I’m a novice gardener! Here’s my humble container garden. From left to right (generally) I have tomatoes, sage, basil, mint, parsley, cilantro, kale, lettuce and pansies.
Is it too much for a small ish container? Will they choke each other out? This part of my yard only gets about 5 hours of direct sun. Will that be ok?
Clearly I have no idea what I’m doing, so welcome any and all pieces of advice!
by ladidadida78
33 Comments
I like to plant things this close (square foot gardening style) and things will get out of control but I think everyone here will be fine, EXCEPT for the mint- mint likes to spread! Everywhere! The tomatoes might struggle with 5 hours of sun. What variety are they? I would suggest pruning them at the bottom as they grow to ensure airflow especially as the herbs get bigger.
Best you can do is try and see how it goes and learn for next time. Learn trimming techniques for your plants to encourage specific growth.
Looks so muck better than mine this year they stunted and my basil is only like 4 leaves lol
Take the mint out for sure. Keep it in a separate pot and don’t plant in ground either!
The tomatoes probably will need more light. I would consider moving them to pots as well. Then the kales can have a little more space between each other, they will get quite large!
Move the mint. Others are good
Get that mint out of there oh my gosh 🙏🏻 Your whole raised bed will be unusable pretty quickly in my (very bad) experience!
I just want to offer a positive anecdote about sun hours. I think your tomatoes will do ok, especially if you’re on top of watering, pruning, and maybe a bit of fertilizer here or there. I had a garden at a rental with only about 5 hours of full sun, and a little time on either side of dappled sun, and everything produced like crazy including our tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, etc.
Enjoy your garden!
The mint will overtake everything and make for a nasty mess. That stuff spread worse than a weed and LINGERS
Everything looks great but please take the mint out and put it in its own pot. It’s great but very invasive and will take over everything and will become a large bed of mint.
In addition to removing the mint, my sage is about five feet in diameter. My parsley is three feet in diameter. Is that curly parsley? No flavor. One kale is enough for me and wife. Flowers are nice but if you want veg put those in another pot. Five hours is low so dark leaf plants will do better. Looks real nice though.
Take the mint out!!! It will take over everything, put it in its own container
That mint is gonna be 90% of the container in a few months.
Agreed the mint is a vicious predator
That mint is going to make itself very comfortable.
I think your setup could really work, but only if you save it from the mint! Think of mint like Audrey II. Sentient, evil, and prolific.
Tomatoes can get really big so unless you have a special small variety, they should come out. What did the package say? Should give you directions as to variety and how much space it needs?!
Don’t know where you are but tomatoes love full sun and like it hot! Lettuce likes it colder and usually goes to seed when it gets hot!
Good luck though, it’s fun and all an experiment when you start out. You will learn what to do and not to do for the future. Google planting potatoes, that is so much fun!
You can keep the mint in there , but be warned it will quickly become a mojito bar. I like it because it keeps some critters away and smells nice
Looks good. Let it ride buddy! Mint is useful.
I would remove the mint and sage into their own planters. Mint will choke out everything in that bed. Sage will just eventually get big, and it’s a perennial.
While that looks very nice, there are too many plants. Most vegetables require a min 8 hours of sun a day if you want them to produce.
Tomatoes need a min of 12 inch spacing and depending on variety could easily reach 4 feet. One kale plant will grow 2 feet wide and 3 feet tall and the stock will be 1.5 inches wide.
But considering everything will be stunted , maybe remove a couple plants and enjoy watching it grow slowly.
Mint will take over the whole container
I love this! I also love to crowd stuff together and it works for me as long as I give the plants enough nutrients. I would move the sage and the mint to somewhere else though. Maybe stick a cucumber in their place instead? I grow cucumbers next to my tomato cages and it works great because they need similar nutrients and the cucumber can vine along the tomato cages.
The cilantro will go to seed almost instantly. Save the seeds then plant them this fall under the taller plants.
Looks great. See what works and improve for next year. Small space gardening takes some work to keep plants the size you want. Don’t be afraid to cut things back to give room to the things you want more of.
Get that mint out of there and put it in a separate pot. It will take over. I’d also put the sage in a separate pot because it can become a rather large perennial (as in comes back every year) plant. Everything else should be good. Your tomato would likely prefer more sun but everything else should do great.
I love that garden. This is the second year and I’ve already relented, I’ll always have a chaos garden, it’s kind of fun.
I live in Phoenix and everything Ive read online about how to garden has not worked and I found a couple neighbors with gardens that were thriving and asked them and it was the best advice I ever got.
Looks amazing!!
Wait, you planted mint!?!
So, pull the mint out ASAP and put it into a pot next to the garden bed 🙂 like, pull it out and don’t look back, we aren’t kidding haha.
those hoop tomato cages are a trap. i have never seen a single one that wasn’t complete crap, i have a pile of abandoned ones sitting in the corner of my yard.
Wow ok – unanimous opinion – the mint is OUTTA HERE! lol wow I had no idea it was so ‘dangerous’. I do have some extra pots so will plant them there.
Thanks for the advice everyone!!
It looks beautiful!
We’re all just learning. Even very experienced gardeners learn something new every year. Welcome to the life of gardening. It’s a great place to be.