Driveway Makeover! 5 Ideas for Growing a Container Garden for Vegetables
by Steven Biggs
My Driveway Container Vegetable Garden
Not enough space to grow everything you want? Be creative! A container garden are a great way to fit more vegetables into your yard.
Here’s our driveway container garden. The driveway container garden is a quick, temporary space-making solution so we can grow extra tomato, pepper, potato, summer squash, and chard plants.
In this vegetable container garden, we use straw bales, fabric pots, nursery pots, bushel baskets, and vertical gardening techniques to make the most of the space.
In this post, I talk about these five vegetable container gardening techniques, along with container plants and container garden tips.
Ideas for Your Vegetable Container Garden
Container gardening is part science, and part creativity. There are lots of ways to approach it. Here are five ideas we’ve used to make the most of our driveway for growing vegetables.
1. Strawbale Gardens: Grow Vegetables in Containers that are Biodegradeable
Wetting the straw bales to start the “conditioning” process.
A lot of visitors take a second look at my straw-bale garden and wonder where I put the potting soil. There is no potting soil: The straw bale is both the container and the growing medium. No potting mix required!
The decomposing straw gives plant roots needed air while retaining moisture…like a big sponge.
By the end of the season, when we pull apart a bale, the inside is dark and crumbly. It’s already partially composted and perfect to use as mulch on our gardens. Then, we start again with new bales the following year.
We plant the top with tomato plants and leafy greens. Then we put bush beans on the sides of the bales.
Important: If you’re starting with new, fresh, dry bales, the first step is to get microbial activity underway by watering them and feeding them. This step is called “conditioning.”
Find out more about straw-bale gardening.
2. Bushel Baskets: Growing Vegetables in Containers that are Repurposed
Container vegetable gardening with repurposed stuff! Potatoes growing in lined bushel baskets.
We often have extra bushel baskets from our fall cider-making. So we use them for growing potatoes. (We can’t grow potatoes in our back yard because our neighbour’s black walnut tree gives off a compound that kills them.)
We line the bushel baskets with plastic bags so that the potting soil stays moist longer and so the bushel baskets won’t decompose as quickly. (We poke drainage holes in the bottom of the bags!)
There are lots of repurposed items that work well as containers. Here are a few ideas:
Milk crates. I’ve used these in previous gardens. Just cover the openings on the side and bottom with newspaper or cardboard, so the soil doesn’t escape.
Old wheelbarrow. A friend uses an old wheelbarrow as a driveway planter.
Wash basins. I have neighbours who use metal wash basins as vegetable garden planters. (Make sure to drill drainage holes in the bottom.)
3. Fabric Pots: Garden in Pots that are Moveable
Fabric pots are moveable, and a great way to start container gardening.
These pots are widely available. What we like about them is that they have handles so we can move them aside if we need to move anything large along the driveway.
I’ve seen impressive rooftop container gardens created with fabric pots. While some gardeners use drip irrigation to keep the soil consistently moist, a more simple approach is to put a saucer underneath; as the potting mix begins to dry, water in the saucer wicks upwards.
4. Fence: Grow Vegetable Plants on Surrounding Features
We train tomato plants up the twine that is dangling from the top of the fence.
Sometimes it’s possible to squeeze more crops into a space by growing some of them upwards—a concept that’s often referred to as “vertical gardening.” In the case of our driveway, there’s a wonky board fence that I like to hide with a wall of tomato and squash!
We plant tomatoes next to the fence, and then train them up twine suspended along the fence. We also grow squash vines along the fence—well past where the garden is.
Idea: I’ve also grown squash along hedges and up trees. Because the vines roam around, there are lots of vertical-gardening possibilities.
Here’s more about vertical gardening.
5. Nursery Pots: Figs Growing in Containers
Next to my garage is my potted fig “orchard.” It’s a collection of potted fig plants growing in nursery pots. These fig trees spend the winter in my garage.
Nursery pots are an inexpensive way to start container gardening. Talk with garden centres and arborists—you can often get them for free or very inexpensively.
If you’re interested in growing figs in a cold climate, here’s more about how to do it.
Grow a Container Vegetable Garden
And get an early harvest of crops that usually take too long!
Plan Your Container Vegetable Garden
Choose the Location
If you’re thinking about a container vegetable garden but don’t know where to start, choose your location first.
Then, once you’ve decided on a location, you’ll know how much sunlight you’re dealing with. Remember that full-sun crops such as tomatoes can do respectably well in partial sun. (This is not something a commercial market gardener would do…but if you’re a home gardener, conditions often aren’t perfect.)
Something else to think about is access to water. Is there a tap or hose nearby?
Choosing Container Plants
When it comes to choosing container gardening crops, a good starting point is things you like to eat.
Then, think about crops that do well in containers. Most vegetables grow well if a container is big enough, but some crops are more practical than others.
For example:
Pole beans are great if they're next to something they can grow on, but, otherwise, bush beans are more practical because you don't need to make a trellis.
Parsnips and Brussels sprouts take the whole summer and fall to mature. Instead, look for crops that mature more quickly, like carrots and carrots.
Here’s a list of best vegetables to grow in pots.
If the location is shady, here’s a list of crops that grow in shade.
Consider Containers with Reservoirs
A key to success—and common reason for failure—with container vegetable gardening is watering. When the soil in containers regularly dries out, your vegetable plants put on the brakes. Growth stalls. Or, even worse, your plants skip straight to flowering before they're big enough.
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(When you’re looking for bargain plants at a big-box store and see what looks like a bonsai cauliflower plant that’s only six inches tall, chances are that the plant got parched too often…and that stress made it flower before its time.)
If the potting soil is consistently moist, your crop will be miles ahead. It makes a big difference.
You can keep the potting mix consistently moist with what’s called “sub-irrigated” pots. This is just a fancy way of saying a container with a reservoir. As the potting mix begins to dry, water from the reservoir wicks upwards, keeping the soil continuously moist.
This sort of container is widely available—but you can easily make your own.
Find out more about sub-irrigated (a.k.a. self-watering) pots.
More Container Ideas
If space is tight, small containers might be your only option. I've made herb container gardens by dotting potted plants on a staircase.
Don't forget window boxes. Although they're shallow, they work well for shallow-rooted crops such as leafy greens.
Hanging baskets are a great way to fit more vegetable plants into your container garden.
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