Bailey Van Tassel

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woman sitting on a raised garden bed
11 Oct 2021
Gardening

The best vegetables for container gardening

The best vegetables for container gardening are ones that are shallow-rooted and don’t spread out much. They are good companions, and can potentially grow vertically.

Container gardening is all about variety, and fitting things in that can be squeezed a bit, but still give you a full yield. I like to mix vegetables, herbs, and edible flowers. attracting pollinators and allowing for some natural pest control. All the benefits of a full garden, just in a tiny space.

We’ll begin below by examining the specific vegetables and then will also talk about the many container garden options we have in terms of vessels. That means, how much can we fit into one pot, a barrel, a 2’x3′ raised bed, or perhaps just a windowsill.

What are the best vegetables to grow in a small space?

  • Bunching onions
  • lettuce
  • Kale
  • Pansies
  • Peas
  • Parsley and cilantro
  • Basil
  • Radish
  • Marigold
  • Calendula
  • Swiss chard
  • Peppers
  • Pole beans

Each of the above plants grows fairly well in a pot because as mentioned, they have shallow roots, and don’t take up much soil space. Kale for example can get quite tall, but the base of the plant is small, so that’s a great plant to have at the back or center of your small space.

Peas have a very tiny spread when it comes to their space in the soil, and they can climb! These are great to wrap up a stake or pole, growing well beside lettuce and parsley.

To add some color and attract pollinators, pansies and calendula are great options for container gardens. Calendula is edible, medicinal, and can repel some insects.

While I do recommend shying away from root veggies, radishes are shallow and fast-growing vegetables that you can sneak into a container garden well. French breakfast radishes in particular, being more oblong are a great fit.

The above list is not conclusive, but I hope that you’ll be expanded into thinking that you have more plant options than you may realize.

Some very fun tiny container gardens are indoor herb gardens – I even made one for Well+Good once here!

Sources: Better Homes & Gardens and Savvy Gardening
Here is last year’s terra cotta pot with garlic to the left and my current patio urn to the right.

Different Types Of Container Gardens & What To Look For

Of course, there are endless containers that you can use for your small garden adventure. The most famous being pots, wine barrels, small garden boxes, and perhaps dresser drawers thanks to Ron Finley.

The basic principle that you’ll need to know and employ is that of how much space each plant needs. I always squish mine closer together than any book will tell you. However, this is something you’ll learn or can Google if you must.

Soil for container gardens

The beset soil that I’ve found is high quality potting soil. I like the Fox Farm brand because it has great compost materials in it. If you have potting soil laying around that you’re not sure of, but want to use, try adding worm castings and some compost to freshen it up. Just be sure that your soil does have some perlite (the little white gritty pieces in potting soil) and vermiculite in it to help things drain well and get good airflow.

Plant Spacing

In one square foot, with the above container garden plant list, you can fit about 4-5 plants. So, a pot that is 12″ in diameter can host five plants giving you such a fun mix.

When it comes to depth, a minimum of 12″ is preferred, but 18″ is ideal in my opinion. You want to make sure that your container has drainage holes and I also recommend a little screen at the base of your pot, as well as a small layer of rock that helps the soil not compact and disallow water and airflow. I’d say in a 12″ pot, about 2″ be rock at the base.

I installed a 2 foot by 3 foot garden in a raised bed in Venice and we fit 21 plants in there! It was amazing and so doable – my client was making green goddess dressing, pico de gallo, and all the things with her tiny perfect little garden box.

Feel free to get creative with your container garden, and truly do not worry much about the actual vessel. My parents use old peach buckets that they hang off their porch, and I see people repurposing old wheelbarrows and the like – you could seriously grow lettuce out of an old tophat – and actually, I think that’d be quite cute!

Making an herb garden for Well+Good in a windowsill container that I made from scrap wood.

How to Arrange Your Plants in a Container Garden

Arranging and placing your plants in a container garden will depend on what you’re growing in and where you’re placing it. The great news is that many container gardens are mobile! So you can move them around based on sunlight. I recently created an edible arrangement in some large urn-style pots that I have in the middle of my backyard, so I followed the classic method of “thriller, filler, spiller”. The tallest plants being my thriller (kale), the medium-height and bushier plants being my fillers, and some nasturtium as my spiller. You know I can’t avoid using nasturtium as much as possible.

If you have a container that is against a wall, then I recommend your tall plants in the back and fillers in the front or at an edge that they can spill over. I also like to place colorful things throughout the mid-section of an arrangement (even a planted arrangement) to create some dimension and depth.

I hope this encourages you to get out and start growing even the tiniest of gardens. There is so much fun to be had and so many yummy veggies and herbs to grow! If you have any questions at all, leave them in the comments.

