Veggies in pots

I'm growing 2 bush provider bean plants in 3 gal plastic nursery pots, plus swiss chard in another similar pot.

I also built a 10'x2' garden bed along my fence and I am growing more provider beans, swiss chard, and lots of okra. The thing is, I noticed that the plants in the bed are doing noticably better than the plants in the black plastic pots. The soil mixture was pretty much the same- cotton burr compost, composted cow manuer and some native soil. I feel like everything gets a comparable amount of sunlight , but is there something else that accounts for this difference in growth? The chard in my pot had a 7-10 day head start (sowed the chard in the bed about a week later), yet the chard in the bed is starting to look "leafy" and chard-like and the chard in my pot seems "stuck" in its little stage of development. I would also say that the pots never dry out and are fairly moist at all times.

Mr. Crichton,
Most vegetables do better direct planted in soil, rather than in pots, unless the pots are really, really BIG, like 10 gal. or larger. Vegetable plants usually have a very large root system, which simply can't be accomodated in a pot.
Your pot plants will grow and probably produce, but just not at the same rate or with the same success as in-ground plants.
If you want to do some pot vegetables, lettuce lends itself to pot culture fairly well. We enjoy Black-Seeded Simpson, Ruby Frills, and Oakleaf lettuce planted in a very large (3' wide by 1 1/2' deep) planter kept on our patio for most of the winter. The spring lettuce goes directly into the vegetable garden.
Herbs also can be happy pot plants, especially the annual ones like basil, cilantro, and parsley.
Pot culture depends on the plant in the pot. Don't get discouraged, just change the plant in the pot!

JohnCrichton75 -- I'm new to gardening this year and adamantly attempting to grow veggies in pots. This is because our soil here is poor and on a layer of rock, and it's going to take me years to improve it, bit by bit. I do have two small beds, but most of the sunny spots in the yard are on the patio. Anyway (not that you asked), that's why I personally doggedly persist on veggie growing in pots -- out of desperation, mostly!

This spring (my first spring), I planted several things and I did get a few things, but not as much as I'd hoped.

Tomatoes - I tried 4 varieties. The sweet 100's (cherry) did fairly well, and the other varieties (not specifically recommended for pots) did fair. I think each plant produced maybe 4 or 5 tomatoes total. There were a lot of yellow flowers but most did not result in tomatoes. But at least I got some and I'm happy with that.
Cucumber - died.
yellow squash - one small squash and lots of flowers that never got pollinated. Then squash borer got at it, I think.
Bush bean - like yours, it stayed puny and the resulting beans were so small as to not be worth bending over to pick them.
Pole bean - I set a big pot under a trellis. I did get some nice beans, but since I only planted one plant, there were never enough to pick at any one time. I would just pick a couple and throw them into stir fry. I'd like to grow several pots that way though.
Lettuce/spinach - these did fine in a window box and also some wall-mounted half-pots. But I also planted a bed of them in semi-shade and they did even better there.
Watermelon - vine only, no fruit.

I think my pots probably need to be bigger and my soil also needs to be lighter. I'm pretty sure it was too heavy and compact for container growing. I am using a lighter mix for this next garden season and will be trying to acquire larger pots as I can. Unfortunately I spent my meager gardening dollars on several smaller pots instead of fewer large pots last time, and now I'm not wanting to splash out for whiskey barrels at $23 a pop. Too spendy for me. I hope to get some big white containers free from the bakery at the grocery store. They gave me one once -- it once held 40lbs of donut glaze (boy did it smell good!) and I hope to get more there over time.

Anyway, just wanted to comment with my own newbie experience here, in case it is helpful.
Lise

Thanks Texasroses and LiseP for your comments! It's always helpful to hear the experiences of others. I think I will definatley try a lighter soil or, specifically, some type of soil formulated specifically for pots. My mix of compost/ cow manuer/ native soil seems ok for my potted tomatoes and peppers but not so good for my beans and chard thus far.

I have resorted to growing veggies in pots becasue I have not had the time to buid a suitable bed just yet (actually I have built a bed, it has okra, beans and swiss chard.) I need another one, though!!! And then another, I'm sure. I can't seem to muster the time/ energy just yet but hopefully I will soon. In the meantime, I tried to grow two crookneck squash plants (in addition to the other plants I have mentioned) in terra cotta pots that were way too small, apparently. I'm going to pull them soon and replace them with herbs or something. Our deck also gets lots of sun so the idea in theory is perfect, just need to do a better job of selecting the right materials/ plants.

Have you guys tried raised bed gardening? I always gardened the traditional way, but time and lack of a way to break my ground caused me to go to raised beds. Now, I wouldn't garden any other way.

I've grown a lot of stuff in pots and have had pretty decent luck but the plants are always smaller and less productive. Since you're using nursery pots I assume they have ample drainage but "fairly moist at all times" might be moist enough to inhibit root growth and thus slow the progress and/or cause death. Over watering is probably the number one killer.

I grow many things in pots. Peppers do really well. I think one of the problems is that with any "micro" environment any little adjustment can have a large impact and you have to make sure that you fertilize since the plants have no other means of getting fed. Once my container plants hAve been established I feed the plants with a higher middle number fertilizer which induces blooming and healthy root growth. Keep in mind that tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant don't like as much nitrogen as cukes, squash, and melons. Also, every year is different no matter where or what you plant in.
Lisa

Jim41, I am willing to bet that you are right about raised bed gardening. I went to a workshop on square-foot gardening (also raised bed) last week and the lecturer sure made it seem easy. He uses concrete blocks.

