How To Choose Plants for Container Vegetable Gardening

The requirements for plants for indoor container vegetable gardens are somewhat different from the typical outside garden.  Here are a few tips to guide your choices.

Plant Labels

In a container vegetable garden, look for plant or seed labels which say patio, dwarf, or space saver; these all refer to plants which have been bread to grow to maturity and stay small with root systems that accomodate being grown in a pot easily. 

Most vegetables can be grown in a container as long as they are given proper spacing, drainage, nutrition, and attention; many vegetables are hearty and easy to grow, choosing plants which are wells suited to ones climate is important, the same plants do not grow well everywhere.  You can start your search at the local nursery or home improvement store, and eventually you may decide to look online at some of the more specialized nurseries.

Starting Your Plants

Some types of vegetables grow better when started from seeds while others will flourish from seedlings; when choosing the types of plants desired for container vegetable gardening knowing which plants to better which way will help to make the decision easier. 

Eggplant, tomatoes, and peppers often grow better from seedlings, they tend to be bushy plants when healthy so when choosing seedlings from a nursery try to pick the fuller, bushier plants.  Often you can find them with fruit already setting, but this is not necessarily a good indicator of the health of the plant.

Beans, beets, carrots, lettuce, peas or radishes are good choices to start as seeds.  The general rule of thumb is to plant to the seeds and cover them with soil equivalent to a couple of seeds, so the finer seeds like carrots, lettuce, and radishes will have very little soil over them, so be careful to keep them moist.  Starting seeds with the plastic wrap over the container creates a greenhouse effect which can help the seeds to sprout sooner; once green sprouts have breached the surface of the soil the plastic should be removed.

Plant Spacing

Every plant in should be given sufficient room for successful container vegetable gardening; for aesthetic purposes some plants can be grouped together.  Once style of container vegetable gardening is known as a “salad bar” where planters containing lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, and carrots all growing in one long planter.  There are even indoor herb garden “aquariums” which wrap the planter, artifical lighting, and moisture sensors all into one attractive package. 

Container vegetable gardening is fun, easy, and often the only choice for folks living in apartments or urban settings.  Whatever your reason for choosing container vegetable gardening you can be sure that it will work if you make the right choices of plants to try and give it a good amount of TLC and attention.