Vegetables you can grow in pots

Sunday, April 14, 2013

If you only have pots for your veggies, you can grow almost anything you can in the ground.  There has been a renaissance in growing your own vegetables in small spaces so development of compact, dwarf and patio varieties have proliferated.

Any varieties listed for a smaller pot will be happy in a larger pot, too.  There are many more varieties out there than listed below.  Just look at the seed packet for terms like patio, compact, or dwarf.

For containers 8” wide by 6-8” deep:

Carrots-Thumbelina, Parmex, Tonda di Parigi 

Greens-arugula, corn salad, cress, small pac choi like Tatsoi, purslane

Lettuce or Kale-any type that you are going to continually harvest and not grow into full heads.

For containers 10” wide by 10” deep or larger, these will grow well:

Carrots-Atlas, Little Finger, Adelaide, Short n Sweet

Eggplant with small fruits-Bambino, Casper, Fairytale, Neon, Patio Mohican, Slim Jim, White Egg

Greens-French sorrel, salad burnet, spinach

Herbs-any.  Mediterranean herbs love having dry feet.

Lettuce-Little Gem, Tennis Ball, Tom Thumb if growing to full heads

Peppers, compact types-Blushing Beauty, Chili Pepper Krakatoa F1, Habanero, Hungarian Yellow Wax, Sweet Pepper Ingrid, Prairie Fire, Red Delicious, Sweet Pickle, Zavory

Radishes-Amethyst, Cherry Bell, Pink Slipper, Poloneza, Red Head, Rudi

For containers 14-16” wide and 10” deep or larger:

Beans-compact bush types , Runner Beans

Beets

Broccoli raab

Celery

Chard

Cucumber, compact bush types-Lemon, Little Leaf, Suyo, Salad Bush, Fanfare, Sweet Success. 

All types of eggplant

Horseradish

Kale

Okra-Little Lucy

Onions-Apache, Pompeii or the perennial Egyptian Onion

Peas-dwarf bush types

All types of peppers (sweet peppers tend to be more productive in the ground)

Tomatoes, compact types-BushSteak, Celebrity, Daybreak, Johnny’s 361, Legend, Patio Princess, Sweet Baby Girl, Sweet n Neat F1

Turnips

Summer squash, compact bush types-Gold Rush, Midnight F1, Venus F1, Patio Star

Containers 20” wide by 16” deep:

Beans-any bush type, more compact pole types (look for the ones have vines 6’ or less or you can pinch off the longer types)

Broccoli

Lettuce-all varieties

Peanuts

Peas-all bush types and more compact pole types (look for ones that vine 6’ or less)

Potatoes

Pumpkins-miniature

Shallots

Sweet potatoes

Winter squash, compact bush types-Butterbush Butternut

For really large containers on the scale of a half whiskey or wine barrel:

Beans-all pole beans

Carrots-all varieties

Cucumbers-bush and vining types

Summer squash-Bush Baby, Space Miser, Egg Ball, Papaya Pear

Tomatoes

Watermelons

Winter squash-Honey Bear, Carnival, Discus Bush Buttercup

When growing veggies in containers, they will require more watering and more liquid fertilizer than if they were in the ground.  In the summer, you may have to water some water lovers every day.

To reduce watering, purchase or make pots that have a water reservoir in the bottom.  A couple on the market today are “Earthbox” and “Grow Box”.  With these type of pots, you can water weekly.  They are easy to make out of 5 gallon buckets or other plastic containers.