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Growing Vegetables in Container
Noel Hines asked:
Many of us would like to grow our own herbs and vegetables but have a limited amount of space. I am here to tell you that it can be easily done with the right equipment. Growing vegetables in containers is not as strange as it seems and there are many people doing it successfully. Many of the vegetables we buy from our local store can be grown in pots or containers as long as they are large enough for the right plant. Larger containers are needed for items like carrots or cabbages. While the smaller sized pots will grow herbs and baby vegetables.
If your space is limited then you could grow your herbs and vegetables amongst your flowers, use a small patch in your garden, a corner of the patio or your window sill would make an ideal location. So there is no excuse to not at least try to grow your own.
Below is a list of some herbs and vegetables that can be easily grown in pots or containers and there is a lot more.
Spinach Runner Beans Baby beetroot Cherry Tomatoes Onions Chard Turnips Asparagus Dwarf beans Carrots Celery Artichokes Squash Courgettes Cucumber
You can use almost any container to grow your vegetables as long as they are cleaned properly. If they contain any chemicals like paint use the appropriate cleaner. The idea sized containers should have troughs as deep as 20cm/8″, if space is not too limited. While pots with an average diameter size of 15cm/6″ are particularly good for small vegetables like spring onions, radish or Cherry Tomatoes. To grow herbs you only need small pots with a diameter that can be as small as 8cm/3″. These are ideally suited to the window sill.
Glass/ Plastic Jars Paint Pots Old Fruit and vegetables containers Old Household Bins Cooking Oil Drums (Catering size) Hanging baskets Terracotta pots Wooden pots/boxes Grow bags
Grow-bags are ideal for growing plants such as squash, courgettes and cucumber, you know the trailing kind. There are special grow bag supports for tomatoes and/or peppers if the cordon variety is being used.
Any container maybe used as long as it has drainage holes at the bottom so that the soil/compost can breathe and does not get waterlogged. A good mix soil and compost will keep everything as light as possible and help with aeration.
Your window sill is an idea place to grow and it will give the necessary sunlight for most vegetables and herbs. Some may need a break in the amount of sunlight as it may damage them. For more information check out the link below and go green.
Many of us would like to grow our own herbs and vegetables but have a limited amount of space. I am here to tell you that it can be easily done with the right equipment. Growing vegetables in containers is not as strange as it seems and there are many people doing it successfully. Many of the vegetables we buy from our local store can be grown in pots or containers as long as they are large enough for the right plant. Larger containers are needed for items like carrots or cabbages. While the smaller sized pots will grow herbs and baby vegetables.
If your space is limited then you could grow your herbs and vegetables amongst your flowers, use a small patch in your garden, a corner of the patio or your window sill would make an ideal location. So there is no excuse to not at least try to grow your own.
Below is a list of some herbs and vegetables that can be easily grown in pots or containers and there is a lot more.
Spinach Runner Beans Baby beetroot Cherry Tomatoes Onions Chard Turnips Asparagus Dwarf beans Carrots Celery Artichokes Squash Courgettes Cucumber
You can use almost any container to grow your vegetables as long as they are cleaned properly. If they contain any chemicals like paint use the appropriate cleaner. The idea sized containers should have troughs as deep as 20cm/8″, if space is not too limited. While pots with an average diameter size of 15cm/6″ are particularly good for small vegetables like spring onions, radish or Cherry Tomatoes. To grow herbs you only need small pots with a diameter that can be as small as 8cm/3″. These are ideally suited to the window sill.
Glass/ Plastic Jars Paint Pots Old Fruit and vegetables containers Old Household Bins Cooking Oil Drums (Catering size) Hanging baskets Terracotta pots Wooden pots/boxes Grow bags
Grow-bags are ideal for growing plants such as squash, courgettes and cucumber, you know the trailing kind. There are special grow bag supports for tomatoes and/or peppers if the cordon variety is being used.
Any container maybe used as long as it has drainage holes at the bottom so that the soil/compost can breathe and does not get waterlogged. A good mix soil and compost will keep everything as light as possible and help with aeration.
Your window sill is an idea place to grow and it will give the necessary sunlight for most vegetables and herbs. Some may need a break in the amount of sunlight as it may damage them. For more information check out the link below and go green.
How to Grow Vegetables with (and for) Your Kids!
Jane Thomas asked:
The best way to ensure that your children eat healthy is to grow your own vegetables! And the trick to getting your children interested in healthy, organic vegetables is helping them grow their own.
You and your children can grow your own vegetables even if you don’t have masses of space to grow vegetables in your garden or a specified vegetable plot, since there are more and more possibilities for growing vegetables in containers.
Here’s how you do it:
1. Set aside a couple of containers or a small area of your garden and designate it the “children’s garden”. Obviously, you as a parent will be doing most of planting, tending for vegetable plants, weeding and watering, but let your child take pride in selecting (from the list of easy to grow vegetables) which vegetables to grow and how the plants will be positioned. If you don’t have a garden, there are many vegetables that can be grown in containers!
