Container Gardening From Apartment Balconies to Rooftops

Container gardening give you lots of flexibility and can give the container gardens

homestead farm a special touch and the apartment dweller the option of growing food, flowers and herbs even if they don’t have a back yard.
Potted plants are nice indoors and can provide the mobility you may need to protect your frost sensitive plants from freezes. A window sill, patio, deck, balcony, or doorstep can provide you with a productive and beautiful container garden.

Containers come in all shapes and sizes. You can use just about any container for container gardening as long as they have some holes in the bottom for drainage. You can buy many beautiful ceramic, clay and terracotta, wooden or metal pots at our Family Gardens online garden store. You can use a 55 gallon drum or a wooden wine barrel cut in half. You can also use an old watering can, a useless old wheel barrow or an old boot. Whatever you have on hand or think looks beautiful can be a new home for your garden greens.

Almost all plants, trees and shrubs can be grown in containers of the right size, so be creative and plant what you like. Some plants need more sun than others and some plants are frost sensitive and can live outside during the summer and are brought in for the winter.

Soil for shallow-rooted crops like lettuce, peppers, radishes, herbs and most annuals need a container at least 6 inches in diameter with an 8-inch soil depth. Bushel baskets, half barrels, wooden tubs, or large pressed paper containers are ideal for growing tomatoes, squash, pole beans, cucumbers, and deep-rooted perennials. Prepare your soil like you would for any organic garden.

If you live in an apartment or only want to do a few plants it might be easier to just buy a bag of potting soil from your local nursery or hardware store. If you want to mix your own container soil make sure to keep it light, adding a little peat and vermiculite some garden compost and coarse sand and a little chicken manure or some kind of organic fertilizer. Lime may also be needed to bring the pH to around 6.5. In any case, a Soil Test Kit is helpful in determining nutrient and pH needs, just as in a large garden.

Water Requirements

Pay particular attention to watering container plants. Because the amount of soil is relatively small, containers can dry out very quickly, especially if they are on a concrete patio in full sunlight. Daily or twice-daily watering may be necessary. Apply water until it runs out the drainage holes. If you can’t water your plants often enough then try using drip or spray watering systems with a timer.

It is important to water clay pots and other porous containers more frequently than wood or metal containers. Their pours nature allows additional evaporation from the sides of the pots. Small pots also tend to dry out more quickly than larger ones. If the soil appears to be getting excessively dry with plants wilting every day, group the containers together so that the foliage creates a canopy to help shade the soil and keep it cool and water more often if necessary. Check containers at least once a day and twice on hot, dry, or windy days. Feel the soil to determine whether it is damp. Mulching and windbreaks can help reduce water requirements for containers.

Sun is as important to your container garden as your outdoor garden and may determine which crops can be grown. You can get more sun for your sun loving plants by taking advantage of windows and balconies, or even your doorsteps.

Planting

tomatoes in a container garden Plant your containers at the same time you would plant in an outside garden or flower bed. If your containers are going to be grown indoors then you can plant frost sensitive plants at the same time you would if you had a green house.

You can plant your container garden from seed or you can use garden starts from your green house or your local nursey. After planting, gently soak the soil with water. Thin out seedlings to obtain proper spacing when the plants have two or three leaves. If cages, stakes, or other supports are needed, provide them when the plants are very small to avoid later root damage.

Here are some herbs, flowers and vegetables that can be grown in your container garden.

Vegetables

Beans, Bush	Beets	Carrots	Cabbage
Chard, Swiss	Cucumbers	Eggplant	Kale
Lettuce, Leaf	Mustard Greens	Onions, Green	Peppers, Bell
Squash, Summer	Tomatoes	Tomatoes, Cherry	Turnips

Herbs

Annuals

Anise

Basil

Chervil

Coriander

Dill

Summer Savory

Biennials

Caraway

Parsley

Perennials

Chives

Fennel

Lovage

Marjoram

Mint

Tarragon

Thyme

Winter Savory

Fruits

Strawberries

Blueberries

Raspberries

Blackberries

Apples (dwarf spur-type)

Annual Flowers

Ageratum	Alyssum	Begonia	Celosia	Coleus	Dianthus
Dusty Miller	Geranium	Impatiens	Lobelia	Marigold	Nasturtium
Pansy	Petunia	Salvia	Snapdragon	Verbena	Zinnia

Perennial Flowers

Achillea (Yarrow)	Aquilegia (Columbine)	Candytuft	Chrysanthemum
Gaillardia	Gypsophila	Lupine	Rudbeckia
Sedum	Shasta Daisy	Veronica

Exotic Foliage

Banana	Cannas (variegated and red-leafed varieties)	Alocasia	Elephant Ears	White Bird of Paradise
Variegated Ficus	Pygmy Date Palm	Coconut Palm	Lantana	Phygelius
Caladium	Hibiscus	Schefflera	Dracaena