How to Start a Container Garden: The Complete Guide

There are so many good reasons to start a container garden! Perhaps you have small space or you’re just starting out and want a taste of gardening. Perhaps you like the idea of raising up your containers to go easy on your back, or you just like the look of colorful pots of tasty treats around your plot.

Whatever your reason, in this week’s episode Ben walks us through step by step starting a container garden from scratch. Helping his neighbor along the way, he’ll be answering all the questions you might want to ask while covering a range of delicious crops suitable for beginner growers and to growing in pots. You’ll learn how to tailor-make your potting mixes to what you want to grow and he’s got a few tricks up his sleeve for making them look the business too!

For more on Mark Ridsdill Smith and Vertical Veg, check out his site here: https://www.verticalveg.org.uk

And for even more small space inspiration and for how to get started on your own container food garden, watch this next:

Grow more in the same space:

No raised beds? Grow in straw bales!

See how much you can grow in a family garden

If you love growing your own food, why not take a look at our online Garden Planner which is available from several major websites and seed suppliers:
https://www.GrowVeg.com
https://gardenplanner.almanac.com
https://gardenplanner.motherearthnews…
and many more…

To receive more gardening videos subscribe to our channel here: https://www.youtube.com/subscription_…

If you’ve noticed any pests or beneficial insects in your garden lately please report them to us at https://BigBugHunt.com

Starting a new vegetable garden is exciting, but you probably have lots of questions. Well, spring is a great time to start one, especially a container garden. Today I’m with a neighbor to help her transform a corner of her garden and grow something fresh and tasty along the way. One of the things I really love about gardening is helping others start on their own home growing adventure and in this video I’ll be covering everything needed to create a stunning and delicious container garden. So Sharon, it is an absolute pleasure to be here today and I know you’re primed and ready to start your first veggie garden. Honestly I’ve been so looking forward to it. Well we’re going to have a great day today and well what basically – what’s tempted you to get started now – why now? This is primarily a flower garden and I really feel like I want to sort of accomplish knowing how to grow vegetables and the container aspect I really love that idea of it very much. And what do you want from the little space we’re going to be arranging today? Well aesthetically want it to look fabulous. I love the idea of pots and what you can do with pots but also the benefits of what you’re growing, you know. Absolutely. I think that’s a good point you make there because vegetables can be very attractive, they don’t have to be just utilitarian and with beautiful pots we can make a beautiful space for you. The other great thing about containers of course is you can change the potting mix to suit what you’re growing and you can move them around so the ugly things are hidden when they’re over and you bring more attractive things to the front. So I think we’ve got lots of options and I’m very excited with what we’ve got for you. Now containers are great for patios and and hard surfaces and I know you’ve got somewhere in mind a bit like that so shall we go and take a look? Brilliant. Here we are. What do you think? Absolutely stunning, I love it. It’s such a – you’ve got such a beautiful flowery backdrop and yeah it gets plenty of sun. I was going to say, it gets loads of light. It’s nice and flat, close to the house… Perfect. And that’s important. That’s a good point actually cause you want to be close to the house so you’re going to be more inclined to tend it and of course you can admire all your hard work. So that’s perfect. Pretty backdrop. That’s great. And it’s a good thing about the sunshine here – but if you were in a slightly shadier spot one of the great things about containers is you can raise them up or you can have taller pots to kind of raise them up into the light. That’s it, juxtaposition. Exactly, yeah. Really great, I’m so excited to show you what we’ve got to plant today so drum roll please… So here we are, we’ve got some all sorts of beautiful things here. It all looks a bit green but you’ll have some color here too. So we’ve got some luscious salads here and leafy greens from the spinach. We’ve got some beautiful herbs, some rosemary there, I’ve got some fruiting vegetables I’ve got a chili pepper plant and tomato and of course you can’t not have strawberries so we’ve got some of those as well, always a joy. These are seed potatoes so each one of these will produce anywhere from 10 to 20 new