Helpful Hints for Easy Container Gardening

Helpful Hints for Easy Container Gardening

Container gardening is a great alternative to have your own homegrown fruits and vegetables if you do not have a big back yard with a patch for the plants. Container gardening can be very easy and successful for you if you follow a few simple, helpful hints.

Fist of all, when you get started with your container garden, pick a few plants, vegetables and fruits that you would like to harvest throughout summer and fall. Of course you cannot grow every vegetable or fruit available on the market in a container, but many vegetable and fruit varieties can be grown in a container. One of the most favorite container plants is the tomato plant.

After you chose a few varieties, make sure that you have big enough containers. A tomato plant for example needs an at least five gallon or bigger container to grow well. Therefore you still have some space considerations when planting a container garden. Besides the container itself, the soil that you put in the container is an important factor for growing healthy plants and vegetables. Not any old dirt will give you the same result as a high quality gardening and potting soil. These soils are specifically designed for containers and the plants that go into the containers. They will for example hold moisture better than regular soil, but also prevent the plant from molding when there is too much water added. Special gardening and planting soils also have a starter amount of fertilizer. Proper nutrients are important for the growth of healthy plants.

After planting the plants, make sure that you water your plants regularly. Keep in mind that containers and pots generally dry out faster than a big garden patch, especially on hot days or long stretches of dry weather. Also important when watering the plant is to get some advice from your local garden center about the watering preferences of the plants. Some plants prefer to be watered close to the soil while others do not have such preferences. If you think that these preferences are not easy to take care of, make sure to ask your garden center employees for the easy to take-care varieties and you will not have to worry about such issues.

Container plants need to be fertilized on regular bases. Containers and pots do not hold very much food for the plants and therefore more food has to be added to the pot. There are many ways that you can fertilize your container. Some of the easier ones are plant stakes. Plant stakes hold all the nutrients a plant needs over a longer period of time. Therefore you do not have to remember to add the fertilizer on weekly or bi weekly schedule, but you might only need to replace the stake every few weeks. There are also easy to use fertilizers that you can add to your water when watering. Other fertilizers are sprinkled on the top, but these fertilizers are harder to apply in the proper amount.

And do not forget the factor sunlight. Many fruit and vegetable plants need a good amount of sunlight throughout the day to grow and produce a crop. Tomatoes for example need a minimum of five to six hours of sunlight a day and the more the better. Therefore you will not be able to grow a container garden anywhere but on the sunny side of your house. Plants that do not get the proper amount of sun will not flourish and might not even produce more than one or two vegetables or fruit on the plant, which in the end might be a waste of money and time for you.
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