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Foreign. If you think your space is too small to grow plants like I do, then you are going to love this video. Some of the best plants I grow in my garden, very tasty herbs, nutrient dense greens, and even roots and flowers, they all grow really well in a container. So today I'm going to break down for you my top 20 container friendly plants and I'm going to rank each of them on a scale of 1 to 10 based on the ease of growing. By the end of this video, you're going to know exactly how to pack in a container garden so that it's successful, healthy and so beautiful, just like my garden. And I'm going to give you three plant combinations that will always work in a container so you can get planting right after you're done watching this video. So what are the aspects we're looking for when it comes to picking the best crops for containers? First, we want longevity. We we want to get this plant to last as long as possible in the container. So we want to go for perennials, plants that come back year after year, or if it's an annual plant, we want one that's going to go for three, four, five, even six months in that one container. So we get the most bang for our buck and we're not constantly replanting. Next, we want a low maintenance plant. We need a plant that doesn't need a lot of watering, does not need a lot of food from its soil, and does not need a lot of tending because everything this plant's going to get, it's either going to come from this one container or from your hands and attention. Next, we need a plant that's not too big. If we're growing in a small space, we can definitely fill up the containers to the max. But we don't need plants that are sprawling or that need tons of room to stretch out to grow to their full potential. Finally, you want to get a plant that is seriously rewarding. It can be hard to remind yourself to care for plants when they're growing in containers. And it's also hard to not get too bored if you've only got a few things growing on your patio or porch. So can you. So you want plants that give you production big time, plants that you can cut from again and again and again. The bigger the reward from the plant, the better it makes a container crop. So let's get started with leafy greens. You guys know I love growing leafy greens, but I wouldn't grow just any leafy green in a container. I like to grow Biennial greens. When it comes to growing in a container and planting leafy greens, I've got three favorites. My first favorite is Swiss chard. Swiss chard is a biennial plant, meaning it wants to stay in the garden for at least two years. It's in the plant family, along with spinach and beets. This is a serious superfood, but oh, my goodness, it is also a super model. Swiss chard gets a 10 out of 10. Next up is kale. Kale is going to be so beautiful in a container, and you can grow it from seed. Now, kale is also a biennial, meaning it wants to stay in the garden for two years. It's going to give you that nice leafy green in the midd your container, and you can cut from it again and again. Kale is more prone to pest pressure than Swiss chard, so you are going to have to fight off the pests a little bit and it will dry out a little bit faster and stress faster than the Swiss chard. So we're going to give this one, an 8 out of 10. Next up is sorrel. Sorrel is actually a perennial green, so this green is going to come back season after season in your container. It's got this delicious lemony tang. Now, sorrel is pretty easy to take care of. It's just going to kind of grow and do its thing and you can cut from it again, again and again and again. I'm going to give it a nine out of ten. All right, now let's cover herbs. Perennial herbs are my favorite thing to grow in a container. They're so easy. They don't mind drying out a little bit, which, let's be honest, is going to happen. And they'll give you millions of harvests. So first up is oregano. You can start this from seed indoors in the middle of winter. If it's already summery, you are. I'd go ahead and just put a plant in. You can grow oregano around the X Y exterior of your containers, and it's literally just going to trail over the side. You could harvest from these plants literally every single day and they'll never run out. 10 out of 10 for sure. Next up is rosemary. Once again, start this from seed in the middle of winter. If it's already summer where you are, just put the plant right into your box. Rosemary is a little bit more fragile and a little bit more prone to, you know, particularities around getting too much water or getting too little water. I have had times where it's hard to keep the the rosemary wet and then I've had times I over watered the rosemary and it started to rot. I'm going to give rosemary for ease of growing around a 6 out of 10. Thyme is a perfect container plant. You can grow this in literally a tiny little terracotta pot and it literally won't mind. Thyme takes up hardly any space and it gives you all these beautiful little leaves that you can harvest from again and again. Thyme's super easy to take care of. It's not too fussy about the water and the more you cut it, the more it gives you 9 out of 10. Next up is sage. So same rule applies. If you're in the middle of winter, start it from seed indoors. Buy a plant if you're anywhere past your frost date or in the middle of summer. Sage does have a little bit more of