It has never been more important for you to grow at least some of your own healthy food. The good news is anyone can do it no matter where they live. One great way is to garden using containers.
Being an Urban Homesteader I have always considered container gardening but fortunately, I have enough property that I have been able to plant in the ground and in raised beds throughout my homestead. However, this past growing season I decided to up my game and grow a bit more so I turned to containers to expand my garden and now I’m sold on the benefits of Gardening in this way.
Let’s take a look at a few of the pros and cons of container gardening and see if it makes sense for you.
Container Gardening Pros
Anyone can grow food this way – because containers don’t take up much space, even if you live in an apartment you can have a garden. If you have a balcony or a patio or even a sunny window you can grow some food.
Your garden can be easily moved – I would be embarrassed to say how many times I have planted something in the ground or put up a raised bed somewhere only to regret it and then go through the trouble of relocating it later. Gardening in containers eliminates this problem.
Weeds are not a problem – using a good quality potting soil ensures there will be no long days of crawling through your garden searching out the latest nemesis trying to smother out and rob nutrients from your beloved vegetables.
Container Garden Cons
Paying attention to soil moisture is more critical – Containers have to be watered regularly as they will dry out much quicker. If watering your containers is hard for you to make time for you may want to set up a drip irrigation system that weaves its way from plant to plant throughout the garden.
The soil must be occasionally replaced – because of the limited microbiology within a container simply adding supplements to the containers will not sustain them forever. Probably once a year you will need to replace the soil.
Containers can be expensive – The bigger and higher quality the container is the more expensive it is. The good news is lots of things can be repurposed and used as planting containers, from 5-gallon buckets to washtubs, basically, anything that can hold a few inches minimum of soil and can have drain holes put in it can be a container for growing some kind of vegetable.
Vegetables That Grow Easily In Containers.
Basically, anything CAN be grown in a container, even fruit trees, but no doubt some things do better. Unless you have an assortment of very large containers, shallow root vegetables are going to do best.
Lettuce, spinach, and other greens do great; even some fruiting vegetables do great, like cherry tomatoes. Root vegetables can do well also as long as the container is deep enough to accommodate the deep taproot. So carrots, radishes, turnips, and others should not be ruled out as container garden crops.
So what do you think? Is container gardening right for you? Whether it is or not I hope you will be inspired to start growing your own organic healthy food and begin a journey of food freedom and self-sufficiency.
