Container Gardens for Vegetables

Header image for best vegetables to grow in pots, showing malabar spinach — I share my favourite vegetables to grow in pots.

I started growing vegetables in containers when I moved to my first apartment. I loved that apartment! It was in a low-rise yellow-brick building right on the water in suburban Montreal.

(I had the basement…not always a good choice in a waterfront location, but that’s another story.)

My landlord, Mr. Crevier, had ornamental garden beds in the yard. No vegetable plants. But when he decided to get rid of his boat, there was a weedy, hard-packed area where he’d parked his boat trailer. Knowing I worked in the horticulture industry, he asked if I’d like to make a garden there.

He didn’t have to ask twice.

The hard-packed soil was laced with gravel and debris. So I got nursery pots and soil from work, and had a vegetable container garden ready to plant within a couple of days.

Until that first container garden, I wasn’t a fan of container gardening. Seemed like a lot of work…second best to growing in the ground.

But my opinion changed.

my rooftop vegetable garden full of vegetables in containers — My rooftop vegetable garden! Growing vegetables in containers.

One of my container tomato plants birthed a 3-pound tomato. I had more lettuce than a bachelor could possibly eat. Buttered beans for supper every night…

Since that first container garden, I’ve made rooftop gardens, patio gardens, and driveway gardens full of planter vegetables…even when I have lots of space for veggies in my garden beds.

See my driveway garden.

If you’re thinking of a container gardening, keep reading: This post covers key things to think about, and gives you a list of my top vegetables to grow in pots.

3 Benefits of Vegetable Container Gardening

Container Gardening Gives Vegetable Crops More Heat

The soil in containers warms up more quickly than garden beds—making it possible to grow vegetables earlier in the spring.

Then, during the summer, the soil in containers gets warmer than in-ground beds. Think of sun hitting the side of a container and warming it up. That makes containers a great place to successfully grow heat-loving crops in areas with cool climates or short summers.

Containers Help Squeeze More into a Small Space

It goes without saying that container gardening is a great way to garden in small spaces by using otherwise unused spaces where there’s paving, poor soil, or competing roots.

To squeeze even more vegetable container crops into limited yard space, think in layers:

Low containers
Containers filling space higher up
More containers up above—maybe hanging baskets

Containers to Overcome Soil Issues

Container gardening is also a good option in places with possible soil contamination.

Find out more about soil contamination.

Even if the soil is OK, sometimes tree roots make gardening in the ground impractical. Containers to the rescue!

Thinking of Growing Veg in Containers?

Find out how to set up for success, pick great crops, and care for them. Container Vegetable Gardening Masterclass gives you the information and ideas you need for *high-yield container vegetable crops.*

My Top 12 Vegetable Container Plants

Here are my top vegetables to grow in pots. (In that first container vegetable garden in Montreal I had a lot of these—and they’re still my top choices.)

Beans

Bush, pole, and runner beans all do well as container vegetable crops. Pole and runner beans are a good option where there is a wall, trellis, or railing for support.

I grow both bush beans and pole beans in my driveway container garden. The pole beans hide an ugly fence, while the bush beans fill in space in front of tomato plants.

Recently I’ve been growing beans in my straw-bale gardens. Like container gardens, straw-bale gardens are great for small and paved spaces.

Find out more about straw-bale gardens.

Beet

Paris Market carrot, good for smaller containers — Paris Market carrot, a small carrot that’s well-suited to smaller containers.

Something that puts beets high on my list of is that there are two edible parts: the root, and the leaves.

Beet root is a great storage crop. Here are 25 storage crops you can grow at home.

‘Bulls Blood’ has red foliage prized as a colourful salad green.

Carrot

You can still grow carrots if you have small containers. For shallow containers, look for short varieties that have shallow roots, such as the little, round ‘Paris Market.’

As with beets, this is a crop with two edible parts: Leaves and roots are both edible.

Eggplant

Eggplant loves heat, making it a great choice for growing in containers. Pick the sunniest location you have.

Eggplant flowers are very attractive, making this one of those vegetable crops that’s very ornamental, too.

For novelty, look for red, white, or striped varieties.

eggplant fruit and flowers, a crop for containers in full sun — Potted plants that look beautiful! Try some eggplant.

Kale

Kale has excellent ornamental properties as it comes in many colours and has many leaf shapes and textures.

It holds up well through fall frosts and into winter, making it a must-have crop if you want a long harvest window.

Leek

So often overlooked, the leek is something to add to a container vegetable garden for two reasons:

It lasts right into the winter, making it perfect for gardeners wanting a long harvest window
It has a beautiful shape, and makes an excellent centrepiece in a decorative fall container.

(Makes a nice centrepiece in a fall planter, surrounded by colourful Swiss chard and filly parsley!)

Malabar Spinach

A vining plant with edible stems and leaves that are a good addition to a stir fry. There’s a green variety, and also a red-leafed variety that’s very beautiful.

It’s a great crop for vertical gardening.

Get more vertical gardening ideas.

malabar spinach is a great potted vegetable crop — Malabar spinach is a great vegetable to grow in containers because it looks beautiful, produces a lot in a small space, and thrives in the heat.

Okra

Okra loves heat, making it a good choice for containers in sunny locations.

The red-podded varieties are beautiful, with red stems and red veins on the leaves. Nice ornamental value.

Here’s a chat with the Indiana Jones of okra.

Pepper

Peppers thrive in the heat, so are very well suited to growing in containers in sunny locations.

Both sweet peppers and hot peppers do well as container plants.

Many of the hot peppers have a compact form and look beautiful when the plants are covered with colourful peppers. (A favourite around here it Chinese 5 Colour Pepper, where the peppers go through 5 colours as they ripen—it’s beautiful.)

container grown pepper plant laden with peppers — This container pepper plant is laden with peppers!

Potato

I love the special fingerling potato varieties that make great potato salads. Don’t waste precious container garden space on big clunky storage potatoes!

Tip: Potatoes form near the soil surface, and it’s important to keep them covered with soil so that they do not go green with exposure to sunlight. Start with just a small amount of soil at the bottom of the pot, then keep adding as the plant grows.

There are even planters with openings in the side for easy early harvest without digging up the whole plant—perfect when you only want a couple of potatoes at a time.

Swiss Chard

I love Swiss chard because it keeps making leaves all summer long…while lettuce and spinach bolt at the first sniff of summer heat. This is the crop if you want leafy greens.

Chard has excellent ornamental properties as it comes in many colours. It holds up well through light fall frosts.

Chard is also a very ornamental vegetable and looks great in the fall.

Check out what chard looks like in the fall.

Tomato

For containers, look for “bush” or “determinate” tomatoes. Or the even more compact “dwarf” types.

I wish I remembered the variety that I grew in that first container garden in Montreal. It was a big, thin-skinned pinky-red coloured variety. But it wasn’t a bush type—which made it more work to stake.

‘House’ is a very compact variety that does well in containers, one that my daughter Emma often grows. Hear her chat with tomato expert Linda Crago about ‘House’ tomato and other fun tomato varieties.