vegetable container gardening is the way to go. It’s quick, easy and tidy {my favorite}.
When I planted the two pots on our deck 2 months ago, I planted them both with tomatoes and beet starts. The beets did so well in the containers, we’ve already picked all but one of them.
However the tomatoes, are just now starting to emerge. The great thing about container gardening, is that when the temperatures start to drop, you can bring the plants inside to prolong your harvest a bit. These pots will be brought into the greenhouse once the weather starts to cool down, but if you don’t have a greenhouse, a mud room or somewhere inside where there is sunny window would be just fine.
In this pot I have another Roma tomato planted and lettuce starts below it. The tomato leaves give the gourmet lettuce leaves a wee bit of shade and help keep the soil beneath.
Anyway you slice it, vegetable gardening is cool, and anyone can do it.
Are YOU growing any vegetables in containers this year? How did they do? Are you planning on growing anything in them this winter? If so, what? I think I’m going to try to grow carrots.
Peace Out Girl Scouts…
I’m off to make some kale brownies. I’ll let you know how they turn out.
♥ Mavis
Here is another post I wrote about Vegetable Container Gardening
Easy Container Combos: Vegetables & Flowers By Pamela Crawford
Pamela Crawford, container garden guru and the queen of easy gardening, has done it again in this groundbreaking book. She shows you how to grow vegetables in containers with such easy techniques that even the worst gardener can have bumper crops of tomatoes! And, for the first time in any book, she shows how to make your vegetables look great, worthy of the nicest patio! ~ Amazon
Patti says
Hubby planted 4 tomato plants. Don’t know what got to them, but they were looking really, really sad very early in season. He was SO disappointed. An expert gardener told me to buy some large sized tomato plants & put them in containers. So I did. Hubby was sure they would be poor producers. They are great!! Not as large (plant wise) as if planted in ground, but they are producing like crazy. He loves this and now plans on planting his tomatoes in containers for next year. Ha!
I also did a bunch of herbs in containers. They have done well & haven’t gone hog wild like some of them did last year. Herbs in containers just make sense.
Try making chocolate sauce for ice cream or cake or whatever with chocolate mint. AWESOME!
Mavis says
I need to try that!!!
Sakura says
I have lots of containers because my yard is so small. I grow:
Tomatoes – 8 different plants, all are doing great
Lettuce – replanted since weather has cooled
Basil – Wow this has done very well. We will have tons of pesto and frozen basil cubes
Pineapple Sage
Mint
Arugula
Chives
Beets – Not so great, don’t know why. Maybe because my family hates them. They probably sabotaged them! 🙂
Radishes – All summer long, it’s great
I put a few kohlrabi seeds in a pot, we’ll see what happens
Going to try your brownies tomorrow when I get home, I have kale in the freezer.
Veronica says
We had great success with snow peas in containers – let them climb up tomato cages – this year. We also can’t kill the chives or onions that we keep letting go to seed to get the starts for the next year. We also had some oregano sprout (I thought I’d killed it back in 2009!) in one of the containers that failed to sprout all the lettuce I planted. We also have raspberry bushes in containers. All this on an apartment porch (that we don’t use for anything else).
Monica says
I am just starting out and planning for my garden next year. I did plant some radishes in a container this week as a small test of my growing skills…..we shall see!
Mavis says
You can do it!! 🙂 Let me know how it goes.
Jessica Hardin says
Hey Mavis! Love reading all your updates!! do you start everything from seed indoors and then put it outside? You mentioned beet starts and lettuce starts. And thank you for your inspiration!! I took your idea of the pallet garden and have 4 half size pallets growing all sorts of peppers and herbs !! And now for fall, I’m trying broccoli and beets and chard, pumpkins and zuchini!! And my peppers are still going!!! I’m in Virginia, so should have another couple months of good weather. Oh and a bunch of 5 gallon buckets with tomato plants, but they aren’t looking so good. I think it was too hot for awhile, then too rainy and gross… Oh well. Still have my fingers crossed that they start producing again.
Mavis says
Hi Jessica, I try and start MOST of my stuff indoors, but I am also a total sucker for buying plants at Farmer’s Markets too. 🙂 I LOVE Virginia, I went for a visit last fall and fell in love with the state. You are lucky to live there. 🙂
Lukasz says
This year I was able to grow different potato tubers in a galvanized bucket. Harvest turned out a lot more than I expected. Good to grow vegetables in a galvanized bucket.