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All Edible Container Gardens

Whether you live in an apartment with just a sunny window, only have a small patio area or have lots of room for plantings you can grow an edible garden. This fall when you are filling containers with greenery and flowers why not plant them with something that's good to eat?

Most likely you are not going to grow all the food your family likes but just a few of the special crops. You could plant some of the herbs used in your favorite recipes, a vegetable or two and some edible flowers.


Container Gardens
A small twelve to sixteen inch planter might include a pepper, sweet marjoram, parsley, chives, Cuban oregano, mint and a pansy. Just think what you could add to other container gardens. They might include broccoli, lettuce, lemon thyme and rosemary or the edible flowers of nasturtiums, snapdragons and impatiens. 

Do note flowers from garden centers may have been intended for non-edible gardens. Ask about previous pesticide treatments and allow at least thirty days for pesticides to dissipate before eating.

Edible container gardens are easy to start. Just fill a clay, plastic or wood planter about three-quarters full with a well-drained potting soil available from your garden center. Now start adding the plants. Use a taller plant in the center and the smaller growing and cascading types along the sides. You do have to plant each closer together than you would in a in ground garden.

Your container garden can be used as an accent to display at an entrance, a table decoration near a sunny window or as a planter for the patio or balcony. Following are some tips to get the most from you edible container gardens. 

Keep the soil moist watering when the surface begins to feel dry to the touch.

Feed weekly with a 20-20-20 or similar fertilizer solution mixed at one half the normal rate.

Harvest herbs and flowers frequently to keep new growths coming; wait until vegetables are ripe.
Control pests by hand picking or use of a soap spray.
Replace plants as they decline with new selections to keep the container gardens producing.