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6 Best Vegetables to Grow in Containers

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Emma Gallagher is a Brit living in North Carolina. She grows organic gardens and... Read More

No excuses. You don’t need a huge garden, or a garden at all, to grow yourself some veggies. All you need is a little space outside, such as a porch, door stoop, balcony, or deck, some pots, and some sunshine to become a tiny bit more self-sufficient.

Many vegetables and herbs do just fine in containers and pots and are even considered easy to grow for beginners. What’s more, container gardening comes with many benefits that growing in a garden can lack.

For example, it is much easier to move pots around to help maximize your plants’ need for sun and shade. You can better control their water consumption, and pot gardens tend to suffer less from common garden pests.

Check out these 6 veggies that do well in container gardens.

Source: GrowVeg/YouTube

1. Tomatoes

Tomatoes are a classic container grown veg. Whether you are trying to grow cherry tomatoes, Romas, or good-slicing tomatoes, there’s a great chance that you will get a good harvest from plants grown in generously sized pots.

Determinate tomatoes tend to stay on the shorter side, so are a good choice for container growing. However, if you have a sturdy trellis and are prepared to prune, indeterminate varieties work well, too.

Tomatoes need a lot of sun and warm temperatures to grow. Make sure that the pots have rich, well-draining soil and keep the soil damp but not saturated.

Regardless of the type of tomato you get, you will likely need to give your plants some kind of Support to help them from collapsing under the weight of all the delicious fruit they are going to produce.

2. Cucumbers

Source: Burpee Gardening/YouTube

Cucumbers are a great choice for container gardening so long as you have ample vertical space, too. Cucumbers are climbers, and unless you want the vines spilling out from the pot all over your porch, you will need to provide some kind of upward-growing Support.

Depending on the size of your pot, you might be able to get away with more than one plant per container, but cucumbers do need some space. If you don’t think you have the space for a vining cucumber, there are bush varieties.

Cucumbers love water but will need to have rich, well-draining soil and lots of sunshine.

3. Greens

Source: Toward Garden/YouTube

Most greens, from kale and arugula to lettuce and mustard are great for growing in containers. They don’t take up too much space, you can pick what you need and let the plant continue growing to give you a continued harvest, and you can pick the leaves of young as baby greens.

You can either start your green seeds indoors and transplant them to larger pots when they are big enough, or you can simply scatter seeds on the surface of the soil of the pot they are destined to be in. Lightly scratch the seeds into the soil and water them.

Once they have started to grow, you can thin them out to give some of the plants ample space to grow. Many greens don’t love to be blasted with sun, so make sure that they are in a spot that gets some shelter from the afternoon blaze.

4. Potatoes

Source: homegrown.garden/YouTube

Growing potatoes in containers or buckets could not be easier, and it saves those delicious roots from being devoured but burrowing animals that love those juicy morsels that you painstakingly planted.

First of all, you need to find some seed potatoes. You can buy these from a supplier—try to get organic if you can—or you can grow your own from organic potatoes bought at the store.

The amazing thing is that you don’t even need soil to grow potatoes in buckets. You just need some straw and water. Check out this great OGP guide, here, for growing potatoes in buckets.

Put your potato-planted buckets in a sunny spot and wait for your bounty.

5. Hot and Bell Peppers

Source: The Gardening Chanel WIth James Prigioni/YouTube

You can successfully grow hot and bell peppers in pots if you have a sunny porch or door stoop. Peppers love the sun and like to be kept watered. If you can provide this, you will on to a winner.

Plant your peppers in pots with rich soil with good drainage. Depending on the type of pepper you plant, they can get pretty sizeable, so be sure to plant one pepper per pot and be ready to provide a stake for it when it gets bigger and fruit-laden.

6. Radishes

Source: MIgardener/YouTube

Some folk believe that container gardens are not good for root vegetables because of the depth of soil that they require. There is some logic to this.

Carrots for example need a lot of downward space to fulfill their tasty taproot growth, but as long as you have a pot that is deep enough, they should be fine.

Round radishes are a great choice for container gardening. They are supposed to be picked when they are just about an inch or so in diameter, so most pots will be just fine for these crunchy gems.

What’s more, depending on the variety, radishes can be ready for harvest in just 25-30 days. Radishes are a cool climate plant but need a lot of sunshine. Give them a spot that gets lots of sun but is shaded from the intense afternoon heat.

Make sure that your soil is not too nitrogen-rich. You want to grow roots here, not greens!

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