Are you thinking about starting a garden? Container gardening tips can make it easy to begin. Container gardening is a great way to start. In today’s guide, I’m going to share 10 steps to get started with your container garden. But if we haven’t met before, my name is Angela from Growing in the Garden, and I love to share garden inspiration and helpful tips so you can be successful in your own garden.

You can garden anywhere with containers. Add a container to a balcony, a deck, or a sidewalk, and you’re ready to go. Start small. You may already have a container or two on hand that you can fill with soil and get growing.

Choosing the Perfect Location for Your Container Garden

The first step in mastering container gardening tips is to choose the location for your container garden. The most important thing to remember is that we can’t grow anything without sunlight. Pay attention to how much sunlight that area receives. Ideally, it gets at least six to eight hours of sunlight each day. If you have a choice, choose an area that receives morning sun. Hopefully, there’s easy access to water in that location as well.

The next step is to decide what you’re going to plant. Make a list of things you would like to grow. Start with things you like to eat. Maybe try a few new things too.

Planning Your Container Garden Plants

Once you have your list of things you’d like to grow, find a planting guide for your area. Look at the planting guide and find out what can be planted right now. Evaluate the space you have available. Make sure you have enough room to grow the selected plants. Take time to learn about each of the plants you’d like to grow and find out if it needs to be planted from seed or transplants.

Head to your local nursery or favorite online retailer and pick up those seeds and transplants. The next step in these container gardening tips is to choose your container, and there are two important things to consider when choosing your container.

Selecting the Right Container

The size of a plant is limited by how large the container is, and it’s important to grow the right plant in the right size pot. Here are a few guidelines for what size pots different plants need. The next thing to consider for your containers is to make sure that they have drainage holes. The hole allows excess water to drain out of the container.

Roots need air as well as water in order to breathe. Too much water will suffocate and drown those roots. If the container you’re growing on is on a hard surface, lift that container up with pot feet. If your container is on soil or grass, that water is going to be able to seep out no problem.

Soil Selection for Container Gardening

The next step for container gardening tips is to fill that container with soil. Regular soil is too heavy for containers and doesn’t provide the roots the air and water that they need to grow well. Look for a quality raised bed mix or potting soil. It should be light, fluffy, and drain well.

Look for a combination of compost, coconut coir, and vermiculite or perlite. The right mixture of ingredients provides nutrients, air, and water for the roots and gives your plants the best chance for success. Put your pots in place and fill them all the way up with soil. You don’t need to add any filler to the bottom. The more soil, nutrients, and water available to your plants, the better.

If you’re going to add an olla to your container, now is the time to do it. An olla is a clay vessel that is buried underground and filled with water. That water gradually seeps out as needed by the roots. Ollas are by far my favorite way to water containers.

Planting Your Container Garden

The next step is to plant your seeds and transplants in your containers, and as you do this, there are three things to keep in mind. The first thing is spacing. Adequate spacing is crucial for growing plants. Plants that are too close together often crowd each other out and compete for sunlight, available nutrients, and often lead to pests and diseases.

Use the spacing guidelines on the backs of seed packets or on your transplants as a guide to give your plants enough room. When planting transplants, it’s important to plant them at the same level of the nursery pot. Carefully remove that plant from the pot, dig a hole the same depth, and put it in right at the same level.

An exception to this would be plants like tomatoes. They’re often buried much deeper, and roots will grow along that stem. When you’re planting seeds, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. Typically, plant the seed two times the depth. Once you start watering seeds, it’s important to keep watering them until they germinate.

Watering Your Container Garden Effectively

Let’s talk for a minute about watering your containers, a key part of container gardening tips. When plants are grown in containers, the plants’ roots can’t seek out water like they can if they’re grown in the ground. Plants are dependent upon you for water. Many problems in the garden can be traced back to incorrect watering, either too much water or not enough water.

When you first plant seeds or transplants, they’re going to need water a little bit more often until those seeds germinate and those transplants get established. How often should you water your containers? The answer is however often they need water. So how do you know if they need watering?

Monitoring Water Needs

The best way to tell is to pull back the mulch and stick your finger in about an inch or so and see if it is dry. If it’s dry, it needs water. If it’s still moist, then they don’t need water. Droopy, wilted leaves are a sign that you waited too long to water. When you’re watering, be careful to water the soil, not the plant.

The plant’s roots absorb the water in the soil, and then the roots then pass that water up through the stem and into the leaves. Adding a one- to two-inch layer of mulch in your containers helps slow evaporation and keeps that moisture in the container. Plants grown in containers will often need to be watered more often than plants grown in raised beds or in the ground.

I like to use a shower attachment and drench that entire container until you can see water coming out that drain hole. Then you know you have watered that container enough. Deep watering encourages the plant’s roots to grow nice and deep. Shallow watering keeps those plants’ roots right at the surface, and they will need more frequent watering and be more susceptible to stress damage.

Feeding Your Container Plants

Another consideration when you’re growing plants and containers, they will need to be fed more often. When the water drains out the hole of the container, it’s taking a lot of nutrients with it, and we need to add those nutrients back in. Compost-rich potting soil will provide some nutrients for the first few weeks, and then after that, I like to use a water-soluble organic fertilizer like fish emulsion or liquid seaweed or a combination of both.

Follow the dilution instructions and use it as a soil drench on your container plants. It’s important to spend some time in your garden every day. Make it a habit to spend a few minutes looking at your plants. Check that your plants’ water needs are getting met. Check the undersides of leaves for pests. Spending time in your garden helps you catch problems when they’re small.

When you spend time in your garden, you’ll notice the little things like new growth and new blossoms forming. The next step in container gardening tips is to harvest what you’re growing. Learn about the plants that you’re growing and find out the ideal time to harvest that particular crop.

Harvesting and Learning from Your Garden

Typically, the best time to pick is when the crops are young and tender. Cooking often encourages the plant to keep producing more of whatever it is they’re growing. Fruit and vegetables left too long on the plant often become woody and fibrous and don’t taste as good. Harvest and eat what you’re growing in your garden.

Finally, the last step is to learn from your experience. Gardening can take a lifetime to learn. Each time you grow something, you will learn a little bit more. Take notes about when you planted, what you planted, and how it did. Documenting your journey helps you learn. Mistakes are often the best teacher.

Starting a garden can feel overwhelming, but starting a garden in containers can be simple. Find a container and get planting. Thank you so much for reading these container gardening tips.