Lasagna Gardening: Container Planting

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Container gardening is a easy way to plant a garden, herbs, flowers or all three. Those that have very little space can still grow wonderful veggies and if you have plenty of space container gardens are great in nooks and grannies, on porches, decks, front porches and more.

Lasagna gardening is just as easy in the containers. Here is what you want to do.

Put a few sheets of wet newspaper at the bottom of the container over the drainage holes. Use coffee filters in smaller containers. If you have a very large container fill the bottom half with empty soda cans and then layer. After the newspaper alternate 2 inches of peat moss and commercial potting soil. Add a layer of compost or other materials you have on hand and you are ready to plant. Make sure each layer is moist before you move to the next layer. You can even use sand as a layer. She recommends you don't use garden soil because it can have disease and it is better to use potting mixes or compost. After planting put a layer of mulch to help keep in the moisture making sure you don't put the mulch too close to the roots so it won't rot.

Here are some great veggies for containers: Bush beans, carrots, cucumbers, lettuce, onions, pumpkins, radishes, snow peas, cherry tomato.

Want to get adventurous? I know you do, how about growing small baby watermelons? The great thing about these are you can get those large wooden containers, plant and let the watermelon drape down so it doesn't take a lot of room and is very pretty.

How about potatoes? Get wooden barrels and cut them in half or use garbage cans. Plant the potatoes in the bottom and mulch as they grow. When it is time to harvest simply turn them over.

The things you can lasagna grow are amazing. Remember if you plan on canning you might want to use containers to grow the herbs that you will use to can or jar or simply plant those in your garden.

The next series will talk about planting veggies and when to plant, how to plant and where to plant. Then we have fruits and how to plant/take care of them, keeping animals away from your gardens, and pests.

Let me know if there is something you want to learn about and I will speak on that next.