How to Grow Vegetables in Containers // Container Gardening

Wondering what size pots are best for growing vegetables in containers? In this video, I walk you through my personal container garden and show you exactly what size pot I use for each plant — from tomatoes and peppers to leafy greens, root veggies, herbs, and more.

If your garden isn’t thriving, pot size might be the problem. Whether you’re working with a tiny patio, a sunny balcony, or just want to grow more food in less space, choosing the right container size is key to healthier plants and bigger harvests.

👩‍🌾 In this video, you’ll learn:

– The best pot size for tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash, carrots, greens, and more
– Why root depth matters more than width for some veggies
– My favorite types of containers (and what mistakes to avoid)

GIVEAWAY INSTRUCTIONS
1. Comment on this video
2. Visit https://bit.ly/3TL9nor and enter your email so we can contact you if you win
We will choose the winner on July 5, 2025

MENTIONED LINKS
Free Garden Guide: https://www.gardenguide.com
Grassroots Fabric Pots & Beds: https://www.gardenguide.com/shop
Neptunes Harvest Fertilizer: https://www.neptunesharvest.com/shop.html
Enter Code: NLG05 at checkout

MENTIONED VIDEO
Grow Zucchini Vertically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEOLY9D5n2k

hey guys so i’ve been working on setting up my small space garden and what that means is mostly containers and because i’ve had some issues with bineweed and bermuda grass in the vegetable garden i’m actually going to be expanding my small space garden not by size but i’m going to try to be fitting even more containers into it while i figure out and deal with the weed issue in the main vegetable garden and working with all the pots it got me thinking of a question that i’m asked very very often and that is what size pot is best for what vegetable crop and so i thought today i would go through all of that with you and uh just finally nail that down and i know container gardening especially if you’re new to it it can get a bit overwhelming especially when you’re figuring out what size pot do i put all these crops in but i promise you once you get it figured out and you will after today it’s going to be really rewarding now before we get started i just wanted to mention that we are doing a big giveaway uh at the end of this video in fact grassroots who i got most of these containers from and some of the fabric raised beds that are in my vegetable garden they’re going to be giving away a $175 gift card to one of you but we’ll get into that at the end of the video so stick around all right let’s start with tomatoes probably the biggest diva of a container garden now as you can see uh this tomato plant has more tomatoes on it than it’s got leaves almost because i have it in the right size pot and i’m not overfertilizing it now if you want to know all the tips on fertilizing i’ll put a link down in the video description from last week’s video about fertilizer mistakes you can grow a tomato in a fivegallon bucket however and this is kind of the idea with all of these that i’m going to be giving you there are minimum size containers and then there are idealsiz containers now an ideal size for a tomato plant is 15 to 20 gallons which is what this pot is it’s just a pot that i got a tree in from a nursery and the reason i say there are minimum requirements and then there are ideal requirements uh is because the more soil you have in a pot the easier it is to regulate the moisture and the nutrients in that pot small pots dry out faster and they leech nutrients faster plus when you’re growing something that needs a stake or a cage you just want enough soil in there to be able to put put the steak in and have it be anchored to something right a little tiny pot’s not going to do that and a little pot is not going to have the weight with the soil in it to be able to keep it from getting topheavy when these plants get big all right next up is peppers and peppers are not as big a divas as tomatoes when it comes to growing them in containers in fact you can get away with 3 to 5 gallons now i’ve got two peppers here in a 7gallon grow bag or fabric pot depending on what you call it i grow peppers in pairs pretty close together um in fact if you got two in one little plug that you started seeds from both seeds came up you can go ahead and put that in a pot together they seem to enjoy growing like that no more than two but when they’re close together the leaves help to shade each other’s fruit which prevents sunscald and they also seem to kind of help hold each other up that way if you’re in a hot climate that’s great peppers love the heat but they also need to hold on to moisture so again bigger pots are better and they also need room for their roots to spread out and to breathe they don’t want to be in something super tight or they’re going to get cranky and their growth might get stunted now this is not the time of year for us here in southern california to grow almost any type of greens chardred maybe um kale those would be fine but any lettucees or rugula or anything like that they’re going to bolt very quickly coming up here soon the heat’s coming and just not a good match but if you have a cooler summer or if you’re watching this right now and it’s fall and you’re getting ready to plant greens and you want to do it in containers let’s go over it other than regularized kale and swiss chard those are two greens that get pretty big and they are going to need at least a 7gallon container especially kale that grows tall you need that weight of that container to keep it from flopping over but for most greens like arugula lettucees some of the smaller asian greens um you could get away with a really small pot now again a really small pot you’re going to have to pay more attention to the moisture and the fertilization schedule but if you want to grow them in a small pot you can do that most of those types of crops only need about 6 to 8 in of soil so a small bowl a trough reusing gallon size pots from the nursery or