Gardening
10 Best Vegetables to Grow in Pots, No Garden Required
Plant, prune, and pick your way to a yard-to-table summer.
This past year has seen a surge of moves to the suburbs, time spent on balconies and in yards, and home cooking, which inevitably also led to people thinking about growing their own food. Growing herbs and vegetables doesn’t have to take up an entire yard or require a farmer’s touch, either. Everyday people (you!) can successfully feed themselves fresh homegrown produce, no matter how big or small the outdoor space.
I checked in with two plant experts, Nadia Hassani, plant author and Penn State Master Gardener, and Tim McSweeney, Food52 design director and backyard farmer extraordinaire, to find out the best starter produce for growing in containers. But first, a couple things to keep in mind:
Both Nadia and Tim reminded me that growing in containers means much more frequent watering (as opposed to planting in the ground) to prevent the roots from drying out, as well as frequent fertilizing (Tim says a good liquid seaweed or comfrey tea will do), so be prepared to carefully tend to your individual salad ingredients as they reach maturity. Pots can also overheat (especially the black plastic ones), so doubling down on each container is a smart idea to provide the plants with insulation.
If you’ve never grown vegetables, something else you may not know is that they need pollination, and in order for this to occur, you’ll need to lure some pollinators (bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds) into your garden to do the dirty work for you. The best way to do this is to pepper (ha) in some pollinator plants, like goldenrod, purple coneflower, or sunflowers, along with your vegetables.
Lastly, it’s probably best to plant a variety of plants, so if one doesn’t work out, you’ll have other successes to fall back on. Now, onto all the edible things you can grow:
1. Lettuce
Nadia suggests a whole window planter box for lettuces, as you won’t be able to fit more than one in a gallon container, but imagine reaching out of your window to pluck some fresh romaine for a Caesar salad? Incomparable.
2. Herbs, of Course
Basil, parsley, cilantro, dill, chives, you name it—herbs are a great choice for first-time edible gardeners. If you don’t cut all the herbs and let them go to bloom, you create attraction for pollinators and also end up with fragrant, edible flowers (chive blossoms, for example, are delicious).
3. Edible Flowers
Adorable for plating and quite delicious in a number of applications, edible flowers provide both a source of sustenance and a gorgeous, aromatic environment for you and the rest of your plant children.
4. Spinach
Similar to lettuce, spinach (and many leafy greens, Nadia adds, for that matter) will do well in containers. Spinach and feta omelets all summer, y’all.
5. Tomatoes
The poster child for balcony plants, tomatoes are a perfect addition to any small-space vegetable garden.
6. Mini Eggplant
While full-sized eggplants would be a bit of a pain to grow in containers, Nadia recommends a mini version, like fairy-tale eggplants, which are specially grown for small-container gardening. You’ll be nailing a fresh-from-the-garden baba ghanoush in no time.
7. Kale
Hardy, chewy, leafy, crunchy kale—not only does it make any dish feel complete, it’s also relatively easy to grow yourself; you’ll just need 3-to-5-gallon containers. Another option Nadia suggested is kalette, a delightful little crossbreed between kale and Brussels sprouts.
8. Hot Peppers
Good news for small-space gardeners: “Hot peppers actually like their roots constrained,” Tim says, “so they don't get quite as bushy. But to compensate for their restriction, they kick out more fruit, i.e., peppers.” More peppers, please!
9. Swiss Chard
Hey again, leafy green! With lettuces, spinach, and kale already, your table and smoothies are going to be full of fibrous, iron-rich goodness.
10. Cucamelons
A viral little wonder, cucamelons (which also go by the names Mexican sour gherkins or mouse melons) aren’t actually melons at all: They’re in the cucumber family, but with a tangier, more citrusy flavor. Nadia advises that they can be finicky from seed, though, so it’s best to look for a seedling at a nursery and provide them a trellis to grow up onto.
Written by: Caroline Mullen
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18 Comments
I have an unearthly fear of them and am
about to throw out $100 worth of plants I was about to pot.
I am very scared. Please be honest and answer quickly. Thank you
When you talk of herbs, most of them fall into two distinct groups. Soft herbs such as parsley, cilantro, basil and the like are annuals or biennials (they flower and then die)- most of them are members of the carrot family (umbelliferae- I think officially something else now). Most will do well in relatively small pots, but are pretty much through when they flower. Hard herbs like rosemary, sage, oregano etc., mostly members of the labiatae, are long lived, deep rooted plants. They are tough and can struggle along in small pots for a few years, but are by nature deep rooted shrubs that need a lot of space. I suppose it's a matter of opinion whether a 3-5 gallon pot is sufficient to grow tomatoes in- there are patio tomatoes that work on that scale, though I've never found one that tasted decent, and some, such as cherry tomatoes and Early Girls, can take just about anything and still produce a few tomatoes, but generally a full sized tomato plant needs at least a 15 gallon nursery pot (which is actually only something like 12 gallons). I don't agree with the advice on peppers, though some plants- Begonias jump to mind- do behave that way, and perhaps some of the smaller hot peppers do too, but most that I've grown like at least 10 gal. pots. I did find a nice, large sweet pepper called Carmen (from Park seed) last year that is surprisingly productive in 5 gallon or so pots.
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