Short on Space? Grow Your Vegetables in a Container!
Thursday, June 4th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
It’s surprising that more people don’t take advantage of container vegetable gardening, since it’s one of the best ways to grow plants. Container vegetable gardening is a great way to make the most of the limited space you have. If you live in a home with a tiny yard or even an apartment, it can be hard to find a place for a vegetable garden. Containers allow you to have a garden on your patio, on the porch, or even inside of your home.
Many people have small container gardens in a sunny windowsill in their kitchen, or in a sunroom or spare bedroom. Some people even grow plants in a closet by using a grow light.
Another major benefit of container gardening is the ability to move plants if you need to. If you’re growing your plants outdoors and bad weather comes, you can bring them inside where they’ll be safe. If your vegetables are getting too little sun or too much, you can easily move their containers to a better location. And you can even move your plants on a whim if you decide they’d look better elsewhere.
Vegetables grown in containers don’t contract diseases as easily compared to plants grown directly in the soil. It’s true that plants grown in containers can still become infected with diseases, but you will find the probability is much less than if you had grown them in your landscape. Potting soil is generally free of disease-causing organisms, so your plants will be safer.
Vegetables grown in containers are easier to keep well fed. When your plants are potted, the fertilizers applied will surely get into your plants. The problem with fertilizing plants grown in the ground is that a lot of the fertilizer is lost to drainage or used by nearby plants. You are less likely to have this problem with container grown plants.
Of course, when the soil area is relatively small, there is a chance the fertilizer can be washed out of the soil faster. Because of this, you do need to fertilize more often than you would a traditional vegetable garden. But you can rest assured that your plants are probably getting more of the fertilizer before it does wash away than they would if they were in the ground.
When you grow your vegetables in containers, you’ll also be able to extend their growing season. By carefully insulating pots by wrapping them in blankets or other insulating materials, you can keep their soil warmer than the ground soil. You can start your plants early indoors or in a cold frame, then you can easily move them to larger pots outdoors when the time is right. After the first frost, your container vegetable garden can continue to grow by applying careful insulation and bringing them indoors when it becomes too cold.
Another advantage to container vegetable gardening is that it increases the accessibility of the hobby. For persons with physical disabilities and impairments, using containers allows them to enjoy and tend to plants in convenient locations. If a person uses a wheelchair, they can put the pots on a short table to make them easier to tend to. Elderly gardeners who are finding it more difficult to enjoy typical outdoor gardening will find that container gardening offers the same joys but with less work. Even small children find container vegetable gardening to be fun and easy, since they don’t have to have someone till the soil and there isn’t raking, weeding, and hoeing to worry about.
If your space is limited for vegetable gardening in a traditional landscape, then using pots instead is a great alternative to allow you to enjoy your plants.
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