Pot Luck – a beginner’s guide to container gardening by Graham Burnett

Whether you’ve got a tiny balcony, a paved-over yard, or just a windowsill and a bit of ambition, growing your own food in the city is more achievable than you might think. With a little creativity and the right know-how, even the most space-starved urban grower can be harvesting fresh herbs, salads, tomatoes and even potatoes through the warmer months. This guide covers everything you need to get started, from choosing the right containers and compost to making the most of every inch of vertical and horizontal space you have available.

Permaculture pioneer Bill Mollison once stated that a family could meet one-fifth of their annual food requirements from a few containers and pots on an average-sized apartment block balcony. Whilst I’d take such an optimistic claim with a rather large bucket of salt, there is certainly plenty of potential for growing at least some of your own tasty and nutritious herbs, vegetables and salads in the urban environment, even if you have very little space or your garden has been paved over. Patios and balconies can be highly productive using all manner of recycled objects repurposed as containers, including 12-litre paint tubs (thoroughly cleaned!), builders bags, vegetable oil cans from restaurants and old buckets. I’ve even seen holey Wellington boots planted with strawberries, and a pair of worn out trainers used as a hanging basket!

There are a few factors you need to think about when setting up a container garden, especially soil and water. Unlike plants growing in the ground, containerised plant roots are not able to spread and seek out their own sources of water and nutrients, and will rely on what you provide. It’s important therefore to ensure that they don’t dry out in the summer months. They may need watering two or three times a day when it is particularly hot, and you will also have to provide adequate drainage so that they don’t end up standing in water and rotting in the winter.

Tomatoes, peppers, courgettes and other hungry crops will quickly exhaust any nutrients in the soil, therefore it will need to be replenished at least every couple of years, and may require supplementing with an organic feed such as liquid seaweed extract. Use a good quality, peat-free potting compost, or better still, make your own. Juliet Kemp, author of Permaculture in Pots suggests using two parts mature compost, one part vermiculite, one part coarse sand and one part coir (a by-product of the coconut fibre industry) to increase water retention. You’ll also need to make sure you get plenty of sunshine during the growing season. A south facing, sheltered spot is ideal, but if this isn’t what you are lucky enough to have think about choosing plants that don’t mind a bit of shade like Welsh onions, mint, perpetual spinach and mustard greens.

Consider health and safety issues too. If growing on a balcony or roof make sure that the structure is suitably load-bearing and your containers are are not too heavy, remembering that they will weigh a lot more when the soil in them is wet rather than dry. Also ensure they are well secured if there is any chance they could fall onto passers by in the street below! Smaller containers such as pots and window boxes more usually used for annual flower displays are suitable for producing a selection of tasty edibles like chillies, cherry tomatoes or herbs like basil, chives, parsley and oregano. If you want to increase and diversify your crop range you’ll need something bigger. Currently, I’m using 30 litre plastic beer key-kegs, which my local micro-pub is only too pleased for me to take away by the dozen as they otherwise go into the waste stream. I simply cut off their bottoms with a sharp knife, remove the inner bags, flip them over, fill them up with compost, and hey presto, an instant container suitable for a variety of deeper rooted plants like Swiss chard, beets, carrots and tomatoes. As a word of warning, a few years ago I created a container garden for a local art gallery installation using some of those 80 litre perspex storage boxes sold in places like Ikea and Wilkinsons. Whilst great in terms of capacity, the plastic was extremely photosensitive and quickly became brittle in the sunlight, completely disintegrating within a year or two, and the last thing we want is more microplastics in the environment.

Growing potatoes in disused tyres can be a space saving fun family activity. Choose a sunny spot in your yard or balcony. Stack two or three tyres and fill them with damp compost to just over half the depth of the stacked tyres. Place four or five seed potatoes in the stack, about two inches deep, with the eyes or shoots facing up. Cover with a couple of inches of soil and keep them well watered and if you are lucky you’ll be harvesting a few pounds of spuds in the autumn. There have been concerns expressed in recent years about toxins from the tyres potentially contaminating your crop. As I understand it the risks are minimal, but it might be a good idea to provide an inner lining to minimise any contact between the tyre wall and the growing medium.

Forest gardening is a way of growing edible and useful crops modelled on the ecology of the woodland. It combines fruit trees and bushes in a small area, creating a healthy low-maintenance system providing its own fertility. Despite the name, the methods are very suitable for use in small urban gardens where both time and money are in limited supply. A mini-forest garden can be made in even the smallest space by using “dwarfing” varieties of apples grown in large pots along with compact varieties of currants, rhubarb and leafy herbs. Vertical space can also be utilised by growing runner beans and peas up bamboo canes, or training grapes, figs and other climbers to grow over frames and trellises. You could even create a micro-pond benefiting birds and other wildlife by using a half-barrel, an old butler sink (silicon a plug into the plughole to stop it leaking), or even a large washing-up bowl. In fact the only only limits to your container garden abundance are your own imagination and creativity!

Graham Burnett. Originally published in the Idler magazine.

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