Container Gardening Secret Done Right: Grow a TON of Food in Small Spaces 🔥🥬

You need to have all this land. Say it with me. Potting mix, worm casting, compost. Keep it flowing. Don't stop. Keep it flowing. I was like, what the heck is that? Oh, so that's the trick. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Playing in Dirt. My name is Fleur. I am a small space container gardener in Zone 8. I'm going to share with you the tips and tricks of growing tons of food, not only in a small space, but in containers. When I first started my gardening journey, I used to think that you need this huge yard. You need to have all this land so you can have your row of tomatoes and your row of this and your row of that. But that is further from the truth. This is literally my preferred way of growing food is in containers. If you're one of those people that are waiting to have a big yard, please don't. The information that I'm going to be sharing with you in this video, the secrets, I don't know if they're considered secrets, but I don't see it talked about often in other gardening channels. So I'm going to share with you guys some secrets of what it takes to grow tons of food in containers. We're just going to jump right into it, y'all, because I'm excited. The number one secret to growing tons and tons of food. I consider that to be the best. Well, no, no, no. That will probably be number two, but we'll start that at number one. Focus on growing high yielding crops. We're in spring right now and I'm growing mustard greens, kale, collards. I'm growing and I'm growing lettuce. The reason why I consider them to be high yielding is because you can get multiple harvests from them. The more you harvest from these crops, the more they produce. My two favorite cool weather crops are the collard greens and my kale. Kale is one of those crops that just keeps giving. They keep giving and they keep giving and they keep giving. These are my kale teenager plants. They haven't fully matured. They've been going through all the changes of the weather. The weather hasn't been ideal, but this is one of my favorite crops to grow. And then it's my first time growing mustard greens. The same thing with mustard greens. The more you harvest from those types of crops, the more they produce. Don't let me get into the summer crop. You're going to get a lot of harvest when you grow crops like tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers. Oh my gosh. I grew cucumbers last season. It was my first time. I was growing so much cucumbers. I didn't need to buy any cucumbers the entire summer because I was growing them in one container. The top producing summer crops are going to be your tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers. I'm sure there are other crops. Speaking of tomatoes, there are varieties that produce thousands of tomatoes in just one plant. One of the varieties that I'm going to try it out, they're like really small cherry tomatoes. I don't know how well it's going to do, but it's supposed to be an indeterminate tomato, meaning it grows all season. And for your fall and spring vegetables, collard greens, mustard greens, kale, Swiss chard, you're going to have multiple harvests from them. So that is one secret of growing tons of food in containers. The second secret is the container size. Y'all, if you have a small container, then you're going to get a small plant. That container size, this is the number one mistake. Small pots is going to lead to more stressed plants because some of these plants have roots that go deep. Their roots need to spread so the plant can grow properly. So you need to be putting them in containers that are going to accommodate their roots. And I think that is one of the biggest mistakes, especially if you're new to gardening, that gardeners make. I know when I first started my journey, I didn't really give much thought to the container size. I wasn't getting the harvest. I wasn't getting the results that I was looking for. And then I started looking into it and I realized that the container size does matter. If you have a small yard, you don't have that much space. Let's say you cannot fit multiple containers. You can just start with one and plant that high-yielding plant. So if it's in the summertime, then plant that tomato or whatever high-yielding vegetable that you like. This right here is a 45-gallon container. In this container, I'm growing my fruiting vegetables, such as my cucumbers. This is the container that I grow my sugar baby watermelon. I did not think that it was possible to grow watermelon in containers. So this is a 15-gallon grow bag and you're going to need this size grow bag for your tomatoes. Your tomatoes are going to need a lot of room to grow, especially the indeterminate tomatoes, the one that gets to be five, six, seven feet tall. I purchased these from Amazon. These are the 15-gallon grow bags. This is where I'm going to grow all of my tomato plants. Your containers or your grow bags need to be the right size. Most of my containers are a minimum of 10 gallons, so between 10 and 25 gallons. Tomatoes need between 10 to 15 gallons of growing space in order to grow properly, depending on the variety that you're growing. If you're growing peppers, they need between five to 10 gallons of grow space, again, depending on the variety. And the same goes