Container Vegetable Gardening

Portability is an advantage in container gardening.

This type of gardening doesn't require as much work as a larger garden, it's a little more flexible. You can move the containers from one place to another and you can make the growing season last a little longer by moving the plants.

Container gardening or minigardening is the technique of growing plants for vegetables in very small places.

The disadvantages to container gardening include: a more expensive way of taking care of the plants, more time, attention and expertise.

Should you decide to pursue container gardening, your containers can be flower pots, pails, buckets, wire baskets, bushel baskets, wooden boxes, nursery flats, window planters, washtubs, strawberry pots, plastic bags, large food cans, or any number of other things.

No matter what kind of container you choose, it should have holes at the base or in the bottom to permit drainage of excess water. You should watch using dark-colored containers because they absorb heat which could possible damage the roots. If you do use dark-colored pots, try painting them a lighter color or shading just the container.

Wooden containers may tend to rot unless you paint them. Painting the containers with Creosote or Penta compounds will be toxic to plant roots. Regular, untreated house paints or copper based preservatives will extend the life of wooden containers and won't be harmful to the plants.

The size of the container is important.

For larger vegetables like tomatoes and eggplants, you should use a five gallon container for each plant. You can grow these plants in two gallon containers, however; you need to give the plants considerably more attention.

You can use soil to grow your vegetables, but the synthetic mixes are much better. The peatlite mixes containing peat and vermiculite are excellent. They are nutrient charged, relatively sterile and pH adjusted. They allow the plant to get enough air and water. You could mix half sandy soil with half synthetic mix to improve soil conditions. Soils with a good bit of compost are also good for container gardening.

Moisture requirements…

Regulating how much moisture your plants get is very important. Generally, your vegetables will need about an inch of water per week over all the soil where the roots grow. You can determine when to water your plants by checking the soil down to a depth of a half-inch. Soil should be moist down that far and this may mean you'll need to water some of the plants twice a day some days.

Fertilization…

As for fertilization, your container plants will perform best when you use soluble fertilizer. You should follow the directions on the label for the correct fertilization rates. An example of a soluble fertilizer may be 20-20-20 fertilizer applied once a week, at a rate of about one ounce of fertilizer in four gallons of water. If you decide to use a solid fertilizer such as 8-8-8; try one level teaspoon of fertilizer per square foot of soil about every three weeks.

The kind of fertilizer you use depends on the kind of vegetable it's put on. Tomatoes and eggplants should have a fertilizer that's high in potassium than in nitrogen. Vegetables harvested mainly for their leaves should get a 1-1-1 ratio fertilizer or one that's a little higher in nitrogen.

One of the big advantages of container gardening is that the plants can be moved. Plants least tolerant to shade are fruit-bearing crops such as tomato, cucumber, squash, pepper, etc. The intermediate light crops are root crops such as beets and radishes. The crops most tolerant to shade are the leafy crops such as greens, parsley and lettuce. However, the leafy crops will grow best in full sun.

Plant breeders have developed a number of dwarf or pixie hybrids for container gardening. These are the plants you should grow if you can. Small or dwarf varieties will have less of a root mass and less of shoot mass. This is what you want when you're growing plants in containers. Check some seed catalogs for these types of plants.

For more information on container vegetable gardening contact your local County Extension Office.