How to start a container garden

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Containers full of plants do many things for your yard: highlight your entrance, define areas for different uses, and let you experiment with new kinds of plants. Containers let you try out locations where you may not have planted before. Container gardening is easy, fun, and as varied as your imagination.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

medium- to large-sized containers with drainage holes
pebbles, broken pot or crockery fragments for drainage
potting soil or soilless potting mixture
plants
trowel
water source.

Step1

Place pots where you plan to leave them, unless they are small enough for you to lift, full of soil, plants, and water.

Step2

Place a 1-inch layer of drainage material (pebbles, broken pot-fragments) in the bottom of each pot.

Step3

Dampen soil heavily and add to pots.

Step4

Put in plants: space in pot should be twice to three times the size of your plant(s)--you need room for roots to grow, and plants that look perfect when first planted will grow, get crowded, and die. For plants like potatoes/sweet potatoes that need lots of root-room--pot space should be five to six times as big as your started plant. Allow that much space for plants that will grow tall, like cherry tomatoes.

Step5

Plan to water and fertilize on a regular basis with an organic fertilizer--follow package directions.

Tips & Warnings

Garden magazines show wonderful container gardens--remember, they show them full-grown! Taking good care of your containers will produce those results, but you start small--it's seldom that your container will be too big and sadly frequent that it will be too small. If you mix plants in containers (a beautiful idea) remember that they do best when they share the same sun and water needs.
If you're the "show me" sort, conduct the following experiment: choose two identical plants, putting one in a medium-sized container, the other in a large (huge, gigantic) container, setting them in the same location. Which plant will do best? We know the answer--and now you will too!