Container Gardening

If you are a beginning gardener, container gardening may be the perfect option for you. It is easy to learn, and easy to maintain. You can grow a container garden anywhere you have extra space, and each pot can be cared for individually.

When starting your container garden, choose containers that have drainage holes in the bottom. This allows water to drain, and keeps your plants happy and healthy. Choose a good potting mix, and fill your container. Find a sunny location for your plants to enjoy, and begin planting your garden. Keep in mind that the plants in your container garden will need fertilizing weekly to monthly, to ensure that they have nutrients necessary for growth.

There are many excellent plants to choose from when growing a container garden. Bush varieties of vegetables work especially well, as they are designed for small spaces. Vines can grow well, if you add a trellis for them to climb. I’ve even seen tomato plants growing in containers upside down, hanging from an apartment railing. When designing a container garden, your options are limited only by your imagination.

Use your imagination when choosing containers, as well. You are not limited only to purchased flowerpots – if you have an item that has drainage holes and holds soil, you’ve just found your container. Using interesting and imaginative containers allows you to customize your garden, and lets your personality shine through.

Gardening is a simple activity that can bring so much joy to enthusiasts. It gives people the opportunity to nurture life. Gardening also has so many benefits including creating a light ambiance around the house, filtering the air, and having fruits and vegetables to harvest.

Many people think that to be able to engage in such a hobby, they need a big yard to grow vegetables in. This is not the case. You can create a wonderful garden in whatever little patch of land you have around your home. If you live in an apartment building, you can even create a small garden in your terrace and even put small potted plots on your window sill.

If you are new to gardening, you can start by growing herbs in plastic containers. This should give you some experience in gardening. You can also use the herbs you will grow as accents for your home or as ingredients of a great recipe.

Using containers for your gardening will also help you move your plants around the house when the weather calls for it. You can move the plants indoors or outdoors, even transferring them on different window sills depending on the plants need. Container gardening also offers more success for those who are just getting into gardening as it will help you focus on individual herbs on different containers. You can easily pay attention or replace plants that are not doing well. Gardening on containers also requires a lot less time to maintain and nurture than full yard gardens. Unlike yard gardens, container gardens are not prone to pests and weeds. There will be some of course but not too much that will require too much of your time eliminating.

If you are already set on starting your own herb container garden then consider growing ones that are easy to take care of. Mints can grow prolifically and do not require as much care. Even if you decide not to use the mint leaves, you will see that having containers with mint growing in actually look good around the house.

If you are planting herbs for aesthetic reasons, to create refreshing nooks around your home consider planting herbs with different texture and colors into one container. Having a plant box with a mix of Rosemary, Geraniums and other herbs would look great in your patio. You can also choose to have a little iron rack made so that you can plant different herbs in different containers and then place them on the iron racks to create a beautiful clustered look in your home. Group similar or even clashing colors together and see what a visual treat container gardens can be.

Another advantage of container gardening is that you don’t have to but any of those plant containers available in the stores. You can re-use other water containers and other plastic bottles for your plants. By reusing plastic bottles, you actually help save the earth.

There is plenty of potting mixes and seedlings available commercially so you can easily start your own container garden anytime.

In a sense, all gardens are container gardens. Just some containers are bigger than others. We can start by learning a little bit about ecology. A container garden is a mini ecosystem. To make a container garden work, you have to pick plants that “get along together.” This may be a new concept to some people, but just think about it for a minute. Not all plants need the same amount of water, or sunlight or even the same nutrients in the soil. It is a beautiful rule of nature, perhaps just like all fingers of a human are not equal. Let us now ponder upon few important facts of a container garden.

As long as you remember that container gardens are plant communities, and you make sure that your plants have common interests in how much sun they get, and how much water they get, you can have a successful container garden. The very way that we human need food and water for a living, keeping in mind that plants are living species, therefore for a successful making of a container garden one must give special attention to the sunlight and water needs of a plant.

