Top 5 Secrets for Successful Container Gardening
1. Size Matters - If you are wanting to produce healthy vegetable and herb plants, you need to grow them in a pot or container that is large enough to allow for the roots to go deeper into the middle of the container soil. When summer tempera tures reach well into the 90’s, plant roots need to have the space to seek out cooler soil temperatures and moisture.
P3 Gardening’s Solution - We designed our custom planters to be 22” tall by 16” diameter. They hold up to 2.8 cubic feet of soil mix. Your plant’s roots will have plenty of room to expand and seek out much cooler soil conditions when summer temperatures start rising.
2. Concentrated Watering System - No one will argue the importance of watering your plants to keep them healthy and to obviously keep them alive. However, very few people consider the importance of focused and concentrated watering. Simply pouring water on the top surface of the typical planter does very little good! The water dries out too quickly and most of it goes down the sides and out the drain holes.
P3 Gardening’s Solution - We designed our planters with a perforated center watering tube. This allows water to be concentrated into the center of the soil where the plant’s roots can make best use of it. (See Secret #1 ☺)
3. Oxygen Aeration - It is a well established fact that the more oxygen that can be introduced into your container soil the healthier your plants will be. Oxygenation is crucial around the rootzone for beneficial microbes to thrive.
P3 Gardening’s Solution - Unlike typical planters where oxygen can only be introduced through the top of the soil, we have designed our planters to have 16 side cup openings. Not only does this allow for many more plants to be grown from our planter, but produces as much as 120% more oxygen to the central rootzone.
4. Lightweight Growing Media - This is probably one of the simplest factors to control, but ends up being the most common mistake made in container gardening. You do not want to use everyday garden soil in your container. Regular dirt or soil is way too heavy for effective gas exchange around the root system and will hold too much water.
P3 Gardening’s Solution - Our instruction sheet for using our planters will indicate the need to use a good lightweight growing media. The easiest solution is to simply by a large bag of Potting Mix from your local garden center. Most potting mixes contain slow release fertilizers that will feed your plants throughout the growing season. Use a mix that contains a slow release lime for a good organic solution.
5. What is Your Container Made Of? - Terracotta pots are heavy, get very hot and can actually pull moisture out of the container soil. Ceramic pots are also heavy, hard to move around and easily crack. Most common plastic pots found in big box stores are imported from overseas and are made of cheap plastic resins that may contain harmful chemicals. The average plastic pot will start to deteriorate in less than 2 years due to exposure to the elements.
P3 Gardening’s Solution - Our planters are made with a Low Density Polyethylene Resin. FDA approved material that contains no BPA’s and is safe for growing edibles. Our planters are custom molded and hand trimmed in our partner facility in the Central United States. They are lightweight, yet extremely durable and come with a 10-year warranty for product durability and weather resistance.