Feature Article - for release the week of November 16, 2008

Angela Sachson – Florida Yards & Neighborhoods

Grow Cool Season Crops in Containers

 

Not everyone wants or needs a big vegetable garden. Some of us just yearn for the taste of some homegrown broccoli or fresh herbs for salsa.  Here’s a way to contain your garden.

There is no reason to tear up your yard—in fact; the current conventional wisdom is that tilling the ground may be bad for it.  So if you are short on space and hoping to grow a little food, try the following methods.

It’s always a good idea to start small, and in this case we mean tiny.  Any corner of your yard is a spot for a container of vegetables as long as it gets 6 hours of sun.  The sidewalk, the driveway, the patio, deck, dock or balcony can all work just fine.

And container gardening has advantages even if you have plenty of space.  No tilling, fewer weeds, absence of nematodes, and even some portability in case of threatened freeze.

 

Container Choices

The first requirement for a container is that it cost little or, preferably, nothing.  You can buy grow bags but why would you.  In fact, if you forget your reusable grocery bags and end up with some plastic ones, poke some drainage holes in the bottom, put in some potting soil and plant.  This planter even has handles for moving. 

You can use tires, baskets, kiddie pools barrels and drums, and restaurants buy oil and other food in large buckets and cans.  Look around your house and yard for likely candidates.  Just be sure to provide holes for drainage.  I have a crape myrtle in an old wash tub.  Unusual containers are good for ornamental as well as edible plants. 

Potatoes grow great in a large container of layered compost and soil.  Just plant the eyes in the bottom of a barrel and continue to add soil and compost as they shoot up.  They tell me I’ve not tasted potatoes until I taste the home grown kind.  The container also protects from marauding critters.

 Smaller containers are great for herbs.  An old coffee pot looks great filled with chives and I have seen a shoe of parsley.  Of course you might not want this whimsical addition to your formal garden.  When choosing a container  keep in mind the size of the plant you want to grow and the size of the root system as well.  Strawberry jars are good for herbs and also provide a vertical home for (you guessed it) strawberries.

 

Using Grow Bags 

One popular new way to grow vegetables is upside down in special bags.  Watering and feeding from the top, growing toward the ground, these plants get lots of air circulation and do not have to be staked!  Cucumbers should be less susceptible to fungal diseases planted this way.  But don’t buy a special bag.  Use a bucket or one or two plastic grocery bags with a hole for the plant in the bottom.  Pull the roots up through the hole, spread them on the bottom of the container, and fill with potting medium.    For hanging vegetables my friend the expert container gardener suggests a lighter weight mixture of half perlite and half composted manure.  The bags and buckets have built-in hangers.

This year I planted my vegetables in bags of potting soil, top soil, and compost.  I have laid out the bags in my raised-bed plot, and made holes in the bottom for drainage.   The holes in the top are just big enough for the plants.  In the case of salad plants I cut out the top to seed.   Each 40-pound bag will hold one tomato or eggplant, a couple of pepper plants or a whole bunch of radishes and carrots.  The peas are already beginning to climb up their chicken-wire supports.

Keep the compost moist and feed plants such eggplant, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers with a high potash fertilizer when flowers appear - this will ensure the plumpest fruit. When crops have finished, I plan to split the bag open and recycle the compost as a soil conditioner in the garden.

Whatever your favorite vegetable you can find a container and a garden spot to grow good fresh produce.

If you need additional information on container gardening, please email us at okeechobee@ifas.ufl.edu or call us at 863-763-6469. In Highlands County call 863-402-6540 and in Glades County call 863-946-0244.  Okeechobee residents can stop by our office at 458 Hwy 98 North in Okeechobee, and visit our Okeechobee County Master Gardeners from 1 to 3 PM on Tuesday afternoons. GO GATORS!

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Trade  names, where used, are given for the purpose of providing specific information. They do not constitute an endorsement or guarantee of products named, nor does it imply criticism of products not named. The Florida Cooperative Extension Service - Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer authorized to provide research, educational information, and other services to individuals and institutions that function without regard to race, color, sex, age, handicap, or national origin.  Florida Cooperative Extension Service / IFAS / University of Florida.  Larry A.  Arrington, Dean. Last update: 11/24/2008.  This page is maintained by Dan Culbert