If you are thinking of setting up container gardening to grow vegetables then have a practice run first. Grow a few vegetables in small pots to see what you think. You can use old pots from around your home like used yogurt or margarine containers. Or if you have any old food tins that you haven’t recycled yet. Big pet food tins are good. Just punch a hole in the bottom for drainage. Or you can make seed starter pots from old newspaper. Then all you do is pop the whole pot and plant in the big container.

The problem with container gardening in an apartment is getting the soil or compost. Buy it if you have too. I always buy the cheapest as I keep adding mulch back to the pot.

Now while your seedlings are growing check out the big pots. If you are into vegetables you need quite big pots, but for individual dwarf plants like tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplants and chilly plants you will only have one plant per pot. Possibly with a fast growing vegetable like radish or spinach growing round the main plant. This way you can have something to eat while waiting for the tomatoes.

Big pots are quite difficult to move so make sure they are where you want them and there is a place for excess water to drain away. With little pots that are sitting in water trays you can move them around so they are not so much of a problem.

Getting soil can be a big problem with big pots. So before you get carried away make sure you know where you can get some soil even if it is from the vacant lot next door. For mulch I rake leaves off the park. No one seems to mind. So for container gardening vegetables make sure you can get the soil to fill the pots.

With a container vegetable garden there are basically two types – one you move around to follow the sun and the other where the pots are so heavy you can’t move them. If you are thinking of a reasonable sized vegetable garden you need both types of pots.

With some plants you might have to stake them up, then they become permanent so you can’t move them round. Usually you move the pots until you find a nice spot and then just leave them.

You could set up a small trellis on the balcony and have an assortment of pots with different vegetables growing up the trellis – ranging from peas and beans to cucumber and eggplant. When buying the seeds look to see if the variety is a bush or a vine.

With the bigger pots that are too heavy to move before you fill then up with soil make sure they are in the right place because once the soil is in they are very hard to move. These are the pots for your green vegetables. Plant a dense floor of vegetables and when you take any away to eat you will plant another seed. You need a carpet of vegetables covering the pot all the time. If you are getting ready to harvest a plant have the seed already growing in a seeding tray and just pop it in.

For some plants you don’t need very deep pots just foot deep trays like the seeding trays will do. With a container vegetable garden you must keep the mulch up. All vegetable waste you don’t eat goes back on the garden.