Container Sizes

[Lumpy]

OK with a new micro garden a lot more of next years stuff is going to have be grown in containers etc so advice on sizes please for...

Toms, Dwarf Beans (DFB, Runner and Broad), Peppers, Kale (DGC), Q's, Spring Onions, Chinese Cabbage and Courgettes.

[Snadger]

Potties the one to answer you but i would have thought most of these would be ok in Morrisons flower buckets apart from cougettes which need a lot of water and would probably benefit from more space.

[veggiechicken]

Any help?
Which Vegetables Grow Well in Pots? - For Dummies
Not saying you're a Dummy, of course

[Potstubsdustbins]

Spring onions I use troughs 2ft long x 6" wide X 6" deep. I set seed in 3" pots about 3 a week and transfer when they are a couple of inch's high.

Courgettes nothing less than a 25ltr pot, but I prefer 30ltrs.

Cabbage & Kale I use 1mtr square beds 9" deep although I have grown them single in MBF buckets.

All the rest will be fine at one plant per MBF buckets.

I would also recommend you get your hands on as many 3" to 6" pot's & cells as you can lay your hands on, this way you can practice successional sowing.

[Penellype]

From my experience:

Tomatoes and peppers - anything from 3 litres upwards - the smaller the pot the more feeding and watering will be needed and you will get smaller crops.
I grew dwarf beans successfully in 2 litre pots (2 plants each) hung onto my fence and also in a 30 litre pot sown at a more conventional distance apart. Again the small pots needed plenty of watering.
Runner beans worked ok with 1 plant per 5 litre pot (climbing variety) - again I can't stress enough how much care needs to be taken with watering in these small pots.
Cucumbers grow ok in 10l pots but I had better results from 18 litres with a self watering tray.
Courgettes are tricky in pots - I find they succumb to mildew far more easily. The bigger the pot the better as it retains more water.
I haven't grown the others in pots.

As above, the trick with containers is to always have something ready to go in next. Make use of height if you can, eg hanging baskets and fittings that fix onto or hook over fences or walls.

[Lumpy]

Thanks all - as usual very helpful to a numpty like me.

Potty whats a MBF bucket?

VC - I am the high priestess of Dummies so...

[Snadger]

Thanks all - as usual very helpful to a numpty like me.

Potty whats a MBF bucket?

VC - I am the high priestess of Dummies so...

Morrisons Bucket for Flowers? Possibly?

[Nannysally99]

We grew spuds in builders buckets, toms in mfb, carrots, onions, lettuce in long troughs.
Haven't tried runners in pots, we are lucky enough to have a bean frame in real dirt lol.

[Potstubsdustbins]

^^^^^^Spot on Snadger. Morrison's Black Flower bucket. Can be had for free or very little money and with some holes in the bottom make great pots.

Pen I'd love to know how you get away with a tomato in a 3ltr pot. I use the MFB which are between 10 & 12ltrs and still have to work at watering in the summer. It would save folks a fortune on compost.

[Penellype]

I grow my indoor Shirleys in 3 litre pots as this is the biggest that will fit on the windowsill. These are last years indoor tomatoes, all in 3 litre pots, at the beginning of July:



They tend to get a bit spindly due to the lack of light (facing west). Because of the limited height I stop them off at 2 trusses, then allow a side shoot or 2 to grow from the bottom. When the 2 trusses have finished fruiting I cut them down and let the sideshoots grow on to form the next fruiting stem and so on. I see no reason why you couldn't grow them to 4 or 5 trusses high in a greenhouse or outside.

This one is a dwarf Balconi yellow, taken in July this year, also in a 3 litre pot:



Obviously, they will do better and produce more fruit in bigger pots. If they were outside I would recommend a self watering system as they would dry out very quickly if it was windy. They are watered well every day indoors.

[Lumpy]

That's really impressive Penellype, especiaaly for those of us who just don't have a lot of space.

I have some Balconi Yellow seeds for this year that I am going to shove into the under window wall baskets. As they are 3ft ish long and quite wide I was planning on putting one at each end - I will see how it goes.

[Penellype]

I was impressed with the yield from Balconi (I grew both red and yellow ones), although they yellow ones in particular are rather watery and lack flavour. I sowed them in February in my spare bedroom, and they lived in there, first under grow lights and then on the east facing windowsill until the end of June, by which time they had produced several fruit varying in size from cherry upto about 4cm across. The fruit started ripening in mid June. I took them outside mainly because they needed staking and I was worried they would fall off the windowsill. They continued to produce fruit sporadically until October when they got botrytis.

If you have window boxes, Garden Pearl is a trailing cherry variety which produced a lot of fruit per plant with a reasonable flavour. This picture shows 4 tomatoes grown in 11 litre pots on a quadgrow base next to the wormery - the 2 plants at the front are Garden Pearl, the ones behind are Totem, which is a bush variety.



Photo taken 1st September.

[Lumpy]

Ta P.

I also have Totem as well as 7 other varieties some of which are supposed to be more cold tolerant - we will see what happens.

[Potstubsdustbins]

If your short of space maybe hanging baskets would be a way to go. These are my Tumbler on a south facing wall, I grow them like this every year and they always perform. Lots of fruit with a good taste, well to my palate anyway.

I have tried Garden Pearl and it did not do well for me and I didn't find it tasty, this was some years back so they may well have improved. I suppose that why there are so many varieties of tom, its just a case of finding the one that suits you personally.

[Potstubsdustbins]

Pen I can see where you are coming from now, making the best of a bad job.

I run my cordon toms to 6 of 7 trusses so couldn't get away with it.