Tips for Container Gardening Newbies



I am not a master gardener.............and I don't claim to be one.  I am a stay at home mom, who lives in suburbia, wants to begin growing her own food, and wants to teach her children that real food does not come from a grocery store shelf.  These suggestions are experiences that I have learned about gardening in containers over the past couple of years.



Life as a Healthy Mom

This year, the plants in my containers have provided our family with quite the harvest, as you can see from this picture; and it's only the beginning of July!  I have been container gardening for a few years now....if you call the first year gardening.  I do, but expert gardeners may think otherwise; but I will get to the details later. 

Container gardener is all the rage now because people are looking to grow their own food but not wanting to dedicate space (or have space) for a full garden....and it couldn't be easier than popping a couple of plants in soil and watching them grow, right?  WRONG!  Expert gardeners make it look so easy.  I learned the hard way, and I want to share with you my struggles in starting my gardening adventures, so you won't have all the trials and tribulations I had.

Life as a Healthy Mom

I container garden because our backyard pretty much sits on a rock shelf, and over the years the dirt has eroded away to expose the rock underneath.  Let me tell you, it is NOT a pretty sight. How weeds grow where grass and other plants don't is beyond my understanding!  And yes, I am one of those people who can and HAVE killed a cactus..........just sayin!


Now, I have containers dispersed throughout my backyard yielding delicious, nutritious, organic food.  Years ago, my husband built a deck over the sewer inlet to prevent our then toddlers from exploring and falling down that said sewer.  After years of the deck being used for playhouses and such, it lay barren; so I bought 9 of the same, square containers (did I also say that I bit OCD with organization?), and deck has now become my container garden oasis. 

Tip # 1:  Start Small

Depending on how many containers you have and how much you want to spend on buying other containers is totally up to you.  If you are new to gardening, I would suggest start small.  Pick a few of your favorites and easy to grow.....strawberries, lettuces, herbs, tomatoes, green peppers, or zucchini are all easy to grow. 

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Tip #2:  Fill the Container with Good Soil

I learned this tip shortly after starting my container garden.  I spent so much on the containers themselves, that I didn't want to spend too much money on the soil....and I bought a cheap top soil. That was definitely a blonde moment! 
I learned later that top soil for a garden in the ground is fine, but soil in containers need to be well aerated, well drained, and be able to retain enough moisture for the plant to thrive. My plants did not do well that first year.  Think about it..............if you eat the vegetables and fruits from your garden that came from bad soil with no nutrients, what are you getting when you eat that produce.....less that stellar nutrient dense food.

Today, at the beginning of the growing season, I take all the soil out of the containers, add more soil and compost to amend the soil.  I began composting during the same year that I began my container garden, so now I have access to rich, organic matter to help benefit my plants as they grow.  You can also purchase compost from local garden centers.  Again, when I began the container garden, I was too cheap to even buy the compost in a bag.  Lesson learned.

Tip #3: Be Sure to Give Your Plants Enough Water

I water my plants everyday, mostly in the morning.  Plants in containers tend to dry out faster because once the summer heat hits the containers, the water evaporates.  Be consistent with your watering.  During my first year, I did not dedicate every day to watering.  BIG MISTAKE!

Our tomatoes began showing black spots on the bottom.  I found out they had blossom end rot. If the tomato plants loses it's ability to absorb enough calcium for proper development, blossom rot occurs.  There are several factors that can cause blossom end rot, and one of them is fluctuations in soil moisture.  I am sure the depletion of nutrients in my topsoil didn't help either!  Needless to say, we did not get to enjoy the taste of a vine riped tomato from our garden that year.

A couple of years of ago, we went on vacation mid summer, and I handed the reins, or in my case the hose, to a neighborhood girl for a summer job.  It didn't help that during the week we were gone, the heat index was in the triple digits.  Add me not explaining fully how much water the containers truly needed and that is a recipe for disaster.  We came back from vacation to find all the plants in dire straits, and our growing season was cut short. 

Now, I water each container with a gallon of water daily.  They are doing well, even with the record-breaking temperatures we have experienced in the Midwest.   

Tip #4:  Don't Let Your Plants Drown

Plants need water, but they also need good drainage.  If the root system of the plants get waterlogged, they start to rot and then literally drown, which is what happened in my case.  I was so excited to bring my new containers home to begin planting my seeds that I filled them with the soil and forgot to poke a hole in the bottom of it for drainage.  Well, the first good, spring rain reminded me of my mistake....I had 9 mini container ponds on the deck!

After the downpour, my containers were overflowing with water, and my seedlings were drowning.  My husband drained as much water off the containers that he could by tipping the containers over as much as to not empty the soil that now looked like sludge.  Once most of the water was removed, he drilled holes in the bottom of each container.  I replanted the seeds after allowing the containers to drain and the soil to dry out for a few days.   

I still have the same containers, so I haven't experienced any waterlogged plants.  Another tip:  before you put your soil in, be sure to put a screen in the bottom to prevent your soil from falling through the drainage holes.  I have heard than some people put coffee filters in the bottom on the containers.