I've got a small yard (NO excuse if you've ever seen the Path To Freedom youtube videos!) but there are trees, so it's tough to find a spot for a bed that isn't under a tree. Well, that's not exactly true. The entire backyard has a 4-ft border with nandina and other bushes. I don't think we want to be removing trees, but in my fantasy, I am removing all or at least most of those bushes and building up that border into raised beds. The border is up against a privacy fence, but if I removed every other board that would increase the sun quite a bit. That might solve a lot! But...in the meantime...it's veggies in pots for me.


1lisac - appreciate your comments. Do you know -- I have a couple of pepper plants from the spring garden that are still hanging in there but with no flowers or fruit. If I beef up the fertilzer, do you think they will produce again? Or are they done? I'm also in Texas.
LiseP

I've not tried veggies other than tomatoes and peppers in pots. The tomatoes, I found, prefer 25 gallon pots - I can grow up to five plants in each one of these. The peppers I've not found to do well in pots, but have not tried anything larger than a 10 gallon for them.

As Texasroses said - herbs do well in pots. They don't take much care, either. I like to keep my herbs up off the ground to keep the dogs away from them.

I've always been told that peppers do really well in containers. They are true perennials and can live for years if they con't freeze. I havea jalapeno in a 1-2 gallon pot that is at least 3 years old. I just picked 15+ peppers off of it today. Every winter right before the first freeze I dig up at least 1 of each type of pepper plant I have and pot it up and take it inside. The only real problem I have ever had is Spider Mites, but they are common on indoor plants. I use Hastagrow 6-12-6 which should help with blooming. My peppers are producing like crazy right now better then they have all summer. I'm sticking them in the freezer because I don't know what else to do with them. You may try posting your question on the peppers forum. SMOKEMASTER posts there and grows all his peppers in pots. My container tomatoes are in 5 gallon buckets and do fine.
Lisa

Yowza, HoneybeeNC, I didn't know there was such a thing as a 25-gallon pot! That sounds huge!

Thanks for the info, 1lisac. Now I feel more inadequate than ever, with my non-producing peppers that just sit there! ;-) They obviously need some help. I'll get on it.

LisaP- Every year and every place is different I have always been told that tomatoes, peppers,and eggplant need phospherous and don't produce well with too much Nitrogen. Legumes produce their own nitrogen. I hope this info helps but I garden mostly by trial and error.
Lisa

I've been reading the posts that tomatoes don't like nitrogen and will only say that ammonianitrate was the only fertilize my dad used on his tomatoes. He was the best tomatoe grower I have ever known. One year the farmer that was working our farm forgot to turn his anhydrous ammonia off when he was side dressing corn. It drifted across Dad's tomatoes and looked like they would die for a while. They came out of it and produced more tomatoes than I have ever seen. A count on a tomato picked at random was 60 from silver dollar size up. One of my friends, who grew tomatoes commercially for a few years, side dressed his tomatoes with ammonia nitrate dissolved in water through his drip irragation system.

I don't mean that they don't need nitrogen they just aren't heavy feeders like squash, etc..
I have horses and if I use too much poop around the tomatoes, peppers, or eggplant they turn into beautiful plants but don't produce well. Also, I added what I thought was a little poop to some of my container tomatoes they got terrible leaf curl and then grew like crazy but because they were in a "closed envronment" the problem was not as easy to correct as it would have been if they were in the ground. Everybody's soil is different too so it has different needs but since this thread is about growing in containers I think any good potting soil would do for a start and then amend it as time goes by.
Jim41-I remember you mentioning the ammonianitrate in the past and I still think I would make it blow up (kidding)

As clutzy as I am, if it would blow easy, I'd be in outer space. Hang in there #1.

Jim-You just gave me my first and possible only really good laugh of the day. Thank you!
I'm laughing so hard I have tears in my eyes, I'm glad I'm the only one here.
Lisa

Laughter is a medicine. Shame we don't use more of it. Glad you had a good laugh. My mission in life is accomplished. Jim

Hi, All--I can't contribute much to growing veggies in TX, but I've been experimenting with growing all of my veggies in pots as well. Here in IN, we have hard clay soil, with a fair amount of lime. While limestone is extremely useful for building gorgeous buildings, it doesn't work so well in the garden. I've learned a lot from hanging out on the self contained box garden forum. Lots of experienced folks there. Although this was my first year growing veggies exclusively in containers, I had an OK year, considering the horrible weather we had all summer. Using a light growing medium and proper fertilizer seems to be the key to containers. Don't skimp on the size of your pots. I've used everything from Earthboxes, to large 20" containers from the big box stores, to Smart Pots. All have their uses and have been productive for me so far.

I'll toss in a couple of things I've learned about pot culture in hot climates. The root temperatures of your plants in pots will be a lot higher, especially if the pots are black, than the root temperatures of plants in-ground--and the smaller the pot, the hotter the roots will get. This alone will make a big difference in how your plants do. I even notice a difference with my EarthBox plants compared to my raised-bed plants--they get much bigger in the raised beds, and the root temps are going to be a big part of that. If there's any way you can shade the root zone to cool it down that will help some. The other thing is that your pot plants are going to need to be watered MUCH more frequently than anything in ground, and that will also leach fertilizer away much more rapidly. So, you'll also need to be fertilizing on a much more frequent basis. Don't just add bigger amounts of fertilizer, that'll burn the roots, but do the recommended dosage much more often.

tusconjill is dead on - exactly the experience I had trying to grow in pots. League City temps aren't as high as desert Arizona, but it's still pretty dern hot there.

Frank

What kind of altitude do you folks have over there, Frank? Even the 1000 feet we've got over Phoenix makes such a difference!

We're at 2400 - about the same as Tucson, I think.

Frank

Yep, that's about the same as we are. Just curious! :)