Get the whole family in to growing some really tasty crunch vegetables.
Learn to grow your vegetables in containers and select the size to suit space you have available. The market caters for every situation so don’t worry about the types of containers to get.
There are large DIY types for the handy person to build. This is great to build whatever size and design required. There are also standard pots, boxes or if looks are not important any amount of plastic boxes or drums of all different capacities.
Start small and as your results improve expand until you can grow enough for the family, even give the surplus to your neighbors.
As with all container grown plants drainage is critical and so is the potting mix and the fertilizer. Get all this right and you will have a feast! The best part is the great taste form home grown vegetables. Just go out into the garden and pick only what you need.
There another advantage, you will be saving money. If you are able to collect the rain water off your roof, this will be saving.
Container Vegetable Gardening 101
Choose the right container
From the standpoint of plant health, the best solution is to select a container large enough so the roots just barely reach the sides and bottom when the plant reaches maturity. However, for most vegetables, this would require large containers and limit the amount of plants you could grow in a given area. In practice, you can grow vegetables in containers that restrict root growth somewhat, as long as you pay attention to watering and fertilization.
For upright plants or trellised plants, you can get some idea of how much space their roots require by reading seed catalogs and noting the recommended row spacing for the plants. Take the distance between seeds or transplants in a row and divide by two to yield the diameter of a container that should be a good compromise between crowding the roots and taking up too much space — and potting mix, soil, fertilizer, compost, etc. — in your container garden.
Freshly harvested garden vegetables — you can’t beat ’em. You might think you need a good garden spot to grow them, but you don’t; you can grow delicious vegetables in containers almost anywhere. For people who live in the city, or even in an apartment with a deck, a container garden can supply fresh vegetables during gardening season. And even if you do have that garden plot, you can expand the variety of plants you are growing by establishing an additional container garden.