2. Choose vegetables that produce something to eat quickly, such as radish, spring onion, baby carrot and baby salad leaf. Quick growing vegetables are the best way to insure your child remains interested in vegetables and gardening! Tomatoes are another obvious choice, especially cherry types, as children can pick and eat them straight off the plant. Cucumbers are great candidate also. The traditional type is too large, but looks for varieties which are ready when they’re just 10cm long.
3. Encourage your child and to keep up the enthusiasm, by letting your child choose some of easy to grow vegetables, and you will both be delighted with the results. Find out what vegetables grow in your area, and what time of year each vegetable should be planted. (Check the library for magazines and books on vegetable gardening, look it up on the internet in gardening related sites and forums, or ask a gardener or farmer in your neighborhood).
4. Remember, make growing your own vegetables a FUN activity! Your child will love digging up the potatoes and carrots – make it a game, like digging for buried treasure! And watching seeds grow from tiny seedlings into grown, mature plants, tending for them and keeping an eye on their progress every day, protecting them from invaders (slugs and insects), really is quite an adventure even for us adults, let alone for the children.
Additional benefit from home growing vegetables with your kids is that it will encourage your kids to eat more vegetables – especially the fussy eaters! Let them choose the vegetable seeds or plants, help them plant and tend for vegetables together, and finally harvest the fresh vegetables. Home grown vegetables taste SO much better when they are fresh and not mass produced or bought at the supermarket. Tasting the difference between home grown vegetables and the supermarket kind is like eating a completely different vegetable. And your kids will notice the difference!
Another benefit that comes from growing your own vegetables with the help of your children is that children actually learn what vegetables look like, where vegetables come from and how vegetables grow. Furthermore, use this opportunity to teach them how to prepare vegetables for eating. Given that more and more children seem to have difficulty recognizing basic vegetables and knowing what to do with them, learning how to grow vegetables in your home garden or in containers will provide your children with a valuable education and a useful life skill– while at the same time they have fun and plenty of fresh air!
The best way to ensure that your children eat healthy is to grow your own vegetables! And the trick to getting your children interested in healthy, organic vegetables is helping them grow their own.
You and your children can grow your own vegetables even if you don’t have masses of space to grow vegetables in your garden or a specified vegetable plot, since there are more and more possibilities for growing vegetables in containers.
Here’s how you do it:
1. Set aside a couple of containers or a small area of your garden and designate it the “children’s garden”. Obviously, you as a parent will be doing most of planting, tending for vegetable plants, weeding and watering, but let your child take pride in selecting (from the list of easy to grow vegetables) which vegetables to grow and how the plants will be positioned. If you don’t have a garden, there are many vegetables that can be grown in containers!
2. Choose vegetables that produce something to eat quickly, such as radish, spring onion, baby carrot and baby salad leaf. Quick growing vegetables are the best way to insure your child remains interested in vegetables and gardening! Tomatoes are another obvious choice, especially cherry types, as children can pick and eat them straight off the plant. Cucumbers are great candidate also. The traditional type is too large, but looks for varieties which are ready when they’re just 10cm long.
3. Encourage your child and to keep up the enthusiasm, by letting your child choose some of easy to grow vegetables, and you will both be delighted with the results. Find out what vegetables grow in your area, and what time of year each vegetable should be planted. (Check the library for magazines and books on vegetable gardening, look it up on the internet in gardening related sites and forums, or ask a gardener or farmer in your neighborhood).
4. Remember, make growing your own vegetables a FUN activity! Your child will love digging up the potatoes and carrots – make it a game, like digging for buried treasure! And watching seeds grow from tiny seedlings into grown, mature plants, tending for them and keeping an eye on their progress every day, protecting them from invaders (slugs and insects), really is quite an adventure even for us adults, let alone for the children.
Additional benefit from home growing vegetables with your kids is that it will encourage your kids to eat more vegetables – especially the fussy eaters! Let them choose the vegetable seeds or plants, help them plant and tend for vegetables together, and finally harvest the fresh vegetables. Home grown vegetables taste SO much better when they are fresh and not mass produced or bought at the supermarket. Tasting the difference between home grown vegetables and the supermarket kind is like eating a completely different vegetable. And your kids will notice the difference!
Another benefit that comes from growing your own vegetables with the help of your children is that children actually learn what vegetables look like, where vegetables come from and how vegetables grow. Furthermore, use this opportunity to teach them how to prepare vegetables for eating. Given that more and more children seem to have difficulty recognizing basic vegetables and knowing what to do with them, learning how to grow vegetables in your home garden or in containers will provide your children with a valuable education and a useful life skill– while at the same time they have fun and plenty of fresh air!
You Can do Container Vegetable Gardening
Kenh Jones asked:
As the proud owner of a tiny vegetable plot one of the easiest ways to increase my plot is to grow vegetables in containers. Container vegetable gardening has become very popular to the point the seed companies now have special varieties for growing vegetables in containers. You cannot always use just any plants because some varieties like a wide spread root system while others grow perfectly well with a smaller root set.
This year I tried to grow sweet peppers in some flower pots but I found them pot bound and dying. I transferred them to the plot and within 2 weeks they were growing and much healthier.
