So here are a few things you can look at when it comes to growing your own food in your container garden. 1) What are wanting to grow? 2) How big do the plants get? 3) Does the plant need a pollinator (like bees) or are they self pollinating? 4) How big of a space do you have?
So probably the most important of the four questions is how big of a space do you have? Why is this important? Simple, you need to know if you can spread out or if you need to go vertical with your plants. I have built in the past a compact vertical system that included 3 rows of 5 Home Depot buckets. The back row had tomatoes, the middle row had green beans, and the front row had lettuce. And this was when I lived in an apartment and had a balcony. My neighbor had multiple flower pots around her balcony with herbs and lettuces because she had a larger balcony. And then if you have a small yard you can do pots as well. It is all about what you are looking for.
Now here comes the meat and potatoes, what are you wanting to grow? Its hard to have a garden when you don't know what you want to grow. Are you wanting to have an herb garden or a salsa garden? Or are you wanting to vegetables that you eat regularly? These are important questions because you need to know what you want to eat. For example, I knew in my apartment that I like to eat fresh green beans, have salads, and I loved tomato sandwiches. So that is what I grew. One good thing about the seed companies today are they sell seeds for salsa gardens or herb gardens. One good company that has an great reputation is Seeds of Change. I have found their seeds to be very good and at Tractor Supply stores. Another good seed company is the Black Duck Brand Seeds which you can find on Amazon in assorted packs. If you are not comfortable with seeds and you just want the plant, you can go to stores like The Home Depot, Lowes, or Walmart and buy the plants and soil and get a little head start.
Another key question for where and how big of a space you need is how big do my plants get? This is key because some plants like cucumbers, squash, and pole beans like to vine and take up a lot of space, which means you would more in likely want to vertical garden. Other plants will bush out like bush beans. And one question that would tie into this would be are the plants self pollinators or do they need bees to help pollinate. This is key because plants like spinach, lettuce, and cabbage don't need any help with pollinating. But tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers need the bees, so unless you want to pollinate these plants with a Q tip they would be better to be used outside. And if you are going to plant inside you might need a grow light to ensure your plants are getting enough adequate light to be able to grow and not get stunted growth.
I hope this helps point you in the right direction with what you want to grow and that you can virtually grow anywhere. You don't need acres to have a garden, you can have one in your backyard and porch. Heck, we have a container garden and a regular garden. So you can do both. Have fun with it and enjoy the fresh veggies that you will be getting from your own container garden.
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