Container Vegetable Garden

Container Vegetable Garden
Best varieties of these vegetables to grow in the hot climate of adelaide?

I am going to start a container vegetable garden

here is a nice list:

* Amaranth (use leaf amaranth like spinach)
* Arugula (rocket)
* Asian Greens
* Beans (try snake beans and winged beans in the tropics)
* Bell Peppers
* Cabbage
* Capsicum (that’s the Australian name for peppers)
* Cassava (starchy tubers)
* Ceylon Spinach
* Chard (silverbeet, similar to spinach)
* Chinese Cabbages
* Chilli Peppers
* Cucumbers
* Eggplant (aubergine)
* Endive
* Kang Kong (water spinach)
* Lettuce
* Luffa (angled luffa is a great zucchini substitute)
* Okra
* Peppers
* Pumpkins
* Radish
* Rocket (arugula)
* Silverbeet (chard, similar to spinach)
* Squash
* Sweet Corn
* Sweet Potatoes (instead of normal potatoes)

# Tomatoes
# Water Chestnuts
# Zucchini

Container Vegetable Garden

Container Vegetable Gardens – Growing Vegetables in Pots

Small space gardening is a reality for many urban and suburban families.  Even though we’ve left the roomy rural farms of our forefathers, we haven’t lost the desire to grow some of our own food, and so we are faced with finding ways to garden with less land.  If you count yourself among these space challenged gardeners, don’t despair.  There are a great many crops that are well suited to container gardening.  In this article, we’ll discuss four: lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, and beans.

Lettuce:
Lettuce is a favorite for container gardening, especially loose leaf varieties that can be harvested on an ongoing basis, like Buttercrunch or Oak Leaf.  Because lettuce grows best in cool spring temperatures, plant it early in the year.  Young plants are usually available in nurseries and garden centers a month or so before the average last frost date.  Plant them in containers that are about 6 to 8 inches deep.  Round containers work well, as do row boxes, because lettuce doesn’t require a lot of space.  Set the containers in an area that receives part sun or some filtered shade throughout the day.

Tomatoes:
Tomatoes are a home gardener’s favorite and there are many varieties that are well suited to growing in pots.  Sweet 100 and other small grape or cherry varieties tend to do quite well in containers, though these indeterminate varieties can become large and sprawling if you don’t prune them back or remove suckers from the plants.  Also look for compact or determine plant types such as Patio Prize.  Because tomatoes are a fairly deep rooted crop, choose large, roomy containers that are at least 24 to 36 inches deep.  Remember that indeterminate varieties will also require staking or caging, so you’ll want to be sure your pot can properly accommodate a cage or tomato trellis.

Peppers:
Peppers are another great crop to grow in containers because the plants are relatively compact.  Peppers are known to be a temperamental plant, only setting fruit when temperatures are above 65 degrees but below 95 degrees Fahrenheit.  Planting peppers in containers gives gardeners the advantage of being able to move the plants around as needed.  For example, in the spring, you can place the container on the west or south side of your house, where it will receive maximum warmth.  As the temperatures begin to heat up in the summer, move it to a cooler location.  If a cool night is forecasted, the pots can easily be brought indoors for protection.

Beans:
When choosing beans for container gardening, it’s important to pair your container and its location with the variety of bean you’ll be growing.  Bush beans, for example, don’t really have any special requirements.  Pole beans, however, are a climbing plant that will need some type of supporting structure.  If you have the ability to provide a vegetable trellis for pole beans to grow on, it can actually be quite advantageous for small space gardening, because this setup allows you to grow up instead of out, thus making the most efficient use of limited space.  Beans of any variety are a great choice for small space container gardening because they’re one of the most highly prolific vegetables in the garden, meaning you’ll get maximum return on your planting space.  For an ongoing harvest of beans throughout the summer, make several successive plantings, each about three weeks apart.

Container gardening is a fun and rewarding hobby, and it’s also a great way to experiment with a variety of different crops.  With only a small investment in some patio pots and containers, potting soil, and seeds or seedlings, you can have a wonderful kitchen garden growing on your deck or patio in no time.

About the Author

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Planting vegetable garden up against south-facing brick wall?

Last year I did some container gardening (tomatoes, peppers, basil) on our deck and really enjoyed it. I’d like to expand this year and actually plant in the ground, but our yard is hilly and largely wooded, so there isn’t a lot of flat space, other than right up against the brick wall of our house (south-facing). I’ve read that south-facing is actually ideal for gardens (I live in Southern Ohio), but will the brick wall retain too much heat for the plants to handle? It gets REALLY hot over there in the summer……

Planting near a south-facing brick wall is perfect for tomatoes, peppers, chiles, eggplants, squash, and melons in southern Ohio. The plants will partially shade the bricks, so they won’t get quite as hot as they do exposed to straight sun all day, but they’ll still absorb and hold heat through the night. Just make sure your plants get plenty of water, and mulch the beds to keep the soil surface from drying out.

A full-fledged fence is the best option for keeping deer and bunnies out of the garden. Everything else you do will be a half-measure, that may or may not work, depending on how much browse they have around your garden–if there’s other food available, they don’t always go for your vegetables. Just usually.

My sister has good results using fox urine to repel rabbits. She puts a few drops on some rocks around the edge of the bed, and the rabbits think they’ve stumbled onto a fox den and won’t go near. It has to be re-applied every 2-3 weeks. The same goes for deer repellents like “Not Tonight Deer”, which are made from egg solids, primarily. They work for a few days to a couple weeks, and have to be re-applied after rain. And they don’t work if the deer are really, really hungry. You can get the same results cracking 3 eggs into a bowl, whipping them with a whisk, and dumping them into a watering can full of water. Water around the edge of your garden and on your plants and this will usually keep deer away for a week or two. A fence is permanent and never has to be re-applied.

Gardening Tips: Container Vegetable Gardening