something like this those would all be great for those type of greens but you also want to remember if you’re working on size and not necessarily budget um a bigger pot is going to be able to grow more lettuce than many small pots because you’ve got the space between the pots that isn’t accounted for with small pots whereas a 20gallon size pot like this you can grow a lot of lettuce in there greens like cool weather consistent moisture so if you’re growing in small pots again you got to keep an eye on those during hot weather and you might want to move them more into the afternoon shade uh to just keep them going a little bit longer and if you harvest them right you can grow several rounds of lettuce in a small pot um you want to use the cut and come again method which means don’t cut it off at the base you can either pluck the leaves around the edge or you can leave about an inch and just cut the whole thing off and then that will grow back and you’ll have another cutting from it later and you can get two to three uh harvests out of one lettuce plant that way now root vegetables like carrots and beets you’ve really got to pay attention to the depth of the pot that you’re growing them in you’re going to want something from for the most part about 12 to 14 in deep so we’re not talking in gallons necessarily um but you want deeper pots because guess what carrots have long roots they grow deep now if you’re growing little short stubby carrots like parisian or little finger um you don’t necessarily have to worry about that so much but longer varieties like danvers and nantis you want to make sure that you read the seed package or the description on the website or wherever you get it in the catalog and see how long those carrots are and just make sure that your pot is a couple inches deeper than that also you don’t want to add too much nitrogen to the pots of uh carrots especially and no manure in those pots at all those two things can make carrot roots fork and get twisted and weird and sometimes obscene and always use loose well- draining soil no rocks no little stones those will also make carrots fork all right next is cucumbers now i’ve got my cucumbers growing in my green stock um i’ve got lots of things growing in this green stock actually but don’t be fooled by the small looking nature of the pockets on the green stock that’s not the only soil they have in fact the entire center of the green stock all the way down is full of soil that’s why you can get away with growing so much in such a small space other than the fact that it’s also stacked into a tower but you can also grow them in a pot like this you can grow them up a a teepee and they’ll do great cucumbers are very prolific in pots you can just i mean if you have the space you can just let them ramble out of the pot onto the ground or into a path you could get away with 5 gallons if you watch the watering but again bigger is better and i think 10 gallons would let you be a little more handsoff and you get a better harvest that way one mistake i made the first couple of times that i grew cucumbers in pots is not realizing once they’re fruing how much water they need and they’re typically fruing in the warmest part of the year so those two factors a bigger pot is better or keep an eye on the watering in this 7gallon pot is zucchini now zucchinis do get big they tend to want to trail through the garden so if you’re growing them in a raised bed or in the ground you’re going to notice they kind of snake through the bed eventually as the season goes on now in the ground and in pots you might have noticed in this pot i’ve got it planted against a stake at the edge of the pot and you might never have seen a zucchini growing on a steak we’re not talking about like tra like climbing winter squash we’re talking about a zucchini if from the very beginning you train them and you tie them to that steak as they grow you can grow a zucchini vertically i’ll put a link to a video i did all about this in the in the description so for the reason that they take up a lot of water and nutrients and are big plants you want as big of a pot as you can manage this is a minimum seven is a minimum you also want the weight of that pot if you’re going to be growing them up a steak cuz guess what when they’re three feet tall and they got fruit on them they’re pretty heavy the other great thing about growing zucchini vertically is it tends to attract more pollinators you’ve got the flowers kind of more up in the air they’re not covered by all the leaves of the garden and it also gets the fruit off the ground so if you have any critters eating your fruit if it’s up growing on a steak they tend to leave it alone it’s also great for helping control powdery mildew which at least here my zucchini get every year but if you’re growing them up a steak it improves the airflow of the leaves and it can push that powdery mildew off by at least a month or two now just so you know you don’t have to remember all this so if you’re taking notes that’s great but you don’t have to all you have to do is go to our free growing guide and you put in whatever plant you’re growing and it tell it will tell you what size pot it’ll tell you everything about how to grow that plant including how much water to give it depending on how you water soaker hose hose drip system it’s just a no-brainer so garden.com totally free so we’ve got some herbs growing here in the green stock i’ve got some parsley and some basil and for the most part herbs can be grown in smaller containers one gallon 2 gallon for the annual herbs parsley and basil when you get into the perennial herbs like mint rosemary um those are going to keep growing for you if you live in a climate where you can do that i think probably zone eight and up and so it’s better to have those in bigger pots so they can grow into that pot and you’re not going to have to be repotting them now if you live in a climate that gets too cold um you can grow all of them in small pots in fact a lot of the mediterranean herbs like rosemary and thyme they’re very drought tolerant so you don’t