Container gardening is a popular way to grow vegetables or flowers these days. There are many advantages to container gardening. We take a look at many of these advantages, some of the disadvantages, and how the Earth Box gardening system solves some of those problems.

Container gardening lets you do a number of things out of the ordinary. You can start plants indoors to get a jump on the garden in the spring. Or you can move them inside on those early killing frost nights, and cheat a few extra weeks out of the gardening season without the complexity of an outdoor cold frame. You can put a container on a patio or a balcony, allowing the harvesting of fresh vegetables or flowers in spots that would be tough otherwise. Put your herbs right outside the kitchen door, and they are always available.

One of the biggest disadvantages to container gardening is keeping the container adequately watered. Since the container has a relatively small soil mass, and it's exposed to the elements all around, they can tend to dry out relatively quickly, especially in the summer heat. On the flip side, it's easy to overwater if you aren't careful, so proper drainage of a container system is critical to avoid root rot and fungal growth. The Earth box has a unique solution for this. It has a self watering system, that basically holds a water reservoir in the bottom of the unit, so you can water until it's full, and you can't overwater since there is an overflow port. But the reservoir will continue to water for much longer than a normal plant container. So you just fill it and forget it.

The Earth Box garden system started selling in 2001. It is a fairly good size as it holds around 2 cubic feet of growing medium, which allows a good number of vegetable plants. With that you can grow two tomato plants, or 8 medium size plants like cabbage, broccoli, or peppers. Alternatively you can grow smaller plants like peas or beans, and there's room for about 16 plants of those plants. A strawberry bed works well in one, especially in southern states where strawberries are treated as annuals instead of perennials. One of the more common uses is as an herb garden.

When it's full of soil, it can be quite heavy. However, there are casters available for the Earth box so that it can be easily moved around, which is handy for getting it in and out of the garage when starting plants indoors, or simply moving it around your patio or deck, making sure you place it where your vegetables get their eight hours of sunlight a day.

You can grow tomatoes or climbing plants like beans, peas, or cucumbers. These are typically tough to do in a container garden, but the Earth Box has an optional staking kit that helps keep the unit from getting top heavy and susceptible to tipping over like a typical vegetable container would. This is because the staking unit does not anchor into the box itself, but stands on the ground below the unit.

Finally, to aid water retention and weed control, a soil cover is included in the unit. It has cutouts for the type of plants you are growing, and more than one is included. They are black on one side and white on the other, normally the black side is exposed.

The Earth box comes in 2 colors, a garden green or a terra cotta color. The staking kits come in matching colors as well. If you are at all interested in trying container gardening in your home or apartment balcony, this will get you going on the right foot the first time.