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Tips for Container Gardening

061308squarecedar.jpgContainer gardening seems incredibly straightforward, but no doubt there are details often overlooked. Having just acquired two tomato plant containers, I will do my best not to kill them (over-watering everything is unfortunately my strong suit). We just discovered the Container Gardening Guide online, which also links to many other sub-categories and guides...

 
 

...like those for herbs, flowers, and gardening tools and products. If you've got a green thumb and focus on container gardening (either on a large or small scale), let us know some of your tips in the comments.

Visit ContainerGardeningTips.com.

Image: square cedar container boxes for $179.99 (price goes up with height increase).

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Comments (5)

I don't know if this issue has already been addressed but seeing an ad for "topsy turvey" tomato planters on that site reminded me that topsy-turvey tomato planters have been recalled for 2 different companies.

I hope your tomato planters are right side up!

Thanks for the resource though, my garden is all containers and I need all the tips I can get.

posted by mariamercedes on 2008-06-13 13:12:27
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I've posted info on this on some other posts, but wanted to let others who didn't see it read up.

I'm doing container gardening on my balcony right now. I'm not really good with plants, but my wife is a vegetarian, so I am trying to grow veggies for her. If you want to do it an extremely easy way, go with self watering planters. They have a water reservoir on the bottom, anywhere from a quart to a few gallons (my big one holds 4 gallons of water). These are amazing.

To read up on this subject, check out this book. I got it from our library. Very extensive info.

http://www.amazon.com/Incredible-Vegetables-Self-Watering-Containers-Amazing/dp/1580175562

If you want to do veggies there for special plants made for containers, they are often labeled for containers, bush, or patio variety. You want these, they stay smaller. I have 2 container variety yellow cherry tomatoes, 2 redskin red peppers (hard to find most places, parkseeds.com), an eight ball zucchini, and a one ball yellow squash.

Back to the containers. the plants are thriving. The big one i have could go for days without watering if i wanted to. The way they work is all the water is at the bottom. they have areas were the potting mix sits in the water and wicks it up. this makes all the mix always moist, no over watering, no under watering. it takes how much it needs. I say potting mix, because that's exactly what you need. NO soil, or dirt, or anything like that for self watering, it won't work right. The mix should be spagheum peat moss, and percilite (spelt wrong most likely) i added extra percilite as well. The small ones are cheapos from walmart and they work good, just don't hold enough water.

So here is what it all looks like on our balcony. I have an another small green pot smaller then the one here with a pepper in it. Plus we have a self watering railing flower box. The big orange one is from agardenpatch.com

http://bp3.blogger.com/_li4MaAo0Y78/SFGAJ1I9lrI/AAAAAAAAAM0/qq4hmLKTbRY/s1600-h/IMG_2623.jpg

posted by jmorey on 2008-06-13 13:23:33
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I just wanted to say that jmorey is such a sweetheart for growing veggies for his vegetarian wife! I have been on an "eat healthy" kick for quite awhile now, and my husband is of no help- yesterday he wanted hot dogs and fries for dinner from some greasy little joint that stands in a parking lot...luckily we couldn't find the place. He goes "what are you going to get?" and I quickly replied "nothing, we have food at home."

So you growing veggies is awesome, to me. :)

posted by Erin Lang Norris/Yellow Canoe on 2008-06-13 13:56:31
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Until I can keep a cow on my balcony, I figured I might as well and try and grow food for one of us.

posted by jmorey on 2008-06-13 14:50:26
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We have a yard and we built 4 4'x4' boxes to grow different vegetable such as cucumber,green bean,tomatoes,radish,kale,swiss chard and spinach,radish.

posted by vegetarcat on 2008-06-13 15:18:29
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