Growing vegetables where there's little space

Bring a working garden to your Patio or Window Box

Because you don't have a Garden as such, but would like to add a bit of 'the unusual' to your Patio or Balcony, vegetables will grow in most conditions and surroundings.

For the last two years, because of succession, we've run out of space on the main patch and me being a tad lazy and not wanting to dig and prepare more garden, we tried some things out in Pots of all descriptions.

As long as the drainage is good but the soil is not allowed to become dry and lifeless, you should be able to grow almost anything.

I've succesfully grown Carrots, Aubergines, Broad Beans, Courgettes, Strawberries, Cucumbers and Tomatoes. I also tried some Runner Beans as an experiment, but luck would have it that whilst they were growing, I was away a lot and it was the hottest Summer on record. Alas, they didn't make it.

One benefit of Pot growing is that it's easier to control Slugs who can be stopped quite effectively by placing soot around the base (the soot needs to be at least a year old).
Go to most Allotments and there's often a deal with a local Chimney Sweep for it!

So with a bit of extra care, you can do it. As always, the proof is in the eating!

Added 2010

Last summer, mainly due to my work, but as an experiment as well, we tried growing all out vegetables in pots.
When I say Pots, we tried everything from cardboard boxes to lightweight fruit boxes etc Runner Beans - Grew in giant pots - results were OK, nothing special, but we had sufficient numbers to take a normal harvest.

Onions - I tried these in all sorts of containers. They all grew to about three quarters the normal size and maybe took slightly longer to get there. But they tasted good!

Courgettes - We'd grown these successfully in pots the year before, but for some reason, they were one of the failures

Lettuce and Salads - No problems at all growing pots, everything a winner

Cabbages - Not so good I'm afraid, but probably due to me being away for five days during the heatwave

Carrots - Grew these in a variety of containers, the best results coming from large pots. I found the secret to this was removing some when quite young which allowed the others to spread out.

The chances that being due a busy Cricket schedule this year, I'll do again, so will diary it all as I go along.

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Courgette


Strawberries


Lettuce (I think!)


Aubergines