TAGS:container gardeningherbsorganic gardeningsmall space gardening
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Hi I’m Bailey

Hi I’m Bailey

Teaching you how to grow veggies in any space while show you how to live a garden-inspired life.

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There is no better strategy than to get to know your own garden, seasons, weather, and microclimate. No reading, no influencer, no tv show knows better. 

To start, deep dive into your specific zip code’s US hardiness zone. If you’re international, Google your city with “hardiness zone” tacked on and see where that gets you. 

Next, get to know your zip code’s monthly weather averages, which is even better than the broad hardiness zone info. A zone 9 in Southern California versus South Carolina is very different because of humidity, storms, pests, etc. 

Frost dates are cool to know as well, but with time, *you* will be able to tell if it’s going to be a cold March or a mild one, and if planting after Mother’s Day has ever led you wrong or instead always been the perfect timing. 

What you’re looking to know is this: when will my seeds/seedlings germinate or thrive best for the time they’re outside? Will there be enough sun and heat for my spring/summer crops, or enough cool but not too cold for my fall/winter veg? It’s about 90 days that you need, and then if you’re starting seeds inside, that can get you a bonus 2 month head start. All seeds are different but these are good generalizations. 

There is simply nothing that can beat your experience, and that my friends is what makes gardening so beautiful, so intuitive, so humbling, and also so confidence building. 

Lean in.
baileyvantassel
baileyvantassel
•
Follow

There is no better strategy than to get to know your own garden, seasons, weather, and microclimate. No reading, no influencer, no tv show knows better.

To start, deep dive into your specific zip code’s US hardiness zone. If you’re international, Google your city with “hardiness zone” tacked on and see where that gets you.

Next, get to know your zip code’s monthly weather averages, which is even better than the broad hardiness zone info. A zone 9 in Southern California versus South Carolina is very different because of humidity, storms, pests, etc.

Frost dates are cool to know as well, but with time, *you* will be able to tell if it’s going to be a cold March or a mild one, and if planting after Mother’s Day has ever led you wrong or instead always been the perfect timing.

What you’re looking to know is this: when will my seeds/seedlings germinate or thrive best for the time they’re outside? Will there be enough sun and heat for my spring/summer crops, or enough cool but not too cold for my fall/winter veg? It’s about 90 days that you need, and then if you’re starting seeds inside, that can get you a bonus 2 month head start. All seeds are different but these are good generalizations.

There is simply nothing that can beat your experience, and that my friends is what makes gardening so beautiful, so intuitive, so humbling, and also so confidence building.

Lean in.

4 days ago
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1/4
Goes to the beach to play, comes home with driftwood branches for the garden✨. 

Apparently it was the highest tide in 35+ years causing all this debris to be washed up on the beach. I saw the perfect 5’ curved branches and just had to whip up some pea trellises! 

There’s nothing like the feeling of hard work done by your own hands.
baileyvantassel
baileyvantassel
•
Follow

Goes to the beach to play, comes home with driftwood branches for the garden✨.

Apparently it was the highest tide in 35+ years causing all this debris to be washed up on the beach. I saw the perfect 5’ curved branches and just had to whip up some pea trellises!

There’s nothing like the feeling of hard work done by your own hands.

5 days ago
View on Instagram |
2/4
House hunting priorities went from ‘open floor plan’ to ‘open land’ after I started gardening. I didn’t have this passion when we got married - my poor husband. 

It’s a tall order in Southern California and arguably not a thing unless you’re the multi-millionaire kind of wealthy (we’re not). So, I wanted to leave the state. Also not a thing when you own a business here. So, I wanted just enough space for a few garden boxes. 

On the listing for this house, there was no shown space for a garden. But we came anyways, and found this empty patch of mulch. 

Time, vision, and a dedication to the dream ☁️. I also had like three other versions of this space before this one, just to keep me gardening well before I had raised beds. Who was around when I built berms?? 

Any garden design questions? Leave them here and I’ll answer them all 👇🏼

#gardendesign #raisedbeds #kitchengarden
baileyvantassel
baileyvantassel
•
Follow

House hunting priorities went from ‘open floor plan’ to ‘open land’ after I started gardening. I didn’t have this passion when we got married – my poor husband.

It’s a tall order in Southern California and arguably not a thing unless you’re the multi-millionaire kind of wealthy (we’re not). So, I wanted to leave the state. Also not a thing when you own a business here. So, I wanted just enough space for a few garden boxes.

On the listing for this house, there was no shown space for a garden. But we came anyways, and found this empty patch of mulch.