Tip # 5:  Plant in Season


Certain plants need to be planted during certain times of the year.  Have you ever heard of "eating in season"?  That means you are choosing to eat food during the time they are grown.  For example, tomatoes and peppers in summer, asparagus and greens in spring, root vegetables in fall. 

Gardenate has a great website to tell you what to plant in your garden based on your climate zone.  The site also allows you to click on each month to see what plants. You can also check with your local cooperative extension office website for other information, such as the hardiness zone your area is in.  

Tip #6: Know your Enemies

Plants have friends....and enemies in the bug world. Again, we learned of these little culprits during our second year of gardening. I came out to check on the cherry tomato plants on the patio to find small, black poop that resembled mini hand grenades all over the leaves of the plants. WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THIS?

I ran to my computer to look up what this could be. I literally googled, "poop that looks like hand grenades on plants" and information about tomato hornworms popped up. Isn't the Internet wonderful? I found out the Tomato Hornworm is the larval stage of hawk or sphinx moth, and they are voracious eaters...munching entire leaves, small stems, and even parts of immature fruit. Upon further inspection of the plants, we found a quarter of the plant's leaves were eaten, and many of the tomatoes that had formed on the plant. I was not happy!

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The next step was to look for the hornworm on the plant. Ewwww! They camouflage themselves VERY well on the underside of the leaves of the plant, so it took my husband and I some time to find it. When we found it, we were shocked at how big it was.  The hornworm in the above picture is attached to the stem on the underside of the leaf that my husband is holding.  If the excrement gave any indication of the worm, we were not dealing with a mini caterpillar...it was 4 inches long and fat, probably from eating all my leaves and tomatoes! All in all, we found a couple more hornworms throughout our growing season and removed them promptly by squishing them. My husband did the squishing, not me. I read that you can also dispose of them by putting them in a bowl of soapy water or throw them near the bird feeder as a treat to the birds. We also learned if you see a hornworm covered with white egg sacs, leave it be. The egg sacs are those of a parasitic wasp called the Braconid wasp. Let the eggs hatch, and you'll have an army of wasps ready to defend your garden against all types of pests. Nature is so cool!

Our next insect infestation was squash bugs on our zucchini plants, during the same summer as the war of the hornworms. Again, I thought nature would take it's course and all the plants would be protected by beneficial bugs overtaking the bad bugs....then I took my rose colored glasses off! One morning, I was doing my daily rounds on the garden deck to find the leaves of the zucchini plants were turning brown....and there were ugly bugs all over it. I went to the Internet again to find out these flat, brown bugs were aptly named, squash bugs. These vampires of the bug world suck the juices out of the vines causing them to wilt and die....and wilt and die they did. 

Since I am a bit squeamish about bugs, as you can tell from the hornworm incident, my wonderful husband began picking them off the plants and putting them in a bowl of soapy water. But we didn't get to them fast enough. Within a couple of days, our zucchini plants died.

Squash Bugs-- 1 Humans--0.

This year I was ready for them. Each morning, I checked the underside of each leaf to look for little yellow eggs, and I SQUASHED them (with gloves on).  No eggs, no squash bugs. I learned that if you kills the eggs, the plant will be strong enough to combat these bugs later in summer if some squash bugs find it. This year has been a good year for our zucchinis, and we have already harvested 4 zucchini and more are beginning to grow.

Tip #7 Plants have Friends too!

Have you heard of companion planting? I didn't either until I began my container gardening. Apparently, certain plants help each other to prevent pests or diseases. Just as a person what to be around friends, plants want the same.  Since I choose not to use chemical warfare on my plants and choose to go the organic route, I elected to companion plant. Seeds of Change has a wonderful chart to show which plants show be planted together and the effects the plants have by doing this.

I have marigolds surrounding the cherry tomatoes, green bell peppers near the other tomatoes, lettuce near the strawberries, and so on and so forth.

And Finally..............Sometimes Mother Nature Provides You With a Surprise!

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Since we have been composting, we put all of our veggie food scraps into the compost.  Once day my husband comments that something was GROWING in the compost.  Upon further investigation, we found this 6 pound cantaloupe growing. 

This plant must has sprouted from the seeds and pulp I threw into the compost while cleaning out a cantaloupe that I bought at the market. We couldn't wait to slice into this wonderful find.  My husband cut it off the vine and we brought it into the house, only to cut it open and find it had not ripened.  We found out later that if you have to cut the fruit from the vine, it isn't ripe; if ripe, the fruit will fall off the vine.  Again, lesson learned.  Even though we didn't get to eat the cantaloupe, we are amazed as what nature can do and the surprises it provides.

So there you have it.......................Hopefully, this information has help you so you don't have many bad experiences as we have in starting our gardening adventures.  Although we are planning on redoing some of our landscaping to help with the rock issue, hopefully adding some raised garden beds, I will continue to container garden.  Happy Gardening!