A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum advice needed

Hi everyone,

I would love to grow a few veggies for my hubby and myself, but i do not have alot of room to work with. My question is, can you grow veggies in 5 gallon buckets with holes drilled in them or small flat boxes with drain holes in them?

thanks for all your help

You don't mention what you had in mind for vegetables, but my wife & I have had good luck growing tomatoes, bell & hot peppers in 5 gallon sized planters. We were given some long plastic box planters like the kind most people use for flowers but we did bush beans & radishes in them. All turned out well. My only advice is from finding out the hard way- is to anchor your tomato pails down-with stakes, sticks and/or twine or something because as they get bigger the wind loves to blow them over! I also pruned the tomatoes to keep them a nice bush size, but you can get hybrid tomatoes bred for container planting, we just never bought them.

Good luck!

i've grown nearly everything from beans to zucchini in 5 gallon buckets. it all went as well as i monitored the water. i prefer it as i get older. i'm just not up to hoeing a long row (or short one for that matter) of veggies of any kind.

and i used food grade buckets that various restaurants gave me. drilled holes in the bottoms and went for it.

Hi Jiffy! Good advice.
Yep, anything can be grown in containers. Corn would be a challenge, but tomatoes, cukes, squash, you name it, will do fine as long as you water. 5 gallons may be more than you need for some. I grow peppers and some tomatoes in 3 gallon containers. Leaf lettuce and radishes, spinach, others do great in anything with a depth of 6 or 8 inches of soil.

would you believe, i grew corn 3 years ago in buckets? i had 4 stalks, 2 per bucket, and got one ear. but i'd have done better if i had remember to water that was a bad year for me, but everything i started came up and gave me something to eat!