It ’s obvious the size of your container garden will depend on the vegetables you want to arise in it . The more your motivation , the more plants you involve to turn .
I ’m going to discourse more about a container garden that is for people cause a limited growing space like an apartment balcony or patio . If you have a large blank space in the backyard , you may be capable to grow vegetables for your intact year ’s needs .
Figure out the purpose of the container vegetable garden
The first thing to understand is what is the purpose of your container garden . you’re able to grow several plants such as vegetable , herbs , medicinal plant , and flowers . So your garden size of it would look on the type you want to grow .
Herb garden
If you plant to grow a herb garden , you ’ll be able-bodied to mature several herbs because they tend to be smaller in size . And you only use a small portion of herb at a time , so you take a smaller harvest compared to vegetables .
mediocre space needed for a container herb garden
If I consider that a distinctive household would expend around 6 herbaceous plant in their solid food , you would need to place those 6 containers in your garden quad .
Most herbaceous plant plant should develop in a intermediate - sized container that is around 8 - 10 inches in width and tallness . You should be able to keep two such container in a straight groundwork expanse . So if you need to keep six herbaceous plant plant , you would need 3×1 straight feet surface area .
you’re able to grow these herbaceous plant plants in an even small space using vertical horticulture . you may hang up some planters above and locate some on the ground .
Kitchen garden
A kitchen garden is one you want near the kitchen , so it ’s easy to access when train food . Typically , it ’s a supplemental garden , so you have some basic vegetables useable . It ’s not supposed to feed your crime syndicate for the integral twelvemonth or even growing season . It ’s there to provide some vegetables and reduce a part of your grocery store handbill .
mean space call for for a container kitchen garden
For a kitchen garden , you want as many plants as possible . The more the better , but rent ’s start small . moot that you want to spring up three character of each , herb , fruiting , and leafy vegetables .
I would hint using 8 - inch pot for herbaceous plant while 10 - 12 inch pots for the vegetables . So 3 herbs should conform to in a 2×1 square ft domain . 6 of the vegetable would each need a square foot .
So you should be capable to adjust your kitchen veggie garden with 3 herbs , 3 fruiting vegetable , and 3 leafy veg in a 4×2 hearty base area . I would hint keeping distance between the plants to run to the enceinte ones . So you’re able to rather use a 4×3 square foot area with a gap between the plant for easier access .
Self-sustaining garden
A ego - sustaining garden means you want it to provide all the required vegetables and herb to feed your family for an entire year . This would need a large space for placing enough containers to grow all the plant you need .
mean space needed for a self - have garden
This eccentric of garden means you require to grow a lot of herbs and vegetables throughout the growing season and year . This will be a test - and - mistake case situation where you start with an estimate and keep meliorate every year .
The average blank space suggest to grow vegetables for a exclusive person during the entire year would be 1000 square feet . This is a start point and your garden might take less or more space depending on several factor I mentioned below . But it ease up a general idea to work with at the starting signal .
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Factors that determine the required container vegetable garden size
Type of garden
We already saw that the case of garden you require will regard how big or small it demand to be . A herbaceous plant garden can occupy a small place compared to a kitchen garden or a ego - hold garden .
Family’s needs
Your family is one important element thatdetermines the container vegetable garden size of it . This would depend on the number of fellowship member and their lifestyle . e.g. an median syndicate of four and their needs .
Toddlers and minor would take in less compared to teenagers and adults . vegetarian would consume more veg than non - vegetarians .
harmonise to a UK study , to get one person on a vegetarian diet for an entire year , you ’d plausibly need about 4000 straight foot of growing blank .
Source : almanac.com
Preserving the harvest
If you want to ingest the harvest throughout the class , one method is to preserve some vegetables to last longer .
This would intend you need to grow more veggie so you’re able to consume some tonic after harvest and preserve some of them .
It could mean that you need to develop 2 or 3 times the vegetables if you want to harvest and conserve some of them .
Growing season
The growing season of your area will determine how big your vegetable container garden require to be . If you have a long arise season , you may grow several vegetable using methods like succession planting .
This mean you flounder the growing so that you could keep harvest several vegetable during the entire growing time of year . Such succession planting method would need less space to develop veg .
If you have a short growing time of year , it entail you call for to grow all the required vegetable at once . This means you need a lot more space for all of those veggie .
Favorite vegetables
The choice of vegetables you favor to produce will affect how bighearted or modest your container veggie garden needs to be . flora like tomatoes , peppers , autumn pumpkin , and carrots would need a mass more grow space compare to vegetables such as prickly-seeded spinach , kale , and broccoli .
