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Container Gardening On Patio
Container Gardening is the art of growing plants, vegetables, herbs, in containers that are moveable on patios, porches just about anywhere you can put a container, many people place them around in their gardens, you can use buckets, wooden boxes, planters, just about anything
Container gardening is great if you have insufficient space or unsuitable area. This gives you the possibility to grow fresh homegrown vegetables in containers, thus the name container gardening.
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Using window sills, patio, a balcony all these will provide the space needed for container gardening. Problems with diseased soil, or just plan poor soil can be over come with the use of containers. Almost any vegetable that grows in a garden will grow in a container garden.
Synthetic soils are best for use in containers. These mixes are of sawdust, woodchips, peat moss, no matter what mix is used it must be disease and weed seed free. The mix must be able to hold moisture and nutrients but have good drainage and light weight. Many synthetic soils can be ordered on line or be prepared by mixing sawdust, peat moss, limestone, and garden fetilizer. Almost any type of container can be used for growing a container garden. Bussels baskets, drums, gallon cans, tubs and wooden boxes.
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The size of the container will depend on the planting and space you have. Six to ten inch containers will work for green onions,parlsey, and herbs. You will need five gallon buckets for such plants as tomatoes, pepperes, egg plant, these are easy to handle and give enough room for the roots. You must have good drainage to have healthy plants, so to the bottom add two inches of well washed coarse gravel. Make sure you also drill enough holes in the bottom of your container. Vegetables that have been started indoors and can be transplanted and will work best in your container gardening.
The easiest way to add fertilizer to your plants in containers is to prepare a nutrient solution and pour over soil mix. You can order good commerial ferilizer mixes on line.
If you are using transplants start using the nutrient solution the day you set them out, if starting from seeds, apply only tap water to keep soil moist enough until the seeds germinate and plants start to sprout up. Then you can start using the solution. Use this mix once a day, and once a week use tap water only to remove unused ferilizer out of the soil mix by watering, Add enough water so as to see it running out the bottom of your container.
Your plants will do better in full sun light, but some leafy crops such as lettuce, cabbage, green peppers will tolerate more shade than root crops as radishes, beets, and onions. Periodically Inspect your container garden for presence of foilage and fruit feeding insects as well as diesases, if problems occer use EPA. approved fungicides and insecticides as advised.
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Your container garden is ready for harvest when vegetables are at their peak of maturity. Container gardens will give you fresh fruits and vegetables throw the growing season.
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