Time, vision, and a dedication to the dream ☁️. I also had like three other versions of this space before this one, just to keep me gardening well before I had raised beds. Who was around when I built berms??

Any garden design questions? Leave them here and I’ll answer them all 👇🏼

#gardendesign #raisedbeds #kitchengarden

2 weeks ago
View on Instagram |
3/4
Virginia Woolf talked about having a room of her own (for writing of course). 

But I too believe that every woman should have a room of her very own - a space for her dream to be worked at. 

I didn’t even know I was building mine the first time around, and ever since that first garden have fought to keep one.  For me, the garden is where I can impose however much or little of myself. 
It can be wild or kept, and often I have to dance with factors far outside myself just to keep it going. 

I realize too that I live in a place in my own mind often, and then bits of real life replicate that dreamy space. Tiny present moments that create the feelings of contentment and peace will match up with the little world I’m striving to create externally. 

And I have come to realize that our rooms - whether indoors or outside, or within a journal, are vessels. We enter with our changing moods, coloring the walls with our predispositions. 

Each day, with these little ones by my side, I hope to showcase more and more of a world where we can build houses by our own hands and hearts - solidly on foundations of hope, perseverance, resilience, optimism, joy, commitment, authenticity, and boundary-less love. 

The world begs for your youness, and that is it. For you to create out here what is also in there. 

Beautiful outfit: @thisisthegreat_ 💘
Virginia Woolf talked about having a room of her own (for writing of course). 

But I too believe that every woman should have a room of her very own - a space for her dream to be worked at. 

I didn’t even know I was building mine the first time around, and ever since that first garden have fought to keep one.  For me, the garden is where I can impose however much or little of myself. 
It can be wild or kept, and often I have to dance with factors far outside myself just to keep it going. 

I realize too that I live in a place in my own mind often, and then bits of real life replicate that dreamy space. Tiny present moments that create the feelings of contentment and peace will match up with the little world I’m striving to create externally. 

And I have come to realize that our rooms - whether indoors or outside, or within a journal, are vessels. We enter with our changing moods, coloring the walls with our predispositions. 

Each day, with these little ones by my side, I hope to showcase more and more of a world where we can build houses by our own hands and hearts - solidly on foundations of hope, perseverance, resilience, optimism, joy, commitment, authenticity, and boundary-less love. 

The world begs for your youness, and that is it. For you to create out here what is also in there. 

Beautiful outfit: @thisisthegreat_ 💘
Virginia Woolf talked about having a room of her own (for writing of course). 

But I too believe that every woman should have a room of her very own - a space for her dream to be worked at. 

I didn’t even know I was building mine the first time around, and ever since that first garden have fought to keep one.  For me, the garden is where I can impose however much or little of myself. 
It can be wild or kept, and often I have to dance with factors far outside myself just to keep it going. 

I realize too that I live in a place in my own mind often, and then bits of real life replicate that dreamy space. Tiny present moments that create the feelings of contentment and peace will match up with the little world I’m striving to create externally. 

And I have come to realize that our rooms - whether indoors or outside, or within a journal, are vessels. We enter with our changing moods, coloring the walls with our predispositions. 

Each day, with these little ones by my side, I hope to showcase more and more of a world where we can build houses by our own hands and hearts - solidly on foundations of hope, perseverance, resilience, optimism, joy, commitment, authenticity, and boundary-less love. 

The world begs for your youness, and that is it. For you to create out here what is also in there. 

Beautiful outfit: @thisisthegreat_ 💘
baileyvantassel
baileyvantassel
•
Follow

Virginia Woolf talked about having a room of her own (for writing of course).

But I too believe that every woman should have a room of her very own – a space for her dream to be worked at.

I didn’t even know I was building mine the first time around, and ever since that first garden have fought to keep one. For me, the garden is where I can impose however much or little of myself.
It can be wild or kept, and often I have to dance with factors far outside myself just to keep it going.

I realize too that I live in a place in my own mind often, and then bits of real life replicate that dreamy space. Tiny present moments that create the feelings of contentment and peace will match up with the little world I’m striving to create externally.

And I have come to realize that our rooms – whether indoors or outside, or within a journal, are vessels. We enter with our changing moods, coloring the walls with our predispositions.

Each day, with these little ones by my side, I hope to showcase more and more of a world where we can build houses by our own hands and hearts – solidly on foundations of hope, perseverance, resilience, optimism, joy, commitment, authenticity, and boundary-less love.

The world begs for your youness, and that is it. For you to create out here what is also in there.

Beautiful outfit: @thisisthegreat_ 💘

2 weeks ago
View on Instagram |
4/4

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