Although I’m lucky enough to have at least a small patch of land at my current house, I spent the last couple years with a 100-square foot balcony as my only outdoor space.  Don’t be discouraged by a lack of land though, just about anything that you can grow in a traditional garden will work just as well, or sometimes better, when grown in containers.

Here are a few tips that I learned over the last few years with my container gardening:

  • If you are on a balcony, mix a good amount of peat into your potting soil to reduce the weight of your container garden.
  • Dirt in containers will warm up more quickly than the ground in the spring and will cool down much more quickly in the winter.  If you have perrenial plants in containers year round it is a good idea to find them a sheltered place out of the wind during the winter time so that they will be as warm as possible.
  • Plants in containers will tend to dry out more quickly than those planted in the ground.  During hot weather you may have to water quite often.  To encourage the containers to hold water try mixing in some soil additives that retain water and use a layer of mulch on top.
  • When potting a plant consider putting a couple inches of small stones in the bottom of the container to promote good drainage (and make sure there is a hole in the bottom of the container).  Standing water can be very bad for most plants and should be avoided.

I’ve had excellent results growing the following vegetables in containers: tomatoes, tomatillos, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, thai peppers, lettuce and other greens, carrots and a large variety of herbs.  One experiment that did not go quite as well in a container was potatoes…they did not take well to being packed into a small space and I probably wound up planting them a little too shallow.