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10 Container Vegetable Garden Ideas: Best Veggies to Grow

Growing Veggies Without a Garden Patch

By

Kerry Michaels

Kerry Michaels

Kerry Michaels is a container gardening expert with over 20 years of experience maintaining container gardens in Maine. She specializes in writing and capturing photography for gardening and landscape design for print and broadcast media, including the Discovery Channel, Small Gardens, and Disney, among others.

Learn more about The Spruce's Editorial Process

Updated on 12/19/22

The Spruce / Ellen Lindner

There is no such thing as foolproof vegetable gardening, but container vegetable gardening comes close by reducing problems posed by weather and critters. This makes vegetable container gardening a good option for beginners. Another benefit of container gardening is you don't need a vast space or an in-ground garden patch. For instance, a small balcony vegetable garden idea might include a few pots that fit the space, along with hanging containers or ones that attach over railings.

Some vegetables that do well in containers include nightshades, such as tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, and eggplants. Fast-growing crops, including peas and lettuce, also are some of the easiest veggies to grow in pots. In general, to fill a container for planting vegetables, use a quality organic potting mix with good drainage. Some mixes specifically state they're good for use in vegetable gardens.

What size container you need to grow vegetables depends on what you're growing. Some veggies, such as leafy greens, have relatively shallow roots and don't need a deep container. But others, such as potatoes, need deep soil to develop properly. Some container gardening ideas include using fabric pots that are lightweight to move as needed or planting vertical gardens with pots mounted on a fence or wall. You can also experiment with vegetable combinations in container gardens using the same pot, as long as the plants have similar growing requirements. For example, herbs and salad greens often can be grown together.  

If you're searching for container vegetable garden ideas, here are 10 vegetables that do well in containers on a porch, patio, or balcony as long as they can get sufficient sun exposure.

Tips

Container plants tend to deplete soil moisture and nutrients faster than those in the ground. So be sure to adjust your watering and feeding accordingly to keep your vegetable container garden healthy.

10 Container Garden Tips for Beginners

Watch Now: 8 Mistakes You're Making in Your Container Garden

Article Sources

The Spruce uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

  1. Solanum lycopersicum. North Carolina State University Extension.

Six Great Containers for Growing Vegetables

By

Kerry Michaels

Kerry Michaels

Kerry Michaels is a container gardening expert with over 20 years of experience maintaining container gardens in Maine. She specializes in writing and capturing photography for gardening and landscape design for print and broadcast media, including the Discovery Channel, Small Gardens, and Disney, among others.

Learn more about The Spruce's Editorial Process

Updated on 06/15/22

Reviewed by

Debra LaGattuta

Reviewed by Debra LaGattuta

Debra LaGattuta is a gardening expert with three decades of experience in perennial and flowering plants, container gardening, and raised bed vegetable gardening. She is a Master Gardener and lead gardener in a Plant-A-Row, which is a program that offers thousands of pounds of organically-grown vegetables to local food banks. Debra is a member of The Spruce Gardening and Plant Care Review Board.

Learn more about The Spruce's Review Board

The Spruce / Jayme Burrows

Growing vegetables in container gardens is an efficient way to produce fresh food if you have a limited space. Or perhaps you might want to soften and beautify a hardscape such as a patio, porch, balcony, or even a driveway with edible vegetables.

The choice of container can have a big impact on how productive your plants are and if they will survive. The primary factor to keep in mind is to make sure your vegetable plant has enough room for a deep root system to develop. If you are growing large plants (like tomatoes), make sure that the pot will be large and heavy enough so it won't tip over in a stiff wind.

To grow vegetables in a container, the bigger the pot the better: a minimum of 18 inches in diameter and 18 inches deep or five gallons in volume is required for larger plants like cucumbers, eggplants, squash, or broccoli. Large pots hold more soil thus can provides plants with sufficient moisture and nutrients. A 10-inch diameter pot is too small to provide enough soil for root systems to develop, and the soil in smaller pots dries more quickly than in larger pots.

Some varieties of popular vegetables are better suited for growing in containers than others. Typically, varieties that are labeled as compact, miniature, or bush types are best suited for growing in containers.

Article Sources

The Spruce uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

  1. Marsden, Christy. “Growing Vegetables in Containers.” Wisconsin Horticulture, https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/articles/growing-vegetables-containers/

  2. Dampier, Jay. “Vegetable Varieties for Containers.” Wisconsin Horticulture, https://hort. extension.wisc.edu/articles/vegetable-varieties-for-containers/

  3. “EarthBox Original Gardening System.” EarthBox®, https://earthbox.com/gardening-systems/earthbox-original?dfw_tracker=130636-80205&gclid=CjwKCAjwjZmTBhB4EiwAynRmD5u_TQsJkDpEiIp2N0XYWApJzT7liJuuw9azsHQ3Zaalk6opxTw9XBoCfWUQAvD_BwE

  4. “Smart Pot® Fabric Planter.” Smart Pot®, 17 May 2021, https://smartpots.com/product/smart-pot-fabric-planter/

