How to Grow Green with a Patio Garden

Have a condo or apartment but long to fulfill your gardening dreams? Take heart! With just a little effort, you too can enjoy hand-picked veggies fresh from your patio garden. Here's how:

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• 10 and/or 12-inch planting pots
• Watering can
• Miracle Grow® or other plant food
• Plant seeds or live seedlings
• Stakes, cages, or trellises for plant support
• Potting soil
• Recommended: Earthbox® growing system

1. 
   Image courtesy of sa_ku_ra (Flickr.com)

   Plant Support Techniques. Supporting your plants, particularly tomatoes, becomes important when the plant grows taller. You will want to purchase stakes, trellises, or tomato cages. Or, simply tie the plants to a fence.

2. 

   Sunlight. Your patio plants will need at least one-half day of sunlight for proper growth.

3. 
   Image courtesy of [e-mail]

   Watering. Particularly during hot summer months, water twice per day. Spray water on the entire plant; it absorbs moisture through the leaves as well. This is particularly effective in drier climes such as the southwest.

4. 

   Live Plants vs. Growing from Seed. Growing plants from seed can be somewhat difficult. For every plant you wish to grow, you must plant several seeds because not every seed is going to sprout. You must maintain proper moisture and temperature (around 70-75 degrees ideally). Furthermore, seeds will take a good two weeks to sprout, several more weeks to reach the transplant stage. Thus, it could be well into late June before you are able to plant. All this is why many people simply opt for purchasing ready-grown veggie plants.

5. 

   Patio-Friendly Veggie Plants. Indeterminate tomato plants can grow upwards of six feet or more. Cucumbers and squash are vining plants and require lots of room to grow. But with today’s plant hybrid technologies, shorter “patio” versions of all these varieties are available. Simply look in plant catalogs and your local garden center for these miniature determinate vegetable plants.

6. 
   Chris Radcliff (Flickr.com)

   Soil Types. Purchase only potting soil. Potting soil is formulated to be much lighter, more nutritious, and more moisture-retentive than garden soil. This allows the roots to grow freely, leading to healthy plants.

7. 
   Image courtesy of Alice Wiegand

   Pot Types and Sizes. Pots are available in a dizzying array of shapes, sizes, and materials. Clay pots are preferred by some, but they absorb needed moisture in hotter climes. Plastic pots retain moisture but may lead to root burn if left in the sun. Styrofoam pots may be a happy medium; the risk of root burn is minimized and moisture is still retained. Per pot size, plan on at least a 10-inch pot. If you have the room, a 12-inch pot is preferred.

8. 

   Plant Nutrition. Plants need proper nutrition to grow and prosper. Every time you water, you wash some of that nutrition out of the soil. Therefore, you need to replenish the soil with nutrients such as you’d find with Miracle Grow®. If you’re growing tomatoes, purchase specialized tomato food in order to give tomato plants the proper nutrient balance for optimum growth.

9. 

   Insect Control. Just as important as watering, insects can attack your plants and kill them expediently. Once spider mites and aphids take up residence on the underside of tomato plant leaves, it becomes difficult to eradicate them. Turn over the leaves; if you can see tiny dots or spider-web on the underside, you’ve got a problem. You can always solve the problem with chemicals; but if you want to go organic, simply remove affected leaves and spray entire plant with soapwater on the undersides of the leaves.

10. 
    Earthbox®

    Earthbox® Garden Container Kit. A step up from traditional pots, the Earthbox® is a sort of high-tech patio growing system on wheels. Furthermore, it's easier to maintain and smarter than a bunch of pots. Too detailed to explain here, but be sure to see their website at www.earthbox.com.

Tips & Warnings

• Maintain even moisture levels and water twice per day.
• Insects, dryness, sunburn, and bird attacks may all contribute to poor plant performance.
• Hybrid plants have varying ranges of resistance to common plant diseases including viruses and wilts.
• Feed your plants once every two weeks with fertilizer.
• Make chemical fungicides and insecticides a last resort. There's nothing like fresh organic hand-picked veggies!

Resources

• Earthbox® Patio Growing System
• Burpee Seed Company
• Totally Tomatoes

[ibeejc]

on 4/7/2009 Oh...and a 5* and reccomend definately!

[ibeejc]

on 4/7/2009 This is the article I was searching for! I'm putting this in my favorites. Super great information and advice on growing patio garden. I'm going to get started in a few weeks!

[Karenc1972]

on 3/31/2009 Great advice - thanks for sharing!