Great Reasons to Grow Your Plants in a Container Garden | Gardening

By SarahDuke
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Word Count: 577

It's surprising that more people don't take advantage of container gardening, since it is one of the best ways to grow plants.

Container gardening is a great way to make the most of the limited space you have. Lots of people have houses or apartments with limited yard space. But with container gardening, they can enjoy plants virtually anywhere from their porch to inside their homes.

Many people have small container gardens in a sunny windowsill in their kitchen, or in a sunroom or spare bedroom. Some people even grow plants in a closet by using a grow light.

Being able to move your plants around is a real benefit of growing your garden in containers. When bad weather comes, you can move your plants indoors where they'll be safe. Your plants can be moved with just a little effort if they are getting too much or not enough sunlight, or if you think they'd look better elsewhere.

Most of the time plants that are grown in containers have fewer problems with diseases than plants in traditional gardens. While diseases can arise, it is less likely to occur when your plants are grown in containers. Most of the time the potting soil that you use for your plants doesn't have any organisms that can cause diseases, so your plants are less likely to be damaged.

Keeping your plants well-fed is also easier when they're grown in containers. It's much easier to ensure the fertilizer you use gets to your plants if they're confined to a small area of soil. When you fertilize plants that are growing directly in the soil, the fertilizer may drain away or be absorbed by other nearby plants. This is not as likely when plants are grown in containers.

Since your plants are in such a small area, the fertilizer may be washed away quickly. This means that you should take the time to fertilize the plants more often than plants that are in traditional gardens. However, usually you'll find that plants get more fertilizer even though it washes away quickly than they would if you had them in a traditional garden.

You'll also be able to extend the growing season of your plants when you have them all in containers. You can wrap the pots that your plants are in with blankets or other materials for insulation that will help keep them warm. This way you can easily start plants inside and then move them outside when it gets a bit warmer.

You can also use careful insulation to continue to grow plants after the first frost, and you can even bring plants indoors once it becomes too cold to keep them outside even if insulated.

Another advantage to container gardening is that it increases the accessibility of the hobby. For persons with physical disabilities and impairments, using containers allows them to enjoy and tend to plants in convenient locations. If a person uses a wheelchair, they can put the pots on a short table to make them easier to tend to. Elderly gardeners who are finding it more difficult to enjoy typical landscape gardening will find that container gardening offers the same joys but with less work.

Young children will also enjoy container gardening because it takes a lot of the work out of traditional gardening, such as removing weeds, and less adult supervision is required.

If your space is limited for gardening in a traditional landscape, then using pots instead is a great alternative to allow you to enjoy your plants.

About the Author

Sarah Duke is publisher of The Vegetable Patch at http://www.vegetablegardensite.com, where you'll find lots of information for starting a vegetable garden.

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