Gardening in small spaces

I would love to have a huge garden where I had room to grow all my own fruits and veggies. Unfortunately, I live in a townhouse. We have a reasonable yard for the size of our home but I certainly won't be growing all my own goods until we have a bigger place, if even then. This doesn't stop me from growing my own fruits and vegetables, and it doesn't have to stop you, either, no matter how small your space.

There are a lot of good options for the apartment or townhouse dweller. Dwarf varieties of many plants are readily available, like this dwarf blueberry bush in my little yard:


Strawberries are perfect for containers and will return year after year if treated well. I have three strawberry plants and a dwarf blueberry in the same large pot. They have been very happy together. No blueberries last year, but it was a very young plant. I enjoyed a few strawberries and am looking forward to more this year as the plants are bigger. I can already see berries that I'll be enjoying soon.


Even tree fruits are available to the apartment dweller as many dwarf varieties can do well in large pots. Grafted trees can allow you to have many varieties on one tree (I've seen up to 6 different kinds of apples on a single tree!).

I think by far the best thing a home grown garden can offer is tomatoes. Tomatoes fresh from the garden are so much sweeter and more flavorful than anything from the store. Even full size tomatoes make very good potted plants. If I had room for nothing else, I would have a tomato plant (or two!). Here I have two, a cherry and a roma (along with two pepper plants).


Then, of course, there are herbs. These little guys are happy in your windowsill if there is really no room to garden.


Knowing I didn't have much room to grow food of my own, I made my flower beds serve a dual purpose. Rather than just filling them with decorative plants and flowers, I put my food plants right in the flower bed. They're pretty and you can eat them!