spuds. And then we’ve got a few things to sow as well. So there’s lots to do. Shall we get started? Brill. What we’re going to be planting is what’s called first early potatoes or early season potatoes and what that means is they grow really really fast and just to prove that point here’s one I prepared earlier. Wow. This is about – just under a month ago I planted this. You can see it’s growing and we’re probably 6 weeks away from harvesting that so you can see it’s going to grow fast and I I like kind of things that give an instant impact. Now the great joy of potatoes is they grow so fast, I like to recycle old potting mix and mix it with fresh and that way it keeps the cost down. So I’ll start filling it up. Have a guess what this is… Oh…! Chicken manure pellets. Seriously? Yeah, it’s a little bit foul, pun intended, but what this will do is it will give our potatoes a good boost so I’m going to just add a couple of handfuls in that as we go. Well, well! And that’ll kind of keep things, give it the energy and boost it needs. So we’re going to fill it about a third up and then I’ll get you to pop the potatoes in. Okydokey. I’ m just getting some fresh potting mix here. For the benefit of our British viewers by the way, when I say potting mix I mean compost, multi-purpose compost. And give that a little mix. And you see we filled it about a third full there so now we’re ready for our spud. So we’re going to put two in first so there we go. Which way up? That’s a good question. Have the shoots facing up cause these are going to be the stems so that’s so.. and you put it just about a couple of inches from the side, perfect. Right and the next one just opposite it on the other side. Okay. And the spacing between them? Perfect, absolutely spot on. Excellent, they’re in now so I’m just going to cover the them over and I can fill them straight to the top actually, this is the great thing about potatoes. You’d think they’re like way down there and they’re sort of buried alive but they’ll come all the way up and come right to the surface – Ah okay. And that’s the great thing so I’m just adding… Coming right to the top? Yeah exactly, yeah that’s it, that’s the joy of it. so I’ll just – there we go. Now I know Sharon you wanted it to look good as well as be productive so I’m not going to leave it with this black plastic, we’ve got this burlap sacking or hessian here and trick is is I’m going to just kind of tie it around and that will look a lot better. If you just hold it there for me. Of course. And we’ll do a sort of layer of string at the top and a layer at the bottom. This is really ingenious, Ben. Yeah, well it’s not all me – it’s sort of Pinterest and Instagram and ideas like that if I’m honest, but you know it just goes to show that containers don’t have to be just kind of productive and and utilitarian, they can look the business too. It really makes a difference actually. Doesn’t it, yeah? Thank you yeah. It’s so nice. Right I think we’re we’re done with that now. So Ben how do I look after this? Very good question, that’s a good question. You need to know these things. So potatoes have lots of lush foliage and they got to swell big tubers so they need regular watering to keep the potting mix here nice and moist. The pots being black can heat up so this sacking here actually will help shade the pot from it getting too hot but if it’s really really warm then you can just put the – move it to a slightly shadier position. Yeah. And finally I’d say adding a little mulch of grass clippings so you get dried grass clippings from your mowings and just lay that over the surface and that will help to lock in the moisture and makes it a bit easier, keeps it going. Right. So that’s done. Onto our next one I think. We’ve got this table Sharon cause I don’t know about you, but it saves the old back. Well, and my knees, dare I say it. And your knees, right, and that’s actually… No, I mean it’s the same here and actually that’s a great thing about containers it does raise things up a bit which is an important consideration. So we’ve got herbs next and I’m really excited, Great! we’ve got these beautiful baskets here but we’re going to line them with this permeable weed fabric and that means… Can I touch that? Yeah it’s kind of like, what that will do is it stops the potting mix escaping out of the holes here like a sieve. Yeah, fabulous. So that makes sense. So we’ve got leafy herbs in this one here. Yep. I’ve got some cilantro or coriander Sown from seed as well. Ooh, my favorite. It’s so good in like curries and.. anyway.. Wow. This is a lovely chocolate mint with these beautiful kind of like beautiful stems. OK. This will eventually take over but it’ll be fine for our first season. You can pot it on later on For the first grow, ok. Flat leaf parsley and some chervil and then for this taller pot here I thought what better than