Growing vegetables as part of a container garden has become very popular in the past few years. More and more seed houses are offering varieties bred especially for the patio and container garden. Last summer, I trialed many container varieties including tomatoes, hot and sweet peppers, cucumbers, baby gourmet vegetables, lettuces and greens, herbs and flowers.


The tomato is the vegetable (really a fruit), that is the most talked about in terms of container gardening. Most people I speak to are surprised that it is possible to grow tomatoes in containers and in small spaces. I see from the looks on their faces, their imaginings of the indeterminate vining tomatoes that are uncontainable.
These days many determinate tomato varieties are suitable for growing in containers in small spaces. Tomatoes are satisfying to grow and love to be protected from wind and weather.
I companion planted some tomatoes with basil and these plants provided sweeter more abundant fruit. I also placed pots of herbs and flowers next to my SunPod cold frames to encourage bees that aid in pollination. Some of my favourite varieties for containers are “Jolly Elf”, “Patio”, “Gold nugget”, and “Husky red cherry”



I grew “Salad Bush” cucumber, a compact, bushy dark green plant that produces dark green-skinned durable cucumbers that are sweet and compare in taste to my favourite garden varieties. Each plant produced 6-8, 8- inch long cucumbers.
I grew “Salad bush” in cedar boxes, inside a SunPod Harvest cold frame. This allowed me to have 3 crops of cucumbers during the season: spring planting for early summer harvest, early summer planting for summer harvest and late summer plantings for fall harvest.
I planted dwarf sunflowers in with the cucumbers because I have had great success with companion planting these varieties in the garden. I will include “Salad Bush “ again this year along with some other new varieties.


Sugar snap peas are an excellent if somewhat surprising choice for a container vegetable garden. I grow the dwarf variety “Sugar Ann” that reaches a height of only 1.5 feet, perfect to fit inside my SunPod cold frames. Fresh peas are a treat and can be grown in succession for harvest 7 months of the year.

Sweet peppers and hot peppers are best grown in containers. They can be moved to increase available sun hours and require little to grow well. Covering peppers ripens them earlier and keeps them later in the season.

Baby gourmet vegetables, such as carrots and beets are excellent spring and fall crops to harvest from your cold frame. Start them easily from seed and transplant them into deeper containers for fresh baby vegetables.
“Mignon”, “Thumbelina” and “Maxi” are good baby carrot varieties.
Some beet varieties can be harvested as baby beets and be sweet and tender. Some examples are “Kestral” and “Bull’s blood “( named for the deep colour of its leaves, also a reason to grow this beauty)


Lettuces and greens are obvious choices for containers, as they do not grow very tall. Lettuce does produce deep roots however and needs to be given a deep container and plenty of food to be sweet. Loose leaf and cut and come again varieties are easier to grow in containers than head forming lettuces.
Beet greens are high in iron and antioxidants and grow well without as much fussing as lettuce and have the bonus of having sweet roots.
Chard and oriental greens are cold tolerant and grow well in the SunPod cold frames from late winter to spring, particularly with the extra light from the T5 lights.



photos and content by Rachel Lloyd.