Container gardening is an easy, attractive, and low investment way to bring the freshest vegetables to your doorstep, literally.
I love stepping onto my porch in the morning to harvest chives, oregano, thyme, a few leaves of rainbow chard, and some edible flowers to garnish my morning scramble. Having these superfoods grow right outside my door helps me to incorporate them into my diet on the daily. The frequent visual reminder, accessibility, and ease can be a powerful nudge if you are trying to find ways to add more fresh and whole foods to your diet.
Also, if you are new to gardening or have limited space for such things, this is a very accessible entry point. All you need is a sunny spot for your potted plant, a bit of good soil, and a container with drainage and enough volume to accommodate a fully grown plant of your choosing. Salad greens, kale, chard, collards, herbs, tomatoes, cucumbers, and edible flowers like nasturtium, borage, and calendula are great options. Pots, five-gallon buckets, wine barrels, even derelict row boats will suffice. These containers, brimming over with lush vegetation, can turn a porch, staircase, window box, out of the way sidewalk, the edge of a driveway, or under-utilized patio into a verdant and delicious garden.
It is mid-summer as I write this, however you are not too late to get a wide range of greens in. Spinach, lettuce, cress, endive, escarole, arugula, and miner’s lettuce are all great to plant this time of year along with braising and steaming greens like kale, chard, collards, and turnip greens. Radishes and scallions can also be tossed in the mix for some spicy little treats. Then when spring rolls around next year, you’ll be all set to grow multiple successions of veggies throughout the season.
Some excellent sources for seeds to order online: Seed Savers Exchange, Uprising Seeds, or Eden Brothers.