A Beginner's Guide to Growing Vegetables in Containers

Container gardening is often recommended for city dwellers or those would-be gardeners who have more enthusiasm than space. However, container gardening can be a useful tool for those living in the country or the suburbs as well as those in the city. Container gardening is an ideal way to "get your feet wet" and see if gardening is a hobby that fits with your life style. If you've toyed with the idea of growing your own tomatoes, but don't want to dig up a patch of lawn for a vegetable garden, container gardening is the answer! Container gardening is also a great way to teach your children about where food comes from and how to take care of a plant.

Many edible plants lend themselves extremely well to container gardening. Tomatoes, beans, zucchini, radishes, salad greens and almost every kind of herb do very well when grown in containers. The key is picking the right container for the plant and making sure the plant receives the appropriate amount of sun, water and nutrients. Sun is absolutely key since almost all the best container plants require a lot of sunlight. Herbs, however, can do very well indoors on a windowsill and may be the easiest plants to grow for a beginner.

The first step to container gardening is to assess your space. Where is there sun in your yard? On your patio? On window ledges in your home? If you are blessed with a lot of sunlight you will be able to grow more plants than if you live in a shady neighborhood. Once you've found your patches of sunlight, you can begin to determine how many containers you can plant. And once you've decided how much room you have, you can start to decide what varieties you want to plant!

When choosing what plants to put in your containers really think about what you like to eat and what you will use. There is no sense nurturing a tomato plant from spring to late summer if you won't eat raw tomatoes! What vegetables do you buy every week in the store? What vegetables do you buy from farmer's markets in the summer? Concentrate on the plants you know that you like and that you are the most likely to use.