with cucumbers. Cucumbers need a minimum of five to 10 gallons, depending on the variety that you're growing. The main message that I'm trying to drive is we can't be trying to grow like a large cherry tomato in this pot size. I think this is like a two-gallon pot size. Come on, y'all. The plan is going to be solved. It doesn't have the room to grow in this little pot. That's not going to work. So make sure that you guys are doing your research to find out the right size container or grow bag to have to grow your plant. Do you guys get the theme? I actually just recently bought this, y'all. This season, I am going to be bold in my small container garden, okay? Going to be my second year growing. I know more than I did when I first started, so this leads me to my next secret. You need to be growing vertical. This means you're going to have to get a trellis. You guys need to be growing vertical instead of outward, especially if you don't have a lot of space. You need a trellis for the plants that climb or for support. Cucumbers, beans, tomatoes, peas. Some people might think I'm crazy. That's okay. That's okay. If I'm growing more food, then mission accomplished. That is my goal. I am being bold this season. You guys need to be bold as well. Whole beans. That's the other crop that yields a lot of food. I haven't grown whole beans yet. I've grown bush beans. While bush beans are okay, I find that you have to grow tons of them in order to get a substantial harvest that can make one meal. I want to grow a bean heaven. One of the beans that I'm going to be trying to grow this season is whole beans, yard-long beans. I don't know if it's the same. This is why I bought this trellis. I'm going to be putting this in one of my 18-gallon containers. Let me show you guys how it's going to look. I don't know if you guys can see this container. This pink container is an 18-gallon, and this is where I am planning on growing the long yard-long beans. It's going to be my first time growing this type of crop, so I was like, you know what? Let me dedicate this one container, and I think I'm only going to grow one plant. I can probably comfortably fit two plants, but we're just going to grow one. I'm going to take this, y'all, and I'm going to put it, because it's the right width. I'm just going to stick it inside of this container, and there you go. That way, when my beans start to climb, it can have all of this trellis to climb up and produce more food. We're going to have to think outside the box if we want to grow a lot of food. This is, y'all, a DIY trellis that I created when I first started gardening. I went to Home Depot, and I bought these CVP, PCV, CVP, I don't know, but these pipes. I bought the pipe. I built this trellis. I added two wood that I got from Home Depot. When I realized that my cucumber plant, it wanted more room to go up, I thought this was going to be enough for the cucumber plant, but it was reaching. It was trying to reach and grow, so that's where I went ahead and bought this PCV pipe. I don't even know if I'm saying it correctly. I added some twine to make the netting, and then I attached it on top of this, so that way, my cucumber plant had more room to grow. I know that looks ghetto, but that's okay. The plants had more room to spread. The next secret to growing tons of food in containers is you're going to need good soil. Container plants have access to only the soil that you give them, so if the soil is poor, then they don't have anywhere else to go for nutrients. If you're growing in ground, then they have access to more nutrients as opposed to growing in containers. Get yourself some good quality potting mix. It doesn't have to be this brand. In particular, it could be any brand of your choosing, and also compost. I started my compost last year, so I had compost for my spring garden, which I'm so excited about, and I am continuously making compost. If you guys are just starting out and you don't have compost, you can buy compost. The one that I use, you don't have to use it, but the one that I used when I first started my journey and that I still use right now is Black Cow. Get yourself some good quality compost, good quality potting mix, and also worm casting. I have a big bag of worm casting. This is gonna last me all year. I use a lot of worm casting. Worm casting is what's going to add nutrients to your soil. I think it's worm poop, and plants love it, but these are the three. Potting mix, worm casting, compost. Potting mix, worm casting, compost. Say it with me. Potting mix, worm casting, compost. Sometimes I add perlite. It's not really necessary. It's not really needed, but if you have some perlite on hand, this is really good because it helps to draw out moisture. It helps for the soil to breathe, so you can add a little bit of perlite to your soil. The next secret to growing tons of food in containers is you're gonna have to feed your containers. Containers lose nutrients faster than ground gardens. When you're gardening in containers, when you're gardening in grow bags, you're gonna have to feed your plants often. This is my weekly snack. Whenever I water my plants, every Saturday or Sunday, I'm giving them some nitrogen. This is every week, y'all, religiously. It doesn't matter the plant. I'm giving them nitrogen when I'm watering them. When you're growing in containers, heavy