When designing a container many people dwell on plant colors and plant heights, rather than on the needs of the individual plants. You wouldn’t plant a water lily in a window box, now, would you? Drainage is an issue to most plants. Make sure that the container garden has proper drainage for the plants you choose. The second most important factor of plant compatibility is the Ph of the soil. There are plants that thrive in alkaline soils which would kill other plants. Similarly, there are plants that would die in acidic soils.

Pick compatible plants and you will find that if your plants are happy with their neighbors the gardener can also be happy with them.

This is a reply to a comment posted by JD on an earlier post. JD said that “Grubs are wearing my lawn out” and asked for my thoughts. So here goes JD, specially for you.

Beatle grubs often make the best looking lawns look terrible, full of yellow spots, not what you want for your lawn, eh?

You can treat your lawn with Nematodes (you can find more information on this by doing a Google search) which should be applied to affected areas early morning using a watering can or pump sprayer. The Nematodes will kill the grubs that are killing your lawn.

Good Luck JD!!

I thought it would be good if I was to post a few of the main reasons why people garden and grow their own in containers. So over the next few weeks I am going to post 10 reasons people garden in containers.

The main reason that people decide to grow their own in containers is that they don’t have a large garden or plot to grow their own in. Most people who live in big cities only have very small gardens that are not suitable for having a garden but would be suitable for a few containers.

Containers, hanging baskets and raised beds are ideal for people with small gardens or yards and allow them to grow the vegetables they have always dreamed of.

This is a bizarre piece of street art where a whole container garden is being grown from inside of a car. The car is protesting about car parking, “More parks less parking” can be found written on the car.

This certainly brings a whole new concept to the words Container Growing!!

Yesterday I took some time out to make a Squidoo lens. Squidoo is something that is pretty new to me so I enjoyed taking the time out to play with a new cool

Check the lens out, I would love to here your thoughts and suggestions.

http://www.Squidoo.com/Container_Vegetable_Gardening/

And while you are there feel free to give the lens a 5 star rating!

Do you long to be able to grow your own fresh vegetables but don’t believe that you can because you do not have a big garden? Freshly harvested vegetables taste fabulous and they are so easy to grow.

Anyone can grow them - even if you only have a window box you can grow cut and come again salad leaves, radishes, salad onions and if you have room for a hanging basket then you can grow tumbling tomatoes to go with your salad!

If you are growing vegetables on your patio then any container or pot will do as long as it is 10 inches in diameter and approximately 12 inches deep. Plastic pots are better than terracotta as the compost doesn’t dry out as fast but all containers must have drainage holes. There is no need to buy new pots - recycle wherever you can.

The list of vegetables you can successfully grow in containers is endless. Potatoes in buckets, will give you a harvest of lovely new potatoes! Courgettes and squashes can be left to scramble across the patio. French and runner beans will climb an obelisk, tomatoes, carrots, beetroot, pak choi and cucumbers all grow in containers. Grow, eat and enjoy!

There are two main types of tomato. Many get confused about these so I thought I should quickly talk about each of the types of tomato here.

Cordon – These are the varieties that are grown on a simple stem. They need to be trimmed and supported throughout the growing season. With these varieties you should only allow four trusses to set. There are many varieties available varying in colour, size and shape.

Bush – These varieties are mainly outdoor varieties, these make growing tomatoes outdoors so much easier. As the name suggests they grow as a small bush which grows to only 1ft high. The major advantages are that the plant does not need supporting and trimming. However as the plants are low growing it can cause the tomatoes to rot, lay hay or straw around the plants to prevent this.

Hope that helps

I think I have apple tree blight! I’m worried! Help!!

I have been growing apples for several years and last year they were fantastic, the best tasting apples I have ever had. However this year one of my trees leaves have all gone slightly brown and this is rapidly spreading over the entire tree. There are brown patches on the fruit and one of my friends who’s an allotment ‘oldie’ says that they have a serious case of blight.

This could be a problem!