Vegetable Gardening In Containers

If you find yourself with insufficient space to grow a vegetable garden you can always use containers to grow a delicious vegetable garden. You can use 80 percent potting soil and 20 percent black cow manure in your containers and your plants will love you. To be sure your plants don't get water logged you need plenty of drainage holes in the bottom of your containers and you want 3-4 inches of gravel in the bottom of your containers to insure proper drainage. Be sure the containers have plenty of drain holes. Your plants will get sick and die with out proper drainage.

Almost any vegetable that will grow in a regular garden can be grown in containers. Your ideal vegetables for container gardening are squash, lettuce, beans, green onions, egg plants,cucumbers, peppers, and of course delicious tomatoes. You can set up two containers over in the corner with a bamboo tee pee set up in each and grow pole beans all season long. The pole beans will grow up and cover your bamboo tee pee and they will be real pretty growing there also. Just be sure to keep the pole beans picked off and they will produce till frost. You can also grow cucumbers and squash this same way.

Your cucumbers will need a large container also and you can let them grow up and over and down the sides of their container. Be sure that in hot weather that you water your cucumbers every day either early morning before the sun gets up or late evening after sunset. You can use a heavy duty twine or thread and train your cucumber plants to grow up the twine or thread and your cucumbers will grow there. Be sure to tie the cucumber vines to the twine or thread so they will not pull free and cause your cucumbers to crash to the floor.

Most vegetables will need water daily especially in hot weather. And again water your plants either very early before the sun is on your plants or late evening after the sun is gone down. Avoid getting your plants wet to avoid disease. You can plant a few marigolds in your container garden area to keep away garden pests. Use Miracle Grow for vegetables to feed your plants on a regular basis. Again apply it at the base of the plant and not on the plants.

You can easily grow tomatoes in containers but you must provide the tomatoes with support or the tomatoes will fall over on the ground and your tomatoes will not grow well that way and may become diseased or even die if they are laying on the ground. So remember that your tomatoes must have support so the tomatoes will grow and develop well.

You can quite easily grow salad or plum tomatoes in hanging baskets. Be sure that the tomatoes are planted as deep as possible in the container or containers and be sure to keep your tomatoes well watered. You never want to water your tomatoes when the sun is on the tomatoes. You want to water any vegetable plants including tomatoes at least an hour before the sun comes up or a hour after the sun sets. If you water vegetable plants when the sun is on them you will kill your plants.

Radishes Are Great For Containers

You can grow radishes easily in containers even in the dead of winter as long as you can set the container in a south facing window. Radishes can be grown in as little as 28 days in a container. This makes them a perfect vegetable for kids to grow.

A lot of people miss the fact that you can cook and eat the radish greens and they are delicious. As long as you know the radish tops are pesticide free they are delicious and can be cooked just like greens or used in stir fries. They are really delicious in stir fries.

Other vegetables that grow great in containers, especially small containers are Swiss Chard, Onions, Cayenne Pepper, And various types of Squash. I like to plant a variety of vegetables in larger containers so I have various vegetables to go in stir fries or similar types of cooking.

You will want to use the heavy duty leaf bags to grow your potatoes in. Cut a series of very small holes in the bottom of the bag for drainage. And now fill the bag with topsoil and black cow manure with the mixture being 80 percent potting soil and 20 percent black cow manure. Potting soil and black cow manure can be purchased at your local area Wal-Mart.

Some people build a small wooden frame to hold the potato bag in place. All you need is 4 up right pieces of wood and a rail around the top to staple the open top part of the bag to before you fill it with dirt. If you have potatoes in your potato bin that have sprouts on them you can plant these and they will grow a potato plant and in time potatoes underneath as in the photo above. You should grow a nice large crop of potatoes in your potato bag or bags.

You can also use old tires to grow your potatoes in. You will want to start your potatoes off in one tire and when the potatoes are 8 - 10 inches tall add another tire and fill it with dirt. As the potatoes grow and get about 8 - 10 inches tall add another tire. Each tire will be filled with potatoes as the potatoes grow and fill up the tires.

You can also grow potatoes in a potato grow box like in the below photo. You can grow a lot of potatoes in a hurry in a grow box like this. You could even build and have a potato grow box like this on your patio.