Today, we’re talking container gardening for beginners. Container gardening is widely popular and I thought it’d be a great idea to introduce it to the readers of GardeningforFun.com
Container gardening is great for those of you that have small spaces. Maybe you live in an apartment with a balcony or you have a very small
yard living in the city. Container gardening is a great option to grow things without using a lot of space.
Container gardening is also a great option for those of you that may be too busy to manage a big garden. So if you’re busy, you’re working a lot,but yet, you’d like to grow some herbs to use in your cooking, then container gardening is a great way to do that. Or you may be just like me and you have a big garden,but you enjoy having plants on your front porch or patio near the house so that you can enjoy them as you’re sitting out and relaxing,or maybe you want some herbs close to the door so you can run out and pinch off some basil or some rosemary to use in your dinner recipe.
Today we’re gonna talk you through choosing the right spaces
for your container gardening. We’re also going to discuss container options,and then we will go ahead and get planting,and talk about different plant options that you can use when container gardening. Let’s get started.
The next step in our container gardening process is evaluating the space
that you have available. So this may take walking around your property,evaluating what you have, whether you have a house in the city or maybe a balcony off of your apartment. Just looking at what spaces you have available,and this is an area where you can get a little bit creative, because it doesn’t take much space to grow something,and you’ll find that you can grow things in the oddest places.
I’ll talk about the different options for containers in the next section, but
take a look at your balcony,your patio, or maybe you have a small yard.
If you want to grow a container garden or your balconly, I love the container above, my girlfriend just got her’s last week. (You can click on the picture to learn more)
Maybe you have windows, or a blank wall. You can grow things on a wall. So get creative and have fun with it. The last thing you need to evaluate is the sun. How does the sun hit these outdoor spaces? Because how much sun
your outdoor spaces get will determine what flowers, vegetables, and herbs you can grow.
The next step is your container options, and the sky’s the limit
to what type of containers you can plant in. So first let’s talk about flower pots. This is the first kind of go to thing that our brains go to when it comes to planting,and if you have a patio or a balcony,yes you could definitely put
a couple of potted plants in the corners or on a little table or whatever you dream up. So our first go to, of course, is the big flower pot.
Now this would be good for tomato plants. You could even do peppers in here. You know your bigger stuff you’d wanna put in something like this. You can find these anywhere. Big box store, online, ask your friends and family.
Another option is wooden boxes.
Another popular option for potted plants is, of course, hanging baskets. This is a really easy thing to do,especially if you have even more limited space. Maybe you don’t have a balcony at all and you have a space where you could hang it outside of a window. So, this is always a pretty good option,and it won’t take up any space on the floor of your patio, your balcony, or whatever. You can hang these up so that you have plenty of extra space in your outdoor area.
Another off the wall option is this behind me. This is an old washtub
and I store our kindling in it for our camp fires, but I have planted flowers in this. I usually do it in the fall. I plant mums and it’s really pretty,but this is another option. Another great option is these galvanized tubs.
Sometimes you can find stuff like this, again,at flea markets or estate
sales, and use them as planters and it works. Another option for
container gardening is using raised beds, and I have done articles
on how to build this from scratch, so if you missed that, it is here at GardenforFun.com & I will link it down below, but if you have a little bit more space.
So maybe you own a house in the city,and you have a tiny back yard, but still a back yard. You may be able to utilize the space with raised beds,and it’s also nice in smaller spaces to use raised beds as opposed to just putting a garden in,because you can organize it better.
It keeps things looking a little bit more tidy,because in small spaces
things can get messy and congested very quickly. But having a raised bed will keep things looking organized and look really nice in your back yard.
So let’s say you fall in the camp of having absolutely zero, no outdoor space. You have no balcony or deck, no patio, no yard. What can you do then?Well, I’ve got some ideas for you; follow me. So how about window boxes?If you have windows, you may be able to install some flower boxes, and this is a great way to plant some things with having zero outdoor space.
The last option I wanted to talk about in regards to containers is using a
blank wall to grow things. So maybe your space is very, very limited,and you have maybe a wall that you could grow vine plants on, plants that grow up. So as you can see here, I used a palette. I got this for free. And then I purchased these containers from Ikea. They’re very reasonable
and they’re very big, and they just hang on here. And you could actually mount this palette to the wall if you wanted to do so. I just have it leaning up, but it really doesn’t take that much space. And even if you had a balcony or patio,this is something you could do if you don’t wanna take up a lot of space on the balcony.
If you wanna put a table or some chairs out,this is something you could
kind of tuck in the corner and it wouldn’t take up a lot of room. Another option that I saw at Amazon they sell a flower box with a lattice wall,and you can attach the lattice to the wall,have the flower box at the bottom and plant something that grows up.
You could do cucumbers this way, tomatoes,or any type of flower that’s
viney and grows upward. Now that we’ve chosen what containers we wanna use,it’s now time to decide what to plant,and I’d mentioned earlier in the article that you need to pay attention to where the sun hits in your outdoor spaces because that will determine what will grow best in your areas.
The next thing to consider, as far as what plants to buy,is what do you want? Do you prefer flowers?Do you wanna use herbs in the kitchen,so maybe plant some herbs? Or maybe you want some tomato plants, pepper plants on your patio because you like eating those.
This is the next question,so this will be a personal preference thing. As you can see here, I have an assortment of flowers and most of these flowers
take partial to full sun,which is what I need, because most of these will be going on my back porch,and our back porch only gets sun for half the day.
So I needed flowers that could handle partial sun partial shade, which is
why I chose what I chose. And then I have some herbs here. I’m also gonna plant some herbs so that I have them readily available right outside my door.
I also have an herb garden in the front of the yard,but I thought it would be
nice to also put some of these back here as well. Plus it’s gonna add a little bit of color to my very brown deck. So I thought that would be kind of fun and also they smell really good. I can really smell this basil. Smells really good. I also have some oregano, parsley.
It’s preferable to plant annuals and potted plants when it comes to container gardening. It’s not that you can’t plant a perennial in a container.
Just know that when it starts to get colder outside,you need to be able to
bring that plant indoors. So if you don’t have the space to store your perennial plants,then maybe don’t plant those. But you can plant them in containers. Just know you’ll have to bring it in when the snow starts flying.
The first thing I like to do is go ahead and lay out my plants so I know exactly how I want to plant them. The next step is prepping your containers. This particular container had a big gap in the bottom, plus with it being wood,I decided to line it with parchment paper. Next apply a layer of drainage to your containers.
If your containers do not have holes in the bottom,adding a layer of rocks
will create drainage for your plants. Next add a good quality all purpose potting mix to your containers. Once my flowers are planted, I like to add a layers of wood chips to help protect the soil and aid in moisture retention.
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