Small Space Gardening Ideas

Gardening in a small space is challenging, but also very rewarding for people who enjoy consuming fresh vegetables. One thing to make is a simple tomato and lettuce salad, but I do not love paying the price every week. By growing lettuce and tomatoes in my own container garden, I will be able to enjoy tomatoes and salad leaves in a few weeks. Every day I water my plants, and add a little bit of organic potting soil to the containers when some has seeped out of the bottom. I would compost, but since I have a small backyard I really do not have room for doing that.

Growing up my family always had a compost pile, and I enjoyed taking little scraps out and turning the dirt over. It was a ritual that I truly miss, and as an adult it is hard to throw away scraps of vegetables knowing I could compost these. Honestly I would compost if I had a larger backyard to work with, but right now I only have this small deck area. I improvise by using leaves that fall from the tree above my deck as mulch for my tomato plants, and by buying organic potting soil from the dollar store. Who knew there would actually be a day when the dollar store sold something eco friendly like that? Actually, I really like this variety of potting soil called Organic Harvest, and it comes in small packages that are easy for a pedestrian or bicyclist to carry home. Even if you are not a pedestrian, most people gardening in small spaces really do not have room for large bags of potting oil. Thus gardening with material you can easily carry yourself will help to keep a project within the space limitations.

Watching the tomatoes grow on the vine in such a small space is truly amazing. These plants are providing more clean air for my backyard, and are quite pleasant to look at as well. When I plant things in containers do not expect my plants to look perfect, and in nature greenery certainly does not. If you want to spend hours gardening you can achieve the perfect plots and containers, but there is no need to fuss about the appearance of plants that are simply providing a bit of joy to your backyard, and food for your dinner table. In the short term I think it is more rewarding to focus on planting a few things you enjoy looking at and eating, and not to worry about your small deck area looking like a magazine photo shoot.

Sometimes it is fun to track the progress of your container garden by creating short video, like this one I posted on YouTube.

Watching the tomatoes grow is a very rewarding experience, especially since you know you have nurtured these plants every day. If you do not have a lot of money to buy containers for your plants, most anything can be turned into a planter. Above is a picture of an empty plastic container that licorice came in, which I turned into a pot to grow some lettuce in.