the absolute king of Mediterranean herbs, Rosemary. Yeah, great. Perfect with roasts and all sorts. So I think there’s a nice little mix here. Right so the first job is we’re going to line the baskets and get them filled, so if you just of press that into the corners and I’ll get our… I love the originality again of using baskets and other containers It’s a bit different and that’s what I love about container gardening is you can use just about any container, you see. So you can repurpose – I’ve seen old bread baskets, you’ve probably seen those Wellington boots… Fantastic. Old baths, do you remember old baths? Yeah exactly, those old tin baths, Sinks! Exactly, everything including the kitchen sink, yeah I love it. So where can I buy this from? So this is from our local garden center it’s sold by the meter and you just cut it off, but you if you look for weed membrane if you’re online then you can just find it online and yeah just get a little pack of it, but it’s very versatile. You could try lining it with, if you’re wanting to avoid plastics, you could try lining it with something else like more of that hessian or burlap sacking. I know lots of people are keen to avoid plastic. Right so we’re going to make a little montage. We’ll start with the mint in that corner and then we’ll put the others in front. Do you lay them out first or do you just go for it? I do yeah, you’ve done this before, yeah absolutely. So we’ll lay it out first, we’ll get a little kind of little montage of where we’re going Okay. That’s perfect. We’ll leave the labels and put the labels back in later. That’s probably a bit sort of – that’s going to grow quite tall so I’ll put that back. Okay so that’s tall. Okay. And then – this is probably a little bit close for them here if they were going to stay in here indefinitely but I think you know for the first season… you got a lovely mix that way and I mean… Honest to gosh, these are going to be used and used and used. Oh good I’m so pleased. And also not just with cooking but I love them in salads and things like that. Oh yes, same here definitely. You get that punch of freshness. Yeah. There we go, now they all do look a bit similar don’t they, but I assure you they’re different. Right so that’s it I think. We need to zhuzh it up but I think that actually is okay so let’s go ahead and just kind of fill them in with our mix. So we’ve got three quarters up? We we’re up to 3/4 for the basket? That’s right, yeah. And then we’re popping them in. That’s it, and you just need like half an inch to a CM rim and that means it holds the water so you can get it in. Okay great. So let’s delve in and we just kind of feed it round. Okay. Do you want to – I I’ll spread it out. Yeah you feed round, I’ll shovel on, brilliant. There we go, lovely job. Good job there Sharon. If I give you the scissors if you’re happy just to cut the weed membrane so it just fits nicely I’ll get the next lot ready. See I’m learning something. Oh bless you, thank you. I’ll just push it down like that so it’s not going to fall out and give it a tap. Great okay cool. So now we’ve got our rosemary and it’s a slightly different setup for this one here. Okay. So do we treat the rosemary differently? Yeah we do. So these are kind of really leafy herbs and they like it nice and moist and they can cope with dappled shade. As a sun lover this grows naturally in really rocky free draining soil. We just think of it as the sort of sunshine Mediterranean… sun goddess. Exactly yeah. So the way I’m going to help with that is we’re going to just mix in, this is like really gritty kind of sand. Okay. And that will help sort of create a much more free draining mix and that I’ll really love that. And what kind of sand is this? This is just this is just sort of coarse kind of sand. You could use grit, anything that – it’s kind of inert really, it’s going to get its goodness from the potting mix. All this is doing is just making sure it drains through. Rosemary hates its roots sitting in wet. Yes, yes. And you can feel that; it’s quite compared to like what it was before. Yes it does feel differently doesn’t it. So we’ve got our lined basket, so we’re going to fill it in and just do more of the same and plant it. So yeah. Okay, right. It is interesting to see how it compares, you know the the the way that you’re planting up these different things. This is it and this is why we’re – You have to take that into consideration. You do and this is the great thing about containers again it’s that we’re making individual potting mixes for our individual plants so they’re all going to be happy but we are displaying them side by side. So they’re tailor made aren’t they? Exactly, that’s it right. Here it is, smell that. Oh don’t, it’s just… Divine. I know, wow. Here we are, right. Mmm. I wish I could say I grew them some cuttings but yeah they’re from the garden