The Easiest Vegetables to Grow in Pots and Window Boxes

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Planting a garden is a great way to feel connected to your food supply and seasonal changes. But gardening might seem out of the question in yards with limited soil and sunshine, or in urban environments. Luckily, raised beds, window boxes, and pots make it feasible—even on the smallest plots.

For advice on the intricacies of growing vegetables in tiny spaces, we consulted Henry Basile, the curator of Shofu-en Japanese Garden at the Denver Botanic Gardens and manager of Potager Kitchen Garden. With his advice, you can learn which vegetables are best to grow in urban environments and how to ensure a successful harvest when container gardening.

What Vegetables to Grow in an Urban Garden

In many urban yards, sunlight might be restricted by fences or other structures limiting exposure in the morning or evening. No problem—there are plenty of veggies you can grow that will appreciate some shade. Cool-season vegetables like carrots, peas, onions, and leafy greens like lettuce and chard, do well with a mix of shade and sunlight.

Even if your space doesn't get a ton of sun, you still may be able to successfully grow many warm-season vegetables, like tomatoes, zucchini, and cucumbers. These do well in full sun for six to eight hours a day. The beauty of growing vegetables in containers is the ability to move them to get more or less sunlight.

The names of many vegetable varieties offer a clue to their taste or growing conditions. You’ll find that Patio Star zucchini are small and do well in containers placed in sunny areas, and Arctic King lettuce grows well in, you guessed it, cold temperatures.

“Bush and dwarf varieties prove exceptional for smaller plots, containers, and for those looking to grow a more diverse variety of vegetables with limited space,” Basile says. The smaller vegetables pack plenty of flavor and don’t need as much room to grow.

While you have your green thumb out, keep in mind you can enhance your meals with herbs. There are a ton out there and they tend to thrive in the same conditions as vegetables. Herbs pack a lot of flavor and will grow in a sliver of soil inside a planter box placed on a window, patio, or fence.

Best Cool-Season Vegetables for Containers and Small Spaces

Leafy Greens: Kale, Spinach, Lettuce, Bok Choy, Mustard Greens
Peas (Seeded directly into the container)
Shallow Root Crops: Dwarf Carrots, Radish, Turnips, Dwarf Parsnips, Kohlrabi
Cool-Season Herbs: Cilantro, Parsley, Dill, Chives, Thyme, Sage, Fennel, Arugula

Best Warm-Season Vegetables for Containers and Small Spaces

Determinate Tomatoes/Bush Tomatoes: Some common varieties include Patio, Better Bush, Roma, Red Robin, and Bush Beefsteak. Cherry and Grape tomatoes are often determinate in nature—but there are exceptions. (Basile notes that a quick read of the seed packet or an online search of determinate varieties yields the best results.)
Bush Zucchini
Bush Cucumber
Bush Beans/Pole Beans
Eggplant
Smaller peppers (most spicy peppers)
Collard Greens
Potatoes
Sweet Potatoes
Swiss Chard and Beets
Warm-Season Herbs: Basil, Oregano, Sage, Lemongrass, Thyme, Mint

You'll be surprised how much produce you can grow in a small space.

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When to Plant Vegetables in a Home Garden

The trick to knowing when to plant certain vegetables in your garden is to figure out the planting seasons for your agricultural zone or region. It’s always a good idea to check with a local garden center or university extension for tips on when to plant vegetables and for ways to ward off pests and diseases common to your location.

“Another good tip is to memorize your first and last frost dates to ensure no harvests go to the compost pile inadvertently,” Basile suggests.

To get more from your garden, try succession planting, or planting a new wave of crops when the first crops are on their way to a harvest. You’ll get the yield from the earlier plantings while the next group is growing. This is also a good way to transition between cool-season and warm-season vegetables.

Cool-season crops planted in the spring will start to bolt (produce a flowering stem, signaling the end of its edible harvest life) once temperatures consistently rise above their comfort zone of 40 degrees F to 70 degrees F. Basile explains that these plants may keep producing, but the results will likely be bitter and a waste of resources and space. “For the highest yields, I recommend harvesting out the cool-season crops as soon as one shows signs of bolting, and putting something more suitable in its place,” Basile says. Warm-season vegetables like temperatures above 70 degrees F.

As the summer starts to wind down, you can plant cool-season vegetables like lettuce, spinach, and carrots for fall produce. “Cool-season crops can be extended with row covers, grow-tunnels, glass cloches, and cold frames in a pinch,” Basile says.

The Pros and Cons of Container Gardening

“Containers like pots and window boxes, or even five-gallon buckets with drainage holes are a wonderful option for those with poor soils, not-quite-green thumbs, or picky landlords,” Basile says.

For Basile, the benefits of container gardening include limiting weed, disease, and pest pressure as well as having greater control over watering, sunlight, and soil conditions.

This method is not without its drawbacks for certain vegetables and early plantings. Containers, especially small ones, expose the roots to colder temperatures, and a late freeze can kill your crops. “Much of the reason some vegetables may not succeed in containers is due to the constraints of limited space, limited nutrients, and lack of a stable temperature,” Basile says.

How to Start Container Gardening

1. Choose your soil

“Ideal soil pH for vegetables is 6 to 7, as most prefer the soil slightly acidic,” says Basile. While Basile likes the structure and aerated soil that potting mixes provide, he notes that common potting soils are filled with a lot of things that aren’t actually soil. These include peat moss, coconut coir, perlite, and vermiculite.

“While potting mixes provide an environment free of the ‘bad-guys’ in the soil, it also provides an environment free of the ‘good-guys' as well,” Basile explains. “These beneficial microbes in healthy soil are what quickly break down compost into usable nutrients and provide some of the best and highest-nutrition harvests.”

Since potting mix lacks these microbes, you'll likely need to add fertilizers to it every year. And since potting mixes have less organic matter, they hold less moisture and require more frequent watering than regular soil.

2. Avoid planting conflicts

Not all vegetables make good neighbors. Tomatoes and peppers can hog nutrients, which inhibits the growth of other plants. This is another reason to consider bush varieties in small gardens.

“Vining crops like cucumbers have large leaves and can shade out all of the crops closer to the ground, like beets and celery, in addition to using many soil resources at their base,” Basile says.

Another consideration is breaking up vegetable families. Before planting, look up the families of the plants you want in your garden. In general, you don’t want to plant vegetables of the same family next to each other as they share the same vulnerability to pests and diseases like blight. This means spacing apart members of the nightshade family (pepper, eggplant, tomato, potato) and even keeping carrot family herbs away from carrots.

“A few select plants, like garlic and fennel, can also have a chemical response (allelopathy) that inhibits the growth of other plants’ root systems,” Basile explains.

3. Pinch flowers early

For more harvest control, Basile advises “pinching flowers earlier in the season to sacrifice the first few fruits of a crop, but to ensure that you have a larger harvest later in the season.”

4. Harvest as soon as vegetables are ripe

For the best results, pick vegetables as soon as they are ripe so the plant keeps sending nutrients toward more vegetables instead of more leafy greens. You can store vegetables at room temperature inside until you can use them. They should last longer than a typical grocery vegetable since growing at home cuts down on transport.