Patio Vegetable Container Gardening Idea

Now that we have an idea and have picked our shelving we need to pick out what kind of containers we want to use. For our basic patio vegetable garden I've selected a wire shelving unit and I'm going to use plain plastic containers that you can find at most gardening supply stores or the Do it Yourself stores. These are functional without being decorative, but you can do what best suits your container gardening ideas.


I like to use containers that will mock how I would plant out in a traditional garden. I'll use long shallow containers for my leafy vegetables like lettuce, spinach, cilantro, etc. I like to plant these in a row because you never know how many of your seeds will actually germinate; having them in a row makes them easier to thin. You can also do your radishes, celery, scallions and such in long containers for the same reasons, just be sure they are deep enough for the root bulb. Actually you may notice a theme here, I like using the long containers so that it keeps all of my various veggies separated by container and it's just like planting a row of vegetables in a traditional garden.

Next I'll grab some medium sized pots to put my individual pepper plants in. I'm a nut for peppers and I'll have quite a few of these for Hungarian peppers, jalapenos, Cayenne, various other chili peppers etc. I also use the these pots to plant individual onions sets in.



My vegetable container gardening idea is now almost complete. I just need a few large containers to plant tomatoes in. I like to have a couple of standard tomatoes like Better Boy or Roma as well as at least one cherry tomato plant.



That is my container gardening idea for a non-ornamental, functional patio vegetable garden.