EZ Gardening For Beginners

Container gardening is a great alternative to have your own homegrown fruits and vegetables if you do not have a big back yard with a patch for the plants. Container gardening can be very easy and successful for you if you follow a few simple, helpful hints.

Fist of all, when you get started with your container garden, pick a few plants, vegetables and fruits that you would like to harvest throughout summer and fall. Of course you cannot grow every vegetable or fruit available on the market in a container, but many vegetable and fruit varieties can be grown in a container. One of the most favorite container plants is the tomato plant.

After you chose a few varieties, make sure that you have big enough containers. A tomato plant for example needs an at least five gallon or bigger container to grow well. Therefore you still have some space considerations when planting a container garden. Besides the container itself, the soil that you put in the container is an important factor for growing healthy plants and vegetables. Not any old dirt will give you the same result as a high quality gardening and potting soil. These soils are specifically designed for containers and the plants that go into the containers. They will for example hold moisture better than regular soil, but also prevent the plant from molding when there is too much water added. Special gardening and planting soils also have a starter amount of fertilizer. Proper nutrients are important for the growth of healthy plants.

After planting the plants, make sure that you water your plants regularly. Keep in mind that containers and pots generally dry out faster than a big garden patch, especially on hot days or long stretches of dry weather. Also important when watering the plant is to get some advice from your local garden center about the watering preferences of the plants. Some plants prefer to be watered close to the soil while others do not have such preferences. If you think that these preferences are not easy to take care of, make sure to ask your garden center employees for the easy to take-care varieties and you will not have to worry about such issues.

Container plants need to be fertilized on regular bases. Containers and pots do not hold very much food for the plants and therefore more food has to be added to the pot. There are many ways that you can fertilize your container. Some of the easier ones are plant stakes. Plant stakes hold all the nutrients a plant needs over a longer period of time. Therefore you do not have to remember to add the fertilizer on weekly or bi weekly schedule, but you might only need to replace the stake every few weeks. There are also easy to use fertilizers that you can add to your water when watering. Other fertilizers are sprinkled on the top, but these fertilizers are harder to apply in the proper amount.

And do not forget the factor sunlight. Many fruit and vegetable plants need a good amount of sunlight throughout the day to grow and produce a crop. Tomatoes for example need a minimum of five to six hours of sunlight a day and the more the better. Therefore you will not be able to grow a container garden anywhere but on the sunny side of your house. Plants that do not get the proper amount of sun will not flourish and might not even produce more than one or two vegetables or fruit on the plant, which in the end might be a waste of money and time for you.

Container gardening is a very easy way of growing flowers, herbs and vegetables. While tilling, weeding and planting plants in a big backyard patch can consume many hours and even days, container gardening is much faster.

All you need is essentially a good size container, a bag of good potting soil and the plant that you want to grow. There is no tilling, no weeding and no digging holes to plant the plants. Just add some soil about half way up the container, set your plant in and then fill around the plant with more soil. Container gardening is fast and easy and can even be achieved by busy people.

If you think you are too busy to have a garden and a healthy crop of vegetables, think again. There are many vegetables that do not need much attention. After planting, besides the quick watering, there are only a few other smaller things that need to be done to a container garden.

As we just found out, planting a container garden can be done in a very short amount of time. After you planted your chosen vegetables or herbs, the plant needs to be watered on regular bases, as well as fertilized. If you want to make your regular fertilizing efficient and fast to safe you time, just buy one of the liquid or powder fertilizers that can be added to the watering can and therefore combine the two steps into one.

Considering that you most likely will not have to weed a container garden, you save a lot of time. If you used proper gardening or potting soil bought at your local garden center you will have controlled soil in your container that should not grow any weeds.

During the growing season you might have to get some supports to help your plants support the vegetables. This task is also fairly fast done. At the time you buy your containers, soil and plants, just go ahead and buy some plant stakes that you later than just insert into the soil close to the plant and then attach the plant with some string or gardening wire to the stake. This should not take you more than a few minutes per plant and your crop is secured.

When getting ready for your container garden, make a list where you write down the essentials that you will need during the growing season. If you are able to get everything that is necessary to grow your plants right away before you start you will be able to safe a lot of time. You will have any and all accessories on hand and get your maintenance tasks done within minutes. This way having a container garden and getting a great crop at the end of the growing season is even possible for busy people. Whether you run from appointment to appointment or you work long hours, a container garden will need a few minutes of care at the end of the day from you, a few minutes that are surely possible in even the busiest schedule.

Some of these tasks can even be done by other family members if necessary. If you prepare the watering can the night before, your kids or other household members will be able to water your plants on the days that you might not be home because you are on business trip or similar. Even your neighbor might be able to help out on those days that you are out of town since it is so fast and easy to take care of a container garden. So go ahead and start one now, you will love the result and be proud of yourself when you harvest the first vegetables that you planted.