Question: What types of plants grow best in a container vegetable garden?

Answer: Types that stay small and produce heavily. Avoid crops like okra, corn, watermelons and potatoes that either need more space than any conventional container would allow, or that would produce so little per container that they wouldn’t be practical. Best bets: lettuce, cabbage, spinach, radishes, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. Use a really good potting soil, and water and fertilize the plants more often than you would if they were in the ground. Container gardening lets you get a head start in the spring, and it allows you to shuttle tender plants into the garage on the first cold nights of late fall.