Home vegetable gardens are a terrific way to cultivate the earth and maintain a healthy diet. Growing your own vegetables ensures that you have fresh veggies on hand for meals and snacks, and it allows you to avoid unwanted pesticides and chemicals. When you grow your own food, you know exactly what goes into it.
Of course, not everyone has the space for a vegetable garden. Whether you have a small yard or no yard at all, container vegetable gardening may be the answer for you.
About Container Gardening
Container gardening is a compact, easy way to grow plants, flowers, vegetables and herbs on a porch, patio, balcony or even indoors. A solarium or sunny windowsill can support a container garden; some people even use grow lights to cultivate container gardens in a closet! All you really need is a container, some potting soil and a source of sunlight. Of course, as with a regular garden, you will have to water and feed your container garden, but you can be sure that more of the water and fertilizer is getting to your plants, rather than draining off into the soil or surrounding yard. Plus, with a container garden, you eliminate the time-consuming and often back-breaking task of weeding.
The Benefits of Vegetable Container Gardening
Aside from the ease of container gardening in general, vegetable container gardening has many benefits. The first, of course, is that you will always have fresh vegetables on hand, and you can control the use of pesticides and chemicals to ensure that these vegetables are as healthy as possible.
The second benefit of container vegetable gardening is that you can extend the growing season by insulating your pots and starting or keeping your plants indoors. With a well-controlled environment, it may even be possible to grow container vegetables year-round.
Finally, of course, vegetables are some of the easiest plants to grow. Carrots, lettuce, potatoes, radishes, onions, spinach and green beans practically grow themselves once you get them started. Tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini and peppers are also fairly low maintenance, but they are more sensitive to cold and so require stricter temperature control. Still, the advantage of gardening these vegetables in a container is that they can easily be moved indoors when the weather turns, allowing you to exercise more control over their environment for optimum growing.
Container Vegetable Garden Plans
Unlike garden beds, which generally contain several different types of plants all together, container gardens usually house one type of plant per container. Thus, a container garden may consist of several containers for a variety of plants or a single container with just one type of plant. So, the first step to planning your vegetable container garden is deciding how many containers and types of plants you want to grow. If you’re new to gardening, you may want to start with just one or two containers to make sure you actually like it.
Because each vegetable is contained separately, container gardens don’t require the same level of planning as garden beds. The key is really to choose an appropriately sized pot. Generally, the bigger the pot, the better. Plants don’t produce well if their roots are constricted. Herbs can be contained in relatively small pots—about 3 gallons—but tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables need more space for their roots—20 to 30 gallons, or at least 20 inches in diameter.
If you plan to grow more than one type of plant, choose a variety of pots for more aesthetic appeal. You may also consider decorative pots or pots that you can paint yourself for a personal touch.
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