How To Design Patio Pots for Growing Vegetables
If you don't have the space or tools for growing vegetables in the ground, then a container garden is a good alternative. Container gardens adapt well to balconies, rooftops, patios or decks. A container garden is also a good style of garden for the elderly or people with joint conditions, where stooping, bending or carrying heavy equipment would be painful. A container garden lifts the soil line of vegetables higher, so that the gardener can easily weed the containers and care for the plants. Designing pots for your container garden is simple. Does this Spark an idea?
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Things You'll Need
- High-quality potting mix
- 5-gallon tub
- Box cutter
- 4 4-inch lengths of schedule 40 PVC pipe, 6 inches in diameter
- 1 6-inch length of schedule 40 PVC pipe, ¾ inches in diameter
- Landscaping mulch
- Vegetable plants
Instructions
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1
Place your four pieces of 4-inch long PVC pipe on their ends in the inside of your tub. Space the pipe pieces evenly so that they will support the soil chamber above them.
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2
Cut the lid of the tub with your box cutter so that it fits inside the tub flush with the four 4-inch pipes. Then perforate the lid with holes so that it resembles a screen. The size, shape and placement of the holes don't matter. However, there must be enough holes to allow the roots of the plant in the soil chamber above the lid to grow down in the water reservoir below the lid.
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3
Cut a 1-inch-diameter hole in the tub's lid. Place the end of the ¾-inch pipe through the 1-inch hole.
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4
Cut a drainage hole in the side of the tub 1 inch below where the lid of the tub sits. This will drain water away from the container to prevent the vegetables from becoming waterlogged.
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5
Fill the container with high-quality potting soil, containing peat moss, vermiculite or perlite, sawdust or woodchips and fertilizer. It should be sterilized to kill disease and fungus.
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6
Select vegetable plants for your container garden. Water the plants from above for the first few weeks until they become established.
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7
Cover the top of the container with landscaping mulch. Landscaping mulch will hold the water in the soil of the container while preventing weeds from crowding out your plants.
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8
Place water into the water reservoir by pouring it through the ¾" PVC pipe. As the plants become established, their roots will grow down into the reservoir to take up water.
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