have to be quite as worried about watering a small container with those herbs as you would let’s say basil and while we’re speaking of herbs and containers one herb that you will always want to grow in a container even if you have 5 acres of garden space is mint mint as soon as it gets into the ground it will take over and you will be sorry that you ever planted mint so keep it in a container keep it contained now we just spoke about beans and i i’m growing my beans in this green stock they’re actually just new plants and they’re already pretty productive now this green stock has a lot of soil in it as i mentioned it’s not just the little pocket that you see the plant coming out of so beans would be great in a 7gallon pot uh if they’re bush beans you could probably fit three bush beans in a 7gallon pot if they are pole beans meaning they need a trellis you want to probably go to about a 10 or more gallon pot again to have some space for that trellis to be put in um and also to keep it from being topheavy how about strawberries strawberries have shallow roots i’ve got mine here and i’ve got a whole tower in this green stock of strawberries and they’ve been pretty productive this year now the green stock’s actually great for strawberries when i have my strawberries in the ground they were always attacked by pests the pest would get every single one before i could i have a much better chance of harvesting these without the pest getting on them when they’re not laying on the ground and they’re here up in the air just keep strawberries damp at all times and containers are also great if you live in a cold climate i think zone five and below and you they’re going to freeze in a container you won’t be able to keep them uh like you would in the ground but a container you can take into a garage or a greenhouse in the winter so if you’re feeling unsure about pot sizes use this video or use garden.com and you’re not going to have to feel unsure anymore it’s all spelled out right here for you just remember water leaves containers faster and nutrients leave containers faster so just keep an eye on that put your finger in the soil 2 in deep if you feel moisture you don’t need to water if it’s dry water um the best way to fertilize containers is to use a organic liquid fertilizer i use neptune’s harvest i have discounts on that i’ll leave them down below in the video description but just feed that half strength on a weekly basis that way you get kind of a habit a pattern that you get used to every week every monday or fertilizer fridays i heard someone say just half strength water all of your plants that way and you’re going to keep them hydrated and you’re going to keep them fed throughout the growing season all right i hope this gave you some real world guidance on pot sizes if it did consider subscribing give the video a thumbs up and now let’s talk about our giveaway grassroots is the creator of these uh grow bags or fabric pots that you see here now i have never been able to grow in grow bags we live in a a hot dry climate and grow bags always dried out i would have to water them two to three times a day in the summer and that’s not feasible but these grow bags have the living soil technology meaning they have this liner here that is food safe of course and that liner goes about 3/4 down the pot it stops right here and this is just fabric that allows these fabric containers to do best what people get grow bags for and that is root pruning when roots touch the edge of the pot and they feel that oxygen there from the outside world rather than in a regular pot the roots just kind of coil around and strangle the plant eventually if you’ve been to the garden center and gotten old plants you know what that looks like it prunes the roots meaning it cuts them off and makes them branch and just like when we’re pinching back plants it causes a better root system just like pinching back plants causes a bushier plant and so that’s what you want these pots to do and that’s mostly done in the bottom quarter of the container and the top threequarters of the container you don’t really need that as much and so this liner helps hold the moisture in and i literally cannot grow in any other type of of fabric container or grow grow bag than these type of pots and they’re really affordable and they last i know not forever but i’ve been here 4 years this year and i brought my two raised beds and some pots from our last house so they’re at least 5 years old and they have no signs of slowing down they have no signs of needing to be replaced so i think that’s probably one of fab uh grassroots problems is they make their pots last too long but that’s good for us all right so how do you enter the giveaway first of all i want to say that i haven’t done a giveaway in a long time um because every time we do a giveaway scammers show up in the comments and they say “you’ve won to almost everybody call this number.” number it’s usually a whatsapp number and then they will try to scam you out of money by charging you some kind of high shipping charge to send you your prize that’s not how it works when we have a sponsor the sponsor pays for the shipping they they they pay for everything you don’t pay for anything so just to make it easier we we’re going to do this a little bit differently so there’s two things to do if you want to enter for the $175 gift card to grassroots one comment on this video and let me know why you grow in containers or why you want to grow in containers the second thing is there’s a link in the video description click on that link give us your email so that we will be able to contact you directly by email if you win we will not be giving your email to anybody else that stays with us so that’s all you have to do good luck we’re giving you 7 days so on july 5th this this giveaway runs through july 5th so if you’re not seeing this on the day it comes out that’s okay you’ve got a week but on july 5th we’re going to randomly pick a winner and then we’ll contact you by email to let you know you’ve won all right good luck guys i’ll see you next time