Container Gardening

We’ve all seen food growing in pots on porches and patios, but modern container gardening goes much further. Whether you’re short on space or simply want to maximize your harvest by growing everywhere you can, there’s likely a system of container gardening—or several!—that will work for you.

Container Gardening

If your vegetable gardening is limited by space or suitability, consider raising fresh, nutritious, homegrown vegetables in containers. A patio, balcony or doorstep will provide sufficient space for a productive mini-garden. In addition, problems with soil-borne diseases, nematodes and poor soil conditions can be easily overcome by switching to a container garden. You can even make your own potting mix!

Windowsill Gardening

Whether you want to garden through the winter or spruce up your room with a few plants, windowsill gardens are a wonderful way to grow everything from herbs to succulents inside your own home. Particularly if you plan to grow plants in the winter, it’s important to make sure they’re getting the most sunlight possible. A south-facing window is your best option, with west-facing a close second.

Window Box Gardening

Window box gardening is a great way to get for more space to grow in an apartment, grow food in an area with an HOA, or keep your crops close to home. Before you give up on gardening altogether, swap out your flower space for vegetables or fruits and see if this is the solution to tight quarters or limited growing space you’ve been searching for.

You can grow tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash and other smaller crops in window boxes. You could even try smaller varieties of heavier crops, depending upon the depth and sturdiness of the window box. Strawberries, smaller types of carrots, and even small varieties of watermelon could be potential candidates for a window box garden.

Vertical Gardening

We love vertical gardening because it just goes to show that people can garden anywhere, regardless of where they choose to live. Some gardeners live in the city but still enjoy fresh food. These city dwellers are ideal candidates for vertical gardening because food can grow well on balconies, patios and even indoors.

You can purchase a vertical gardening setup with grow lights for indoor vertical gardening or purchase pouches to grow vertically. Your vertical set-up will determine what limitations you face. For instance, crops that are too heavy or require deeper soil won’t work as well. However, whatever your set-up, vertical gardening is great for fresh herbs and lettuce.

Hydroponic Gardening

As science and technology advances, hydroponic gardening is becoming the norm for foods purchased at large chain grocery stores. At home, hydroponics can enable you to grow whatever plants you’d like at any time of year, if protected from natural elements.

Hydroponic gardening works like this: Instead of planting in the soil, you purchase a setup that allows you to grow plants in a solution that provides the nutrients and oxygen they need. Despite being soil free, though, this approach still requires a form of light, whether from the sun or from grow lights.

If your living space has enough room for a hydroponic setup, this style of gardening could work for you. You can purchase smaller setups, but to grow the same variety of crops as you would in a traditional garden, you’ll need considerably more room. If space is a concern, you can pair hydroponics with another style of gardening to produce a bigger yield or simply appreciate that it provides some of your food even if you don’t have much (or any) land to grow on.

Aquaponic Gardening

Aquaponics is another modern style of gardening that requires a proper setup, but it’s a fascinating way to grow your own food. The idea behind aquaponics is that you raise both fish and vegetables simultaneously. Plants grow in a solution similar to what you’d use to grow vegetables in hydroponics. Fish are then added to the water, and their waste feeds the crops while the plants filter the water for the fish.

You can garden using this style on a large or small scale, making aquaponics a viable option for anyone regardless of the amount of land you have. Some aquaponics setups are as small as a traditional fish tank, which means even apartment dwellers can grow some of their own food.

Upside-Down Gardening

Whether you’re trying to grow more food or you’re short on space, learning how to grow certain crops upside down is an interesting approach to making optimum use of space. This style of gardening is traditionally used to grow tomatoes, and it works wonderfully.

You can purchase a container specifically meant for growing tomatoes upside down or make your own from a bucket. Either way, the containers hang out of the way and produce a delicious, versatile crop that many people love.

Hanging Gardens

Did you assume your hanging planters were meant only for gorgeous flowers? If a flower will grow in it, you can find a vegetable that will grow there equally well. If you have room for a hanging basket, you have room for a hanging garden!

You can grow any shallow-rooted plant in a basic hanging basket. Peppers, tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, herbs, cucumbers and squash, for instance, will all grow well in a hanging basket. You wouldn’t want to grow root vegetables, though (unless the pot is deeper than the standard hanging basket) or plants that produce heavy crops such as watermelon.

Rooftop Gardening

A rooftop garden is exactly what it sounds like: a garden that happens to be on a roof. This can mean flowers and shrubs or even a vegetable, herb or fruit garden. There are two types of rooftop gardens: fully planted or containers/raised beds.

Fully planted rooftop gardens are typically more difficult to start and maintain because they require covering the roof with soil, an undertaking that often requires an evaluation by an engineer to make sure the roof can support the weight of so much soil and water. If you’re interested in this approach, stop by our Green Learning Station to see our green roofs.

Raised bed and container gardens are much simpler. Just find some garden containers that fit your space, add soil, plant what’s appropriate for your container sizes, and you’re done!

The size of your rooftop garden will determine the cost. If you build a fully planted garden to cover a large roof, you could spend thousands on proper engineering and irrigation. However, you can create a modest garden with a few containers and plants on even the smallest budget.

Other Options

You can also grow food in the ground and in raised beds. And you can come learn about gardening at the CGC!