  5. “Growing Vegetables In Containers [Fact Sheet].” Extension, 9 Jan. 2018, https://extension.unh.edu/resource/growing-vegetables-containers-fact-sheet

Tanks for growing vegetables and fruits on the balcony

Tanks for growing vegetables and fruits on the balcony

I decided to consolidate my experience in the agricultural technology of balcony vegetable growing. I'll start by choosing pots for growing and go through all the questions. I am sure that this topic is interesting and there is something for many people to think about)

Tanks for growing vegetables and fruits on the balcony

In this article I want to consider the main aspects of choosing and using various containers for growing vegetables on the balcony. It would seem that a simple thing - plant in whatever you want, but nevertheless there are nuances. First of all, you need to pay attention to the following capacity parameters:

There are no scientific rules here, the optimal volume can only be selected based on personal experience and agricultural technology. Someone cannot water often, which means there should be more substrate, someone is limited by the space of the balcony, which means the volume of the pot is needed less. There is a certain objective minimum in the size of the pot, less than which, in my experience, it is better not to choose.

The height of the container is another important parameter. Most ordinary pots are about the same height as or slightly larger than the diameter, but there are also high ones - up to two diameters in height. There are also very low ones - half or a third of the diameter of the pot. Growing root crops in a low pot will cause root deformation, rose and raspberry grow normally in tall pots and may be oppressed in regular ones. Solanaceae grow well in ordinary pots, and greens and herbs can be safely grown in low ones, saving on the substrate. nine0012

The choice of the material from which the container is made is influenced by the habit of the gardener and agricultural techniques. Materials are porous and inert. Porous - wood, clay, inert - plastic, glass. I am more comfortable working with plastic pots, as they have obvious advantages - low price (for technological pots), long service life, light weight, do not absorb salts and fertilizers, they are easy to clean, do not evaporate water through the walls and do not absorb irrigation water. I work with black and brown technological pots. Wood rots quickly, and clay pots made of unglazed clay absorb salt into their pores, they are difficult to wash, they are fragile and break, heavy. Yes, and they are not cheap with a volume of 5-8 liters. nine0012

The color of the container affects the aesthetic perception of the garden. Some people want colors to be fun. But there is another important point - containers of different colors heat up differently in the sun. The lighter, the less they heat up (I made an important discovery!), And when the root is overheated, serious diseases can appear in plants. Therefore, dark pots need to be wrapped with light material, I use paper.

The choice of container shape is perhaps the last important parameter when choosing. You can grow vegetables on the balcony in round and square pots, in bags, in long boxes, etc. I prefer square seedling pots as they save space on the windowsill. I plant them in round pots for a permanent place - they are easier to buy. It is inconvenient to grow in bags on the balcony, since it is almost impossible to move them from place to place without disturbing the root system. And this, with an unglazed balcony, needs to be done often - frosts, plant growth, wind, etc. nine0012

That's all the main questions related to the choice of containers for growing vegetables and fruits on the balcony. As they say, who has questions?



The subtleties of growing vegetables and fruits in seedling pots

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It is actually quite possible to grow individual cultivated plants on your windowsill. For this purpose, you should simply use suitable containers. Special pots and cassettes for seedlings can be the best solution - they are used much more often for this purpose, but you can also create a garden on a balcony or windowsill with their help. nine0005

Reasons for the popularity of plastic pots

Probably the most common option used by gardeners. One of its main advantages is the variety of dimensions: small, medium and largest containers for seedlings, with which you can grow adult plants at home. Large holes at the bottom of plastic pots prevent rotting of the roots, the main thing is to additionally equip such devices with special pallets. nine0005

Nursery boxes are an alternative solution and can also be used initially. Their only drawback is that in the future you still have to plant young shoots due to the fact that the gap between individual shoots is minimal. That is why it is better to use pots for seedlings as an alternative solution.

What should be the plastic - choosing the optimal solution

In fact, the material of the container in which vegetables and fruits will be grown on the windowsill also matters. Cassettes made of polystyrene, unlike analogues made of polyvinyl chloride, do not emit chlorine, which means that it does not have a negative effect on plants. The convenience of such containers lies in the fact that all the seedlings are in the same place, which means that it is easier to take care of them. nine0005

Peat pots - a natural alternative to plastic

The main advantage of such a container from the manufacturer Kassetyru is environmental friendliness - no chemicals are absorbed during the growth of the culture. However, such containers are strictly forbidden to plant those plants that do not grow in this type of soil.

Many interesting things can be grown in this way - greens, simple vegetables and even fruits that can be enjoyed all year round. Practice shows that it is best to grow in pots and cassettes:

  • broccoli;
  • peas;
  • beans;
  • Brussels sprouts;
  • tomatoes;
  • cucumbers;
  • red pepper;
  • eggplant;
  • carrots;
  • spinach;
  • greens;
  • strawberries;
  • citrus fruits
  • pomegranate, etc.

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agriculture

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