Hanging baskets make wonderful additions to porches and patios. They are often filled with brightly colored flowers that hang and trail, attracting bees and butterflies.

Hanging baskets are a wonderful option if you have limited growing space. You might have a patio full of pots, but hanging baskets make the most of vertical space, too. They can also help to disguise plain or ugly spaces that you’d prefer to cover up.

Though you can fill your baskets with pretty flowers, you can also fill your hangers with edible plants, too. There are lots of edible plants that do very well in hanging baskets. Again, they are great if you don’t have room for a veggie patch, and they help to keep your precious food out of the way of garden pests.

Hanging baskets filled with edible plants needn’t be devoid of color or texture. Lots of edibles produce stunning flowers, colorful fruits, and interesting foliage. Here is a list of a few plants that will thrive in hanging baskets and provide you with some goodies for your kitchen.

How to Prepare a Hanging Basket for Planting

Source: GrowVeg/YouTube

Hanging baskets are susceptible to drying out quickly as they are exposed to the breeze and wind more than ground plants. As a result, it is best to find a gallon-sized basket so that it can retain moisture better.

Once the baskets are filled with soil, plants, and water, they will be quite heavy, so make sure that you have a secure bracket or hook and strong chains to hang them with.

If you have a mesh basket, you will need to create a liner so that the soil won’t fall out. In the spirit of recycling, a great way of doing this is to use some soft plastic packaging. You then need to poke some small holes in the plastic for drainage. Alternatively, you can buy a natural liner for hanging baskets from nurseries and hardware stores.

Then, you will need to fill your baskets with some quality potting soil. Finally, you are ready to plant your plants.

A gallon-sized basket will (approximately) take:

• Three strawberry plants
• Two cherry tomatoes and a couple of herbs as companions
• 2-3 hot peppers
• Five herbs
• A sprinkling of salad green seeds

Strawberries

Strawberries are a great option for hanging baskets. You can probably fit three plants in a one-gallon basket. Opt for an everbearing variety, and that way, you can have cascading strawberries all season long. Make sure that your basket of strawberries is in a sunny spot as they require 6-10 hours of sun a day. Strawberries can tolerate different types of soil but do prefer acid soil.

Source: The Gardening Channel/Youtube

Cherry Tomatoes

Hanging baskets dripping with succulent little cherry tomatoes will be the highlight of your porch garden. Chose a variety of cherry tomatoes that are vining. You want to have those branches hanging down where you can grab a tomato as you pass by. Plant your tomatoes in the soil with a small basil plant. These are great companion plants. Hang your basket in a sunny spot and keep the soil moist.

Chili Peppers

Chili peppers, such as cayenne peppers, work well in hanging baskets. These plants produce much smaller peppers so your basket won’t have the weight of bell peppers to contend with. If you are starting your peppers from seed, you will need to start them indoors six weeks before the last frost of the season. Once they are established, you can transplant your pepper plants to your basket. Peppers like a sunny spot and demand temperatures that are consistently above 50 degrees F (and ideally above 60 degrees F).

Herbs

A basket full of herbs will be an aromatic and visual sensation. You will be able to fit four or five plants in a gallon-sized basket. Think oregano, thyme, marjoram, and other creeping herbs than can cascade over the sides of the basket. A clump of chives in the middle of a basil plant will help to give some shape to the composition. Some mint or lemon balm would make a great tea-making hanging basket.

Source: Silverline Tools/Youtube

Salad Greens

You could buy salad green starts from a nursery, or you could simply sprinkle a packet of mixed salad greens seeds over the soil in your basket and wait for the magic. Once your seedlings have taken off, you can thin out the weaker seedlings. As your plants become mature, you can start harvesting. You don’t need to pull up the entire plant; just pick as many leaves as you need, and the plant will continue to grow.

So, you needn’t have an entire garden bed or even a porch filled with pots to grow a little food for yourself. Make the most of upwards space and grow yourself an areal garden!

Related Content:

• 8 Crops That Grow Well in Hanging Baskets
• 10 Creative Things to Do with Inexpensive Thrift Store Baskets
• 10 Edible Plants That Grow in the Shade
• 7 Edible Plants You Can Grow on Your Windowsill
• 10 Drought-Tolerant Edible Plants

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