Container Gardening

There is an entire market out there in interesting pots for container gardening.  There are the basic urns and bowls, designed to hold plants, and the fancier ceramic sculptures with integrated planters.   But there are also niche providers of the organic-looking containers, containers that look repurposed.

However, with a little creativity and effort, you can build your own container garden without needing to spend a lot of money on fancy containers.  Spend some time looking around your house for old containers you don’t use anymore.  Take a weekend day and hit yard sales to see what you can find for a dollar or two.  You might surprise yourself!

Here are five types of containers you may have laying around which you can use for container gardens:

1. Baskets

I tend to accumulate small baskets, from gifts or storage ideas gone awry.  If you have some baskets piled up in a corner of your closet, or can find some at a yardsale, try filling them with potting mix and planting some herbs or lettuce.  It’s a good idea to line them with coconut fiber before adding the dirt, for extra protection.  While they can’t stand up to years of use, they make fantastic decorative seasonal containers for a year or two, adding charm to a container garden.

2. Old boots

Do you have some old work boots lying around?  Try fitting one with dirt and putting a low-lying viney herb in it, like lemon thyme. They may be unsettling in a full container garden, but if you put them in a rock garden or flowerbed, it will add real interest to the landscape: a startling object out of place.

3. Coffee cans or Cookie tins

You can find basic metal containers all over your kitchen.  When you’re done using them, clean them out well, poke drainage holes in the bottom, and set some little plants in them.  You can make a varied and interesting mini container garden with only various kinds of cans.  If you’re growing outside, look for cans where the designs are directly painted on the cans, rather than applied to labels: they won’t come off in the rain that way.

4. Old fishbowls

You want to be careful about using glass items for planters, but a lot of fishbowls and aquariums are acrylic.  Paint some interesting designs on the outside, drill some drainage holes in the bottom, and you can get an easy and interesting transparent planter for your container garden.

5. Watering cans

These look so natural in a container garden, and their shape is unique and immediately recognizable.  If you have an old one which has spring a leak, or can find a used one at a yard sale or flea market, add some holes for drainage and plant something viny in it.  The holes at the top tend to be small, so you want a plant with a lot of bang for a single stem.  Vining plants tend to be good for this: look into herbs or decorative greenery.

I know that there are people who swear by starting plants from seed.  For my part, however, I rarely have much luck with it.

This year, I spent around 20 on seeds, potting soil, and little peat pots to start the plants.  By planting time, I had two zucchini plants, 2 pumpkin plants, and a few bush beans.  A week after putting them in the ground, half of those were dead.

Ah, well.

I will certainly keep trying (one of these years, I will get the hang of it), but for this year,  I again need to think about buying and potting seedlings.

So, where do you look for seedlings?  How do you choose them?  In large part, it depends on what is important to you.  Do you want specific varieties of your chosen crops?  Are you interested in heirloom varieties?  Have you done research into which type of zucchini has the best flavor?  Depending on what you want and need, you can look in different price ranges.

The easiest (and cheapest) place to find vegetable seedlings is the garden center of your local superstore or home improvement store.  At my local K-Mart, I can buy flats of early vegetables for under $2 for a 6-pack.  That will produce a lot of tomatoes.  A Home Depot or Lowe’s will have prices in a similar range.

Obviously, at a superstore, your selections will be limited.  They may not have much information about the varieties they do have, and your chosen variety may not be there.

You also have to be very careful about quality.  Look for stems that are straight and not cracked.  Check for dead or dying leaves.  It’s usually a good idea, when buying 6-packs, to opt for smaller plants, rather than larger.  While the larger plants may be closer to bearing fruit, they get that size by remaining too long in their tiny pots, and often do not thrive when moved to a larger container.  If you are buying late in the season, opt for the larger plants in solo pots rather than the 6-pack flats.

If you choose to go up a step in quality, look for a well-reviewed local nursery.  Quality in nurseries can be hard to judge.  You want a place that knows a good deal about local growing conditions and can advise you on the best plants for your garden.  Whether or not you need their advice, their knowledge will affect the plants they care for.

Nurseries will be much more likely to carry a selection of plant varieties.  Instead of “strawberries”, they may have 4-5 types of strawberries to choose from, with different maturity times or plant sizes.  If you have pickier needs, shopping at a nursery can help you get just what you need.

Tip: if you are looking for a specific type of plant, it may be worth researching local farms to see if they offer any seedlings for sale.  There is a local farm near me, Verrill Farm, that allows people to pre-order heirloom and hybrid tomato seedlings in late winter for pickup in May.  This usually requires some pre-planning, but if you can find a provider, can give you an excellent start on your garden.

If you have specific needs that can’t be met locally, you can turn to online sources for your seedling order.  Be VERY CAUTIOUS when ordering online.  With most online orders, you can receive it and immediately know if something went wrong.  With plants, you may not know until a year or two later that the cherry tree you ordered was actually a mislabeled apple tree.  You also cannot select the healthiest-looking seedlings.

Before deciding to buy from an online nursery, look for reviews of them.  Dave’s Garden has a fantastic resource called the Garden Watchdog, which keeps reviews of nurseries and lets you know how many are positive and negative.  If you can, I strongly urge you to order from one of their Top 30 sites, all of which are very well reviewed.

If the sites that have your chosen variety all have neutral or slightly negative ratings from the Garden Watchdog, don’t worry too much about it.  One interesting fact about reviews is that people are much more likely to post about bad experiences than good, unless offered another incentive for reviewing.  A site with 30 good reviews and 30 bad still likely has 90% or more customer satisfaction.

One real downside to ordering online is shipping costs.  If you plan to buy online, plan your purchase carefully and buy everything you will need at once and from one site (if possible) to minimize your shipping costs.

Good luck, and good shopping!