Many people actually are constantly on the lookout for a good way to grow their own vegetables even when space is at a premium. Moreover, these people also wish to avoid purchasing vegetables that contain non-organic matter and they need to also find a way to avoid paying for highly costly organic foods.
An Ideal Solution
With problems such as E. coli to worry about as well, growing vegetables at home has now almost become a necessity and so, it is not surprising to find that container vegetable gardening offers an ideal solution to those who have limited space to grow their vegetables at home. Today, almost everything that we consume is a product of mass production which means that the vegetables that we are eating will have been touched by many hands which in turn can lead to these vegetables becoming unsafe to consume.
Even with little space in which to grow vegetables at home, thanks to container vegetable gardening it has now become possible to grow sufficient quantities of vegetables to feed your family on a daily basis. Container vegetable gardening also is advantageous to you because you can grow your vegetables on a patio or even a deck and even growing your vegetables indoors is possible as long as you use indoor grow lights.
Not all vegetables lend them well to container vegetable gardening, and so you may have to especially avoid planting vegetables that are on the larger size such as corn which grows to such heights that it would require using very heavy as well as large pots. Other vegetables that won’t lend them well to container vegetable gardening include large melons and even certain kinds of squashes and tomatoes that are better off being grown in larger gardens.
Lettuce and spinach as well as vegetables with plenty of leaves on them are what you need to consider for container vegetable gardening as these do well when grown in containers. To get the most out of container vegetable gardening you can also choose to plant small tomatoes of which salad tomatoes, plum tomatoes and cherry tomatoes are good examples.
Besides choosing an appropriate vegetable for your container vegetable gardening, you also will need to worry about the proper size of the container and typically, you need to choose a container that should at least be six inches in depth and which is also at least ten to twelve inches wide.
Some people – myself included – find the vegetable plants attractive in themselves. They are to my mind far more interesting because they produce something you can eat but still look good as a plant. Lettuce and cabbages can be very decorative
Another option worth exploring is home vegetable gardening, which contrary to popular conception need not make your home look unsightly. Provided that you plan it thoroughly and plant your vegetables carefully, home vegetable gardens can look very pretty and can add harmony to the home rather than make it look ugly.
The bottom line is that container vegetable gardening is a good option for anyone that is interested in eating food that does not contain excess of non-organic matter and who wishes to save on costs of buying expensive mass-produced vegetables.
As the proud owner of a tiny vegetable plot one of the easiest ways to increase my plot is to grow vegetables in containers. Container vegetable gardening has become very popular to the point the seed companies now have special varieties for growing vegetables in containers. You cannot always use just any plants because some varieties like a wide spread root system while others grow perfectly well with a smaller root set.
This year I tried to grow sweet peppers in some flower pots but I found them pot bound and dying. I transferred them to the plot and within 2 weeks they were growing and much healthier.
Many people actually are constantly on the lookout for a good way to grow their own vegetables even when space is at a premium. Moreover, these people also wish to avoid purchasing vegetables that contain non-organic matter and they need to also find a way to avoid paying for highly costly organic foods.
An Ideal Solution
With problems such as E. coli to worry about as well, growing vegetables at home has now almost become a necessity and so, it is not surprising to find that container vegetable gardening offers an ideal solution to those who have limited space to grow their vegetables at home. Today, almost everything that we consume is a product of mass production which means that the vegetables that we are eating will have been touched by many hands which in turn can lead to these vegetables becoming unsafe to consume.
Even with little space in which to grow vegetables at home, thanks to container vegetable gardening it has now become possible to grow sufficient quantities of vegetables to feed your family on a daily basis. Container vegetable gardening also is advantageous to you because you can grow your vegetables on a patio or even a deck and even growing your vegetables indoors is possible as long as you use indoor grow lights.
Not all vegetables lend them well to container vegetable gardening, and so you may have to especially avoid planting vegetables that are on the larger size such as corn which grows to such heights that it would require using very heavy as well as large pots. Other vegetables that won’t lend them well to container vegetable gardening include large melons and even certain kinds of squashes and tomatoes that are better off being grown in larger gardens.
Lettuce and spinach as well as vegetables with plenty of leaves on them are what you need to consider for container vegetable gardening as these do well when grown in containers. To get the most out of container vegetable gardening you can also choose to plant small tomatoes of which salad tomatoes, plum tomatoes and cherry tomatoes are good examples.
Besides choosing an appropriate vegetable for your container vegetable gardening, you also will need to worry about the proper size of the container and typically, you need to choose a container that should at least be six inches in depth and which is also at least ten to twelve inches wide.
Some people – myself included – find the vegetable plants attractive in themselves. They are to my mind far more interesting because they produce something you can eat but still look good as a plant. Lettuce and cabbages can be very decorative
Another option worth exploring is home vegetable gardening, which contrary to popular conception need not make your home look unsightly. Provided that you plan it thoroughly and plant your vegetables carefully, home vegetable gardens can look very pretty and can add harmony to the home rather than make it look ugly.
The bottom line is that container vegetable gardening is a good option for anyone that is interested in eating food that does not contain excess of non-organic matter and who wishes to save on costs of buying expensive mass-produced vegetables.