center as well. So the same thing again. If we just fill in around there. So the center of the pot? Center of the pot. This will just grow into a kind of decent shrub like that. How exciting. Should I curl this down? Yeah thank you, and I"ll feed in. You’ve got just enough left. Tadah! I think we should be pretty pleased with that. Honestly it looks fantastic. I just love the way also that they’re slightly different heights. Yeah that’s it, you get the real sort of stepped height here as well. Yeah it just makes it more interesting you know, just everything about it looks great and also the surface of the soils are different. Definitely yeah and all you need to do is just water them when they kind of obviously when they need it and we’re going to give everything a good drink at the end in one go, but just to say, the way to test whether things need watering is just pop a finger down to where the roots are an inch or two deep and if it’s sort of cool and moist then you know it doesn’t need watering and obviously if it’s dry then it does. There’s nothing more satisfying than popping out into the garden for a fresh salad and you’ve got to love your leafy greens. Ah, best bit. So I’ve got some beautiful spinach here, grown by Yours Truly from seed. You know, my favorite. Excellent. It’s so versatile. And then we got two types of lettuce. This is lovely kind of shocking green chartreuse oak leaf lettuce and then here this gorgeous red leaf. Oh, so nice. And what we’re going to do is plant them in a sort of checker board so you get a nice contrast of leaf colors. So what I’m going to do, we’re going to plant four lettuce in here and the four plugs of our spinach in here. Okay. Before we start just because I’ve got it, we may as well just add in a bit more of that sweet smelling chicken manure. I know what this is now. Yeah you do. If anybody asks me. Yeah, hopefully that won’t put you off your salad but it the smell dies down once it’s kind of mixed in. Do you know, I have a salad every morning. Do you? I take it into the gallery and so the thought of like being able to come out and just pick this delicious salad… Nice, oh great, I’m so pleased. …and take it to work, it’s just going to be really exciting. It’s going to be the business. Right. Best bit. Okay so let’s we’ll do four in here, we’re not obviously going to plant all of these so if I pass you two and you just plant them opposite each other. Okay. And leave a that’s it, perfect and and the other one kind of there and just dig a little hole with your hand and pop it in, that’s it and then… They look tasty you already don’t they? They do don’t they, yeah. These are looking a bit sorry for themselves cause we’ve got Rosie here today and she’s kind of caused Havoc when we first got here, knocking things over but she’s settled in now. That one can go opposite. And the size of the container? This is about the right size? Yeah that’s about right, that’s about the right spacing. Actually let me tell you about this cause we’ve got quite shallow containers here. These are quite shallow rooted crops so we could put them in a taller container but we’d be essentially wasting the bottom of the mix, so these are perfect for these kind of like shallower rooted crops. They’ve got a really nice shape to them. That’s it. So we do the same thing, one in each corner of the pot. I’m not sure round pots have corners but you know what I mean. Yep, the sides. Oh beautiful. These are stunning little plants, that’s it good job. Well spinach is so great because I mean I just I love cooking with it, I love just eating it raw… Yeah that’s it, it’s one of those plants you can have in salads or… and it keeps coming. It’s so good. It keeps coming exactly, yeah. And that’s a really good point actually – with some plants you harvest the whole lot but with these when you want to harvest you just literally click off one or two leaves from each plant and as long as the central crown, the bit in the middle’s left it’ll produce more leaves. It’ll keep going. So it’s one of those pick a few from each plant, move on and come back a few days later. Yeah, yeah. There we go. Now a lot of these kind of salads will eventually bolt which means they flower and then they’re no good so what we’ll probably get you doing in another month or two is sowing some more to follow on but in the meantime, these are planted we’ll give them a drink shortly but let’s get these over there. Okay. We’ve got our fruiting vegetables now, so what I’ve chosen for you – there are two types of tomato, one’s determinate which means it’s sort of like a bush tomato. Okay. it just forms of bush. The other one is the vining ones you see. So we’ve got a bush one that’s perfect for a pot here. This is a cherry tomato. Okay, delicious. And we might put a little cane in there to support it but other than that we’re good. And then these are