a fuss to it. It kind of likes the shade, kind of likes the sun. The plants can get absolutely huge and a little woody if you don't keep harvesting them. This is a 7 out of 10 in terms of ease. Next up is lavender. I think we all have dreams of like running through a field of lavender. No, just me. I've tried to grow this a lot of times in the ground and believe it or not, I think it's easier to keep alive in a container. Lavender really likes dry soil. It originated in the Mediterranean, so sandy dry soil is literally like the sweet spot for lavender. It's hard to get that in the ground, but in a container you can absolutely get it. Don't over water this plant and it will grow for you for many seasons. It'll come back again and again. It is harder to grow. I would probably give this one a 5 out of 10 in terms of just getting it up and growing. But once you figured it out, you'll never forget it. Next up is chives. If you have to pick just one plant from all the plants I'm talking about in this top 20 list, let this be the one. Chives are a no fuss plant. Like you could totally neglect this thing and it will just keep growing and being beautiful. It creates these beautiful little purple flowers in the early spring and it just grows and grows and grows some more. It protects the rest of your plants from pests. It doesn't mind cold weather, it doesn't mind hot weather, doesn't mind shade, doesn't mind sun. There's nothing this plant can't do. 11 out of 10 parsley, so good for you. Vitamin C. Oranges have nothing on this plant. Okay. So you can start this from seed. It's a little slow to start from seed. It takes you like three weeks just to get a little bitty sprout. So start early. Otherwise, just buy a plant from organic source, a local nursery, put it in a pot, you're going to have parsley all year long. Parsley is a biennial, meaning it wants to stay in the garden at least two years, harvest from this thing, the flowers. If it starts to flower, let it do it. Because it's the host to a swallowtail butterfly, it is a little fussy, harder to maintain the water moisture. Like it wants to be wetter than something like oregano or rosemary. And so you just have to get it right. Once you lock it in, don't put it in too much sun. Kind of like shady place. Four hours, probably the most you need. So I'm going to give it a 7 out of 10 in terms of ease, but definitely worth growing. Last herb we're going to cover is basil. Basil is not perennial, it's not biennial, it is annual. It only has one life cycle per seed, but it self seeds. It'll create hundreds of seeds for the next year if you let it go to flower. It is fussy. It is fussy. It doesn't like things too wet and it doesn't like it too dry. So it is Goldilocks when it comes to that. And I've definitely overwatered my basil and it got all mildewy and spotty and gross. And then I've also underwatered it and it wilted. So I'm going to give it a 7 out of 10. Next up, let's talk about the allium plants. So these are all the plants in the onion plant family, and these do great in containers. So first up, the easiest is garlic. So garlic can go in a container, really any time of year if you just want to grow the garlic greens. This is how my mom first taught me to garden. Very sneaky of you, mom. I see you. So I just had some babies at home. I was very overwhelmed. And she just plopped a little pot with garlic in it on my front porch when we lived here in Nashville, like 15 years ago. And I would walk outside pretty much every weekend and just snip the little garlic greens off the plant, put them into my omelet, and I was hooked. I mean, she literally gave me a little gateway drug to gardening back then. So you can do that, give yourself some little garlic greens, or you can grow the full bulb. You want to have it in a much bigger container. Be sure you've got lots of good nutrients in the soil, and you can get full garlic bulbs, but it's going to take about nine months to do it. These are a 10 out of 10. Next up in the allium family are bunching onions. You'll get so many green onions. I mean, you won't know what to do with it. But there's really no reason any of us need to buy green onions from the store, because you can grow your own green onions in any size container. They're so delicious. Now, if you're growing green onions from seed, this is going to be probably like a 6 out of 10 because it's kind of hard to get them going. But if you buy green onions from the grocery store, chop off the tops and stick them in soil, it's like a 12 out of 10. It's a no fail kind of thing. The last plant in the allium plant family is one you've seen before, chives. I put it in this list twice because you have to grow it in containers. Okay? Okay. Next up are two root crops that you can grow in a container. First up is potatoes. Now, if you want to grow potatoes in a container, I highly recommend you get a real big one. You need one that's at least 2ft deep and at least 2ft wide. Potatoes are heavy feeders. They're in the tomato plant family, and they're going to be relying on lots of compost, lots of nutrients in that soil. So don't skimp on the soil if you want to grow potatoes. These are really a set it and forget it once you get them in, I'm going to rate them a 9 out of 10. If you have a big container full of really good compost and the next root crop is not really a root, I think it's called a rhizome. This is ginger. And can you see this