rain, all of that, it washes out the nutrients. You're gonna have to keep adding nutrients back to the soil. The nutrients, they stay in the ground longer if you are growing in ground than if you are growing in containers. We have fertilizers that are slow-release. These are gonna be the dry fertilizers, and then we have fertilizers that are fast-release, which are your liquid fertilizer. So, liquid fertilizer every one to two weeks, slow fertilizers once a month. When I first started my journey, y'all, I was not feeding my plants at all because I didn't know anything about... I mean, I knew they were fertilizers, but I didn't know how often to feed. So, I wasn't feeding them at all. And I was also afraid of feeding them too much. There is such a thing. Don't get me wrong. There is such a thing. But in my case, I wasn't feeding them at all. I remember I grew cabbages. They were transplants that I bought from Home Depot, and I never fed them. Every now and then, I would make banana peel water and give it to them, but I never gave them any fertilizer. And those cabbages remained tiny. They never grew. They never thrived. I was happy for my harvest. Nevertheless, I got to harvest my little bitty ornamental cabbage is what it looked like. But I learned my lesson. I learned now that they need to be fed. You have some plants that are heavy feeders, tomatoes, cabbages being one of them, mustard greens. These are all heavy feeders, and they need to be fed regularly. So, do not skip that step like I did, okay? The next secret to growing tons of food in containers is succession planting. When I first heard that word, I was like, what the heck is that? Succession planting? What is that? I did a little bit of digging. I'm like, oh, so that's the trick. To name in terms, growing plants in rotation. For example, if you're growing collards, as the plant is approaching its end stage, maybe it has another month left before that plant is done. Start yourself a new seedling indoors. Once that mature plant is done, you can be planting other seedlings in its place. You're not planting everything all at once, and then once you harvest everything, that's it. No, you need to be keeping that momentum. That's the secret, succession planting. I hope you guys understand, but succession planting is going to be your best friend. Keep it flowing. Don't stop. Keep dropping new seeds. My last secret, y'all, is you guys need to be harvesting often. We're not growing gardens. We're not growing plants just to look at them. We need to be harvesting the plants because that's what's going to help them grow. The more you harvest, the more it gives. I was that person. I just left my plants in the containers, and I just looked at them and admired them, and I wasn't harvesting them. If I was that person, I know I'm not the only one. Some people, they're out here with their garden. The plant is just bursting, wanting to be harvested, but they're like, oh, it looks so pretty like that. Oh my gosh, look at my garden. It looks so pretty. So I'm not going to touch it because the garden looks so pretty. No, you need to be harvesting your garden. The more you harvest, the more food you get from your plant. So make sure you guys are harvesting your plants, okay? Some of the crops that enjoy harvesting is collards, kale, tomatoes, cucumbers, basically just about every plant. That encourages growth. Don't be afraid to harvest your vegetables. Don't just allow it to sit there and look pretty, be like, oh, I grew this. Okay, let me admire it. Let me take a picture of it. Okay. The last bonus tip that I want to share with you guys is this right here that's coming, that's approaching us. It's sunlight. Your plants need sunlight. You cannot try to grow food in a shaded area. It's just not going to work. Six to eight hours of sunlight for most plants, that is non-negotiable. Plants in containers, they need more sun. Believe it or not, they need more sun because they're going to grow faster. That's what gives them the energy to grow. So make sure that you are gardening in a space that's going to receive sufficient amount of sunlight so that you can have a thriving garden. I have a monthly planting guide. It comes with a fertilizing coach. So you know exactly how frequent to fertilize your plants, depending on the type of crop that you're growing, the monthly planting guide. So you can succession plant every single month. You know what to start indoors, what you can direct. So every single month, a container size cheat sheet. So you know exactly what size containers, depending on the crop that you're growing. And it also comes with a companion planting chart so that you know what grows well alongside each other. I'm going to link it down below. I hope you guys found this video helpful. I did enjoy making it because y'all, I'm a goofball. When I first started making videos on YouTube, I was so afraid to show my personality and this is who I am. And I hid that for a while. I was afraid of being in front of a camera, showing my face. I enjoy sharing what I'm learning in my journey. Thank you so much for being here. Go out there, start your garden. I want to see big, small gardens this year. Don't forget to check out my previous video y'all. Thank you so much for watching. Make sure you hit the like and subscribe button and I will see you all in the next one.