How to Grow Patio Vegetables
Start by choosing a sunny location for your patio vegetable garden. Most garden plants require at least six hours of direct sunlight per day. Ideally, your location for growing vegetables on your porch will be near a faucet to facilitate watering, and the overall layout will be aesthetically pleasing. Next, determine how much room you have for growing vegetables on your porch. How many planters or pots will the space comfortably hold? But don’t limit yourself to the available ground space. Consider hanging baskets as well as methods for tower and vertical gardening on a patio. When it’s time to select growing containers for porch garden vegetables, bigger is better. Larger pots and planters dry out less quickly and give plenty of room for root growth. Most garden vegetable plants aren’t deep rooted, so tall containers have no benefit over shorter ones of the same width. Planters can be made of any material such as plastic, clay, metal or wood, but they shouldn’t contain or have held toxic chemicals. For budget-minded patio gardeners, 5-gallon buckets with drainage holes drilled in the bottom work great. Once you have your containers and know their layout, it’s time to pick a soil mix. Bagged potting soil works great for a patio vegetable garden. If available, add compost, vermiculite or peat moss to improve the soil quality. Reusing the same dirt year after year is not recommended, as it can harbor disease and insects. Porch garden vegetables usually need to be watered at least once daily and often twice if high temperatures or windy conditions prevail. To improve growth and yields, fertilize periodically. Control garden pests, like aphids, with safe insecticidal sprays or remove larger pests, like tomato worms, by hand.
Choosing Porch Garden Vegetables
Many different types of garden vegetables grow well in containers, but some work better in certain kinds of containers and others have specific “patio” varieties. First time gardeners will generally have more success transplanting seedlings rather than sowing seeds. If this is your first time gardening on a patio, try these easy-to-grow vegetables:
Tomatoes
Peppers
Herbs
Potatoes
Sweet potatoes
Lettuce
Cucumbers
Carrots
Onions
Bush beans
Spinach
Squash
Swiss Chard
Radishes
On a final note, when gardening on a balcony or deck, be conscious of the amount of weight you’re adding. Several large planters with wet soil can easily exceed the weight limit of the structure.