How to reduce the size needs of your container vegetable garden
Use succession planting
Succession planting means you grow the veggie in a astounding fashion . So you set seeds throughout the grow season .
you may implant some seed today , then wait for a couplet of weeks and plant some more . And continue this until you have sown the required seeds .
The benefit of succession planting is that you ’ll keep getting harvests every few weeks as the plants mature in chronological succession .
Once some plant have matured , you’re able to replace them with Modern seed or plant in the same containers . This intend you need fewer container than if you would have planted all of them at the same time .
Use inter-cropping
Inter - cropping is another direction to reduce the involve space for your container vegetable garden . you could embed two or more unlike plants in a individual container .
I tried this in my container garden by growing spinach in the same container where I was growing peppers . So you’re able to grow a leafy vegetable and a fruiting veg in a single container .
You need to be heedful which plants you grow together . Some plants , such as pot , can be invasive and would hog the resource from the other plants . Some small plants you could originate in the same container are Spinacia oleracea , radishes , beet , and onion .
Use intensive cropping
Intensive cropping is another method acting you could utilize to relieve some garden space . It ’s a picayune different from inter - cropping because you implant the same character of flora in a individual container .
You want to grow as many plant as potential in one container without them competing for resource . I grew two common pepper plant in the same 12 - inch grow bag and got twice the yield using less growing space .
you may grow many smaller plants in the same 12 - inch container . you may plant a lot ofseeds of leafy vegetablessuch as Spinacia oleracea or red amaranth . Or herbs such as coriander plant or mint . They will happily grow even when they are close to each other .
The winder is to keep harvesting these vegetable as they mature so you do n’t allow them too much time to rise with such intensive spacing . There is a risk of evolve pests and disease when plant are growing near to each other because of the humid conditions and want of aeration .
Select the right plant types and varieties
If you have a modified place , I would suggest growing plant that can equip in that space and give you a good harvest . Of course , you want togrow veg you enjoy , but that ’s something to balance .
It ’s easy to arise peppers or tomato plant plant life in a small container garden than to grow corn or mango . If you grow fruit vegetables such as tomatoes , peppers or leafy vegetables such as spinach , kale , you could have a bombastic harvesting than arise root vegetables such as carrots and daikon .
you’re able to also relieve infinite by take plant variety that have better take than others . Some tomato or white pepper plants will give you a bigger harvest than others .
Harvest vegetables as often as possible
There are many vegetable plants that will give you multiple harvests if you may have a long enough get time of year . you’re able to get many harvests from plant life like tomatoes , Piper nigrum , cucumber , beans , Spinacia oleracea , kale , lettuce , cilantro , mint , dill weed , etc .
I commend harvest home as much as possible because you get a bigger crop , even with a little vegetable garden size .
Even with the base vegetable like carrots , radishes , andbeets , you could harvest and plant seed again to grow new plant in the same containers .
Grow varieties based on the season
Another way to save some growingspace in the container gardenis to get variety depending on the current time of year .
you could grow warm - time of year vegetables such as love apple , peppers , squash during the outpouring / summertime and harvest as much as potential until fall . Then you could remove those plants and turn cool - season vegetables such as spinach , pelf , lettuce .
So you get to enjoy different veggie throughout the growing season within the same container vegetable garden space .
Grow select vegetables in the garden
A skilful way to save some acquire quad in the vegetable garden is to throttle what you grow . You could choose to only grow sure vegetables you delight .
Or you’re able to grow organic vegetables that be given to be expensive in the grocery stores . you may continue to corrupt the remaining vegetable for your needs from the market stores .
This helps you get the required quantity of vegetables for your needs without having to worry about how much extra space you would need to build up the container veg garden .
Further Reading
It ’s important to figure out how much should be the size of the container garden you need to grow vegetables . There are several other canonical concepts that you will find utilitarian about vegetable container gardening in the Emily Post below .
Fact check , Written , and Published by Kevin Rodrigues
Kevin is the founder of Gardening Mentor , a web site that aim to learn people to grow their own intellectual nourishment in a circumscribed space . As a ego - taught nurseryman , Kevin has spent several years growing plant and creating gardening content on the site . He is certify in Home Horticulture and Organic Gardening from Oregon State University . He has a Post Graduate Diploma in Horticulture and Landscape Gardening from Mumbai University . Read more