little baby is ready to go in a container. So ginger grows right along the surface of the soil. So it does need a wide container. Doesn't have to be super deep. And again, you want to have the soil be pretty rich. Ginger is a little picky because it doesn't like cold weather, like, at all. Ginger is like a tropical rhizome. So you only want to put it outdoors after it's really nice and warm outside. Like, average temperatures, 80s, 90s. I'm going to give Ginger a 5 out of 10 because I personally have had a hard time growing it. But maybe you can show me up and, like, do better. Last, but certainly not Least to put into a container are flowers. Marigolds. There's a reason why every gardener knows the word marigold. Like first, every single flower on a marigold plant is going to eventually create 10, 15, 20 more seeds for you. So. So once you start a container full of marigolds, it can always be full of marigolds season after season. They are annuals, but they grow almost the entirety of the warm season. So as soon as frost has passed, cover a container with marigold seeds. You'll get flowers by the middle of summer, and you'll have flowers all the way until first frost. I'm going to give marigolds a 10 out of 10 in terms of ease. They don't dry out quickly, they don't need a lot of water or care, and they just give you tons of flowers. Zinnias are still stunning. If you're looking for the best flower to start as a cut flower, especially in a container, you got to try zinnias. They grow great from seed. Plant them as soon as frost has passed. Keep them pretty spread out. You only want to give maybe three, four, even in a container like this one. The more flowers you cut from this plant, the more flowers the plant produces. Zinnias, I would probably rate these an 8 out of 10. They are a little fussy, getting going and just kind of making their way in the container. But once you get that first bloom, you're locked in. You're going to have blooms all season. Next up, calendula. This is such an easy plant to grow from seed. You can plant it as soon as the soil can be worked. Even when it's cold, you'll get flowers at the very beginning of spring. And then all through the warm season, after frost has passed, you're going to have all these flowers. This is a really, really easy flower to grow. I hardly do anything, and I get calendula every year. And every flower gives you about 2, 10 to 20 more seeds. This one's 11 out of 10. Finally, nasturtium, also such a great container crop. This is going to fill out a container with just one seed. The whole thing is edible leaves, flowers, and seeds. And they're also a trap crop, so they will attract pests to them to keep them off of the rest of your plants. This is such an easy plant to grow, definitely a 10 out of 10. Let me give you a couple plant combos that you could put into just one container. You could do an herb container that's going to be basil, chives, and parsley. So you want to Put basil right in the center. This is where it can get the most amount of water of all the plants in the container. Then you want to add chives around the edge. You could probably put four or five chives around the edge of this container. By planting this way, you're putting each plant in its spot where it will get just the right amount of water. The chives hardly need any, so they're on the outside. The parsley needs a little bit more. It's in the middle. And then the basil needs the most, so it's right in the center. Next is a flavor bomb container. We're going to have thyme, oregano and nasturtiums all together. So you're going to plant oregano around the edges of this container so it trails along the outside. You could probably put as many as three in this one container. Then you want to add some thyme in between. Thyme is also going to trail over the outside. Then you want to grow a bush style nasturtium, a plant that's going to grow right through the middle and get taller. You could also add a little obelisk, a little trellis, and grow a vining nasturtium right up the middle and then have the herbs around the outside. It's going to be so beautiful. The last combination is the cut and come again one. You're going to have Swiss chard right in the middle. The beautiful colors are going to make this container so beautiful from the beginning of spring all the way to your first frost. Then around the outside, you want to have a couple of sticks, sage plants. You're going to be able to cut from these plants again and again. And in between each sage, you want to have some marigolds. This is going to give your container color. It'll protect your Swiss chard from pests. And you can cut the flowers, put them into drinks and dishes. All the marigold petals, they're all edible. It's literally one meal in just one container. Just because you've got a small space does not mean that you cannot have really big harvest. If you want seeds for all the plants I mentioned in this video, I'll put a link right below. Now don't forget to, like, subscribe and stay tuned because I'm coming back with more small space gardening tips for you very soon. Thanks so much for listening to the Grow youw Self podcast. You can keep listening anywhere. You love getting your podcast delivered on Apple podcasts, on Spotify, iHeartRadio, you name it, we are there for you. And if you want to read the notes and get our free resources to help you grow more. You can go to gardenary.com podcast.