Gardening from your small balcony is going to be more productive than any of your neighbours. While ground level gardeners deal with weeds, pests, and other soil issues, container gardening provides the revolutionary ability to control all of your growing conditions. And to top that off, using plant partners will allow you to grow plants that help each other grow!
Bring Hummingbirds Right To Your Window!
Check PriceIt isn't just aesthetics that matter when putting plants into pretty containers. Science backs each of these seven combinations. Each contribution of the partnering plants is essential to the creation of a mini ecosystem that surpasses any standard garden containers.
Save this article for later so you don't lose it. Enter your email and I'll send it to you now—plus you'll get my favorite backyard birding tips delivered to your inbox.
The Space-Saving Trinity: Lettuce, Beets, and Herbs
Lettuce and beets go together well and will allow you to maximize your container spacing of 14-18 inches wide. Direct sow your beet seeds in the middle of your container, and then plant 4 to 6 lettuce transplants around the beets. You can further plant some herbs along the sides of the container. As beets grow, their taproots will help with soil compaction in the container, and their leaves will help to shade the lettuce, especially the varieties that are heat sensitive. Herbs like basil will help to deter aphids and flea beetles as well!
A cut and come again system allows you to harvest baby lettuce leaves in 25 to 30 days. For beet greens, you can harvest at any point. With good succession planting, every two weeks, you can make one container feed you for months.
The Unbeatable Pair of Swiss Chard and Carrots
This combination container is 12 to 14 inches deep and uses vertical space in a really neat way! Sow the carrot seeds throughout the container. Then, plant two Swiss chard transplants a bit off centre. The science is lovely. Chard's large leaves create natural mulch to keep the carrot soil cool and moist, and the carrots also help with chard's soil aeration!
Mini carrots are harvested at 50-60 days, and to leave them to mature you can cut the outer chard leaves. With proper protection, this combo will keep giving you fresh food all winter long.
Bloody Sorrel + Lettuce: The Cutting Garden
Combine these plants for an edible landscaping work of art! Recommended for partial shade locations with 3 to 6 hours of sun. Position dramatic bloody sorrel in the middle of the container and ring it with a variety of colorful types of lettuce. Sorrel has striking red-veined leaves that give lots of visual appeal to the arrangement, and its flavor is wonderfully tangy, adding a nice boost to any salad mix.
Both plants thrive using the cut-and-come-again method, which means you can harvest fresh produce every 5-7 days during the growing season. Pick only the outer leaves so the centers can keep growing.
Get our free Hummingbird Attraction Guide! Plus, we'll send you our best tips for attracting more birds to your yard.
Chives and Parsley: A Great Pair of Easy-to-Care-for Herbs
For a 10-12 inch container, this combination is about as easy as it gets and as good as it gets. Simply plant one clump of chives and one or two parsley plants. The parsley and chives even compliment each other with their different growing habits. Chives grow in an ordered bunch while parsley takes up space. Together they will also supress weeds.
Chives can be harvested weekly, as they can be trimmed like one would trim grass, and so can the outer stems of parsley. Both of these herbs benefit from regular cutting, as they become more productive and grow more stems. Additionally parsley tends to self-seed for next years crop. This makes the combo self-maintaining.
Kale and Swiss chard: These amazing food sources are rich in nutrients!
To ensure you get the best nutrition possible from each square foot of the garden, consider compact kale and decorative chard and choose dwarf varieties for the other plants in the combination. Both decorative chard and compact kale will have harvests that complement