Container Vegetable Gardening makes picking vegetables a breeze.

Container vegetable gardening can be a boon to a busy household, as the vegetables can be grown just outside the kitchen door and harvested as required.

Container Vegetable Gardening is about health and happiness. There is nothing as good as picking your vegetables and eating them straight away or putting them in the pot to cook minutes after you have harvested them. The health benefits are huge, and most gardeners also derive much happiness from the pursuit. Other benefits are that you can have high yields in a small space, poor soil is not an issue and you can move your container vegetable garden around to catch the sun or provide shelter from the wind.

Container vegetable gardening makes life easy when it comes time to pick the vegetables for dinner. With the plants located near the kitchen door it won’t take you long to select and harvest your requirements, whereas if you have to go down to the end of the

Easy 2 Grow Kit

yard to the vegetable garden, especially if it is dark when you get home from work, you may not catch your vegetables at their peak. This is good enough reason for vegetable gardening in containers, but if you also take the health benefits into account you will realize you and your family will be healthier and happier having your own container vegetable garden. Plant breeders and seed companies are realizing that container vegetable gardening is being increasingly undertaken, so they are breeding plants specifically for this purpose. This means that they can be grown closer together, and are often smaller varieties. The fact is that you can grow anything in a pot as long as it is big enough. Soil preparation for your container vegetable garden is very important and should be done carefully, using sandy loam, humus and peat moss mixed with bonemeal and decomposed manure, or a very good quality prepared potting soil mixture from the nursery. Container vegetable plants can be obtained as seedlings from your local nursery or you can grow them from seed, which is even more rewarding.

Larger vegetable plant seeds can be sown in 5 gallon (20 liter) containers. Mostly they need full sun and warm weather, although you can start them off inside and take them outdoors when the danger of frost is past.

In the practice of container vegetable gardening it is a good idea to use successional sowing so that you always have crops ready to plant into the space from where you picked the last crop. This can be done by planting a few of each type of vegetable you want, then planting some more 2 – 3 weeks later, depending on how quickly you expect them to mature. For a quick start put in some radishes, as they will be ready three weeks after the seeds sprout.

Incredible Vegetables
from Self-Watering
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Always remember that vegetables, herbs and flowers grow well together, so don’t be afraid of brightening up your vegetable container with some roses or nasturtiums, or adding herbs that you use with the vegetables. This will make for easy picking as you will only have to go to the one place for your evening meal.

Some plants that respond really well to being grown in containers are cucumbers, cabbages, thyme and sage, but there are many others. Ask around and find out what your neighbours are having success with and try growing the same plants. Don’t forget that although container vegetable gardening allows you to move your plants out of the searing heat of summer, you still need to diligently feed, water and provide light for them. Good quality organic soil with plenty of compost is the best to use, and for your container vegetable gardening you will also need to build up the soil each year.