marigolds so these flower, they’ll add a splash of color and they’ll also help to bring in pest predators which will feed on any pests, they’ll have hoverflies and things around the flowers. Do you know I’ve never thought about being able to grow a tomato outside. I was thinking you had to grow them in a greenhouse. You have to choose your variety actually, so you’ve got to look for an outdoor tomato, so you are right about that, they’re often best indoors and it’s ideal if you can to choose a blight resistant tomato. So sometimes they get this horrible disease and they collapse and if you can get a blight resistant one it’s less likely to sort of collapse. And would that have that information on the label? It will yeah. So most garden centers will have little labels explaining it or you can you know go on your phone and just double check. So I’m what I’m going to do, these are the seeding leaves here so they’re not important, but what I’m going to do is I’m going to bury it deeper than you might imagine. Okay. So you might think, oh my gosh I’m sort of drowning it here but what that does is along the stem it’ll produce new roots and tomatoes are very peculiar like that, you can set them lot a lot deeper so they have more access to nutrients and moisture now and it creates a stockier plant. This is really enlightening because you know I’ve never grown tomatoes Oh, right! You’re in for a treat Sharon you really are. I always felt that I needed a greenhouse in order to do that so this is like a new dawn. Exactly. I think if you keep these in a sunny spot and yeah we should get plenty of tomatoes. I was going to put in, probably just put two in here… Okay. Cause it looks a bit mean at the moment but we don’t want to get sort of over crowded. So this is a really good tip regarding the marigold then? This is what’s called companion planting. So you got these flowering bringing a benefit to the tomato which in this case is pest control and of course a splash of color. So we’ve got that… I think orange flowers should go quite well with our Mediterranean blue. Exactly. Love it. So Ben what are you adding in here now? Something different. Okay yeah exactly. So we’ve got like the same compost or potting mix underneath but this stuff here it’s what’s called coir or coconut fiber. Ooh, let me feel that. And it’s you know like coconuts it’s got the hairy bits on the outside, this is what it is and the reason I’m adding it to our potting mix is it’s going to really help open it out and create a nice light mix which for peppers or chili peppers, they really love that. So sort of aerating it? Exactly yeah. You’ve done this before clearly. And then this isn’t essential but I had this pot of what’s called Perlite, it’s really light stuff so I’m going to just add that in as well as a sort of belts and braces. It’s the same kind of thing as the coir it’ll just help open it out. So we’re going to just mix this up. Can I leave you to do that? And I’m just going to… So it’s going to make it even more fluffy? Exactly, fluffy, free draining and a bit like our rosemary planted earlier, they really love that kind of free draining mix, but they like it light in this case and this is just the ticket really. Well this feels very exotic planting chili peppers. Yeah well this really does need a sunnier spot. What I’ve done here picked a variety that isn’t very very spicy cause the the milder chili peppers to mature sooner and cope better with kind of less than perfect weather. Okay, yeah. So don’t go for the super hot ones if you want… So this is less sophisticated? It’s less sophisticated, but it’s going to be a lot easier and unless you want something that’s going to blast your head off, No… it’s probably a wiser choice anyway. So yeah brilliant that’s all mixed up. Terrific. So let’s get it in our – I’ve gone for a galvanized bucket, I’ve drilled holes in the bottom for drainage. Anything you use must have drainage holes so the water can get out. Yeah. So we’re going to again fill it up. So like the rosemary, it just likes the sunnier aspect? That’s right yeah, so the rosemary, the tomato here, the chili pepper, they all love the sunshine and then the salad leaves and the herbs they can cope with dappled shade and you can always move things around if you find something suffering cause it’s too hot here, you can just put it underneath… I mean, that’s why it’s so terrific to do it this way. Exactly, yeah. So I will arrange them kind of together. Exactly yeah, arrange them together to start. This is a lovely time of year. It’s my arranging! Arranging, this is your artistic flare coming out Sharon, exactly. And actually you know this is kind of early early to mid spring, it’s a lovely time of year because it’s very forgiving and everything can grow together, nothing’s too hot. Right, Sharon you pop that in for me, good job. Okydokey, so… That’s all right don’t worry it’s more resilient than they look, there we are, same level that’s it, perfect and then just ffed it round. Now that looks really puny in there I will admit, but like literally give it two or 3 weeks once the weather warms up and it’ll bush out nicely. It’ll get going. And actually this pot here will attract the heat but that’ll really help at this cooler part of the year cause it’ll help to warm the roots basically. Right, to to get it going. That’s it yeah, exactly. So how am I going to look after this little beauty? Yeah good question. So again do your usual thing; finger in there, check every now and then. This needs to be on the drier side so there’s no harm if it starts wilting, don’t overwater it that’s important. Right, that’s key. And then I’ve got something here for you, a little present. It’s not Champagne or anything, it is tomato feed. Thank you. Follow the instructions. These will be watered maybe once every two weeks with this as a dilute solution and that’ll give it the nutrients it needs because there’s only enough so much in the way of nutrients in the potting mix, so this will replace that. So every two weeks? Every two weeks. It encourages flower production and gives them the oomph and energy to produce fruits and yeah that’s it really. Just make sure they’re in the warm. Yeah. It’s still a bit chilly at night so I’m going to give you some row cover or horticultural fleece to pop over them at night when it gets a bit lower but really in another 2 or 3 weeks you’ll be fine but that’ll just help keep them cozy. Fantastic. Great. It’s taking shape now isn’t it? Yeah, look. Hello Rosie, come on, inspecting our work. It’s so nice. So this is the favorite bit I reckon. It looks great. Ben, I have to say this is most original use of an old apple box I have seen. It’s kind of it’s rustic and a bit rough around the edges but I think it kind of goes doesn’t it. It looks so just so good with this crop. Yeah and all I’ve done is I’ve lined it again with our that weed membrane again, cut it to size, filled it with our potting mix and now we’re going to plant. I’ve got two types here: Cambridge Favorite and Elsanta, they’re really popular. The more varieties you can have the the more of a spread of a harvest you’ll get cause they’ll fruit at different times. What’s the difference? Well Elsanta is really sweet and juicy, they’re both really reliable croppers so they’re kind of like winners really, but they’ll crop at slightly different times, that’s the the main difference. That’s a very good difference. It’ll spread your harvest a bit, yeah. So if I do these guys here and you plant those two there we can plonk them in the corners like that and then just of get them in really. So evenly spaced? That’s it, yeah. So just kind of in the corners like that. Now strawberries need planting at the sort of same depth as before. So we’re going down. We’re going down and make sure that the leaves where they come up are sitting just at soil level So like that, is that alright? That’s perfect, well done. Yeah lovely stuff. Beautiful. I’m getting more confident now. Yeah exactly, yeah that’s it yeah, that’s it. I’ll just move that a little bit away, there we are, perfect. It’s amazing and I think you know for sort of an novice vegetable/ fruit gardener like myself, it is confidence. It is. It’s just once of those simple things, like of oh my God I don’t know what I’m doing. And the thing is once you realize, you get your confidence and you try a few and you realize they’re not going to die and they’re a bit more robust than you imagined, you get you get that confidence and I think as a new gardener that’s the most important thing, is it’s starting small finding your feet and just sort of understanding the feel of it all. There we go and I promise you another two months they’ll be kind of bulking out and you should, you may well get fruits this summer so… Wow. they’re going to crop quite quickly. I’m going to I’m going to keep a very eagle eye on these. I’m sure you will. And it’s the same with tomatoes actually. These guys, that little red liquid feed tomato feed actually is good for any fruiting plant so these will be good for strawberries as well so… So again same sort of two week interval? Exactly yeah, yeah exactly. So there we go, right. So we’ve got all our pots planted now. We’ll get this one over there and then we’ll do some sowing. Ha, okay. Right, cor. Gosh… Sharon, what time is it now? It’s sow time. Sorry, terrible dad joke. Right I’ve got we got three little beauties for you. Nice. We’ve got this beautiful colorful chard, it’s a bit like spinach but it’s longer lasting and sowing this now should last right through to the autumn and perhaps into the winter. I’ve got a salad variety of carrot which does well in containers and this beautiful dwarf or bush bean, lovely fine bean that’s going to be gorgeous. My favorite. And here’s, just to show you these are carrots that I prepared earlier. Ah, okay. So these were sown late winter and we’re going to sow them in here so you get really lovely filigree foliage. Aren’t they nice, lovely. Well you know what carrot foliage looks like. And how tall will they get to? Well probably the foliage will get to here and this salad variety in terms of the the roots are probably just below the depth of the pot so you want a pot that’s deep enough obviously. So let’s start with our bush beans here. I’m going to pop some seeds into your hand and you’re going to be the sow master. I’m going to be the instigator. Exactly. Ooh nice. So we’re going to se like the five of a dice so kind of like one in each corner there and one in the middle and actually so just a centimeter or a half an inch deep with a finger and then put in two seeds. Two. I was going to ask you that. Okay, right let’s go. There’s a technique to this definitely. That’s it, yeah. Okay… Perfect, you’ve got it. Now if we get two seedlings coming up in each position which is quite likely we might just remove the smallest one once they both germinate so you’ll still have five bean plants in here but by sowing seeds cause they’re quite cheap then it just means that if one doesn’t germinate you’re fine. And the great thing about seeds is obviously you can fold them up and use them again so… I was going to say, the longevity of these – do they expire or..? Yeah they they do. It depends. Some last for a year, some last for three or four years. Oh my Goodness. So you’ve got a sow by date, just like you have a use by date for your whatever, yup. So I can come back to them next time round. Come back to them next year, exactly. So next Sharon, we’ve got carrot seeds. So they’re going to go in here. So if you again hold out your hand. Yeah, I’m interested to see what these look like. So they’re pretty small as you can see. Oh they’re tiny! So the trick with these, a bit different, we’re going to take little pinches and just take a pinch and just spread it really thinly over the surface. So fine sowing. That’s it. So quite different from the beans. That’s it. And then what we’re going to do is I’m going to do a little sort of like I’m sprinkling sort of pepper or something over my cooking here just so the seeds go out of sight basically. Yeah. You just need to cover them over with just a slight bit like that. Yeah. And that’s it, that will do. So we’ll give that a water in a sec, so that’s carrots, great. So that’s carrots. And the final one, I love these are my favorite seeds actually. They’re kind of really knobbly, kind of got character. They’re sort of… so are the stems of this chard really the color they are on the packet? Yeah they are. So this is called rainbow chard for obvious reasons, different colors, and you get these lovely shocks and when you they back lit with the sun here you look at them and they’ll just glow in the light, they’re just majestic. Incredible, Mother Nature. Mother Nature comes up with some beautiful things, yeah. So again we’re going to do four here, so I’ll just maybe make the holes for you here and if you just pop in two seeds again. Yep, okay. What we’ll do is if we get two seedlings we could we could probably leave them to be honest with you cause there’s enough room in this pot and you’ll probably harvest them initially as sort of smaller little leaves but you get these lovely beautiful mid ribs which are the colorful bits and you can you can cook those as well, kind of like like a leafy asparagus. How fantastic. And when can I expect to see this crop of chard? Well I reckon the seedlings will be up within certainly within about 10 to 12 days. Really? Not long. And then then they’ll take a bit of time so I reckon you’ll be picking them maybe in 2 and a half, 3 months, but by which time your spinach will probably be over so it’s a nice sort of segway. My gosh. And this is like what we call follow on or succession cropping so your crop keeps coming. It’s clever, isn’t it, its really clever, yeah. But I’ll leave these seeds with you. Fantastic. And so we’re just going to pop these down with the rest of them now, give everything a water and then I think I think we’re done. Off we go, exciting. There we go Sharon, I think we’re all done here. Look at us! So give everything a nice good drink and then we’re good to go. What do you reckon? I’m absolutely over the moon, I’m extremely inspired Brilliant. And I will look after them. Oh good stuff, that’s music to my ears. Don’t forget I’m obviously just up the road and I’m always happy to help, but we’ve got videos on how to videos on growing all of these so I’ll link to those down below so do watch those and if you’d like more ideas from growing in containers then do check out this video next. Happy gardening and we’ll catch you next time.