Container and Backyard Gardening Ideas

For the past 8 years we’ve planted a backyard garden and every year it gets bigger. The first year that we started we only planted a few tomato and bell pepper plants. Over the years we’ve added more items. Some of them are in garden plots and a few are in containers. Yes, even if you don’t have a large backyard or none at all…you can grow a few things in containers!

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For the 2020 gardening season we have 3 red raspberry bushes which gave us 4 quarts of berries back in mid July. In May we added a mature concord grapevine in one corner of our yard. It’s doing well and we’re hoping to have grapes next year!

The photo above shows what we harvest in one day last month. We’re harvesting fresh veggies and/or fruits almost daily which is nice! In the photo you can see 2 large zucchinis, 3 large cucumbers, 12 small red beets, green bell pepper and tomatoes. We eat some things right away and other things I preserve with canning/freezing them.

In our backyard we have one main gardening plot which contains: zucchini, cucumbers, green bell peppers, orange bell peppers, banana hot peppers, red tomatoes, yellow tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, 2 watermelon plants and green peas.

We’re experimenting with container gardening this year and in our containers we have 3 cherry tomato plants, 12 white potatoes, 6 onions, 3 dozen red beets, parsley and basil. They’ve done so well that hubby is going to build more containers and a raised gardening bed next spring so that we can expand on the items that we’re growing.

I’m often asked if we plant by seed or by plants. The answer is BOTH. I have a sun room that gets a lot of sun (plus it stays very warm) and early in the springtime we’ll start our plants indoors via seeds. I save all of our yogurt, oatmeal, plastic butter dishes and cardboard egg cartons which are perfect for seedlings. When spring rolls around I have plenty in my stash to get us started.

There are some things that we’ve found that grow better by us purchasing the plants and planting them. Our soil can be finicky so we always buy our tomato plants at the gardening center. Most other things we start by seed.

Do you have a garden this year? If so, what did you plant? How is your garden doing? If you don’t have a yard you can garden too with container gardening. You can at least set up a small herb garden on your windowsill, front or back porch. We’ve grown cherry tomatoes from growing baskets that hang off our back deck and those did well too. There are some workable options for those with no yards!

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