**When you are starting up a potted vegetable garden just remember you need big pots**

With big pots in your potted vegetable garden you have more area for root growth and for healthy plants you need a good root system. If you tip out the soil from a potted vegetable that has already

died off you will see the root wrapped round and round inside the bottom of the pot. So potted vegetable garden plants need a lot of room for root space.

Also when you are setting up the soil to go in the potted vegetable garden mix in plenty of organic matter like leaves, grass and old plants.

Also fill the containers up as full as possible with earth because you grow smaller fast growing vegetables in the top of the pot like lettuce and radish before the main plant crowds out the smaller plants. A lot of plants are not really suited to containers but you should try them out and see what happens but stick to the bush varieties, unless you have some sort of trellis. This way you could have a vertical garden of cucumbers, beans and eggplants. If the pots are big and deep you can even grow carrots and turnips around the main plant.

As with growing any kind of garden all potted vegetable plants need sunlight and water to grow, so give it to them.

Most plants do well in the afternoon sun that means on the south side of the house. If you live in a flat or an apartment you can have pots all over the balcony and windowsills as long as they are in the sun. And don’t forget to water the plants. For fertilizer I put organic matter or mulch on top of the pot and just let it decompose back into the soil, I believe in the organic natural farming method so I don’t use any chemicals, pesticides or fertilizer of any kind.

For more information about how to grow vegetables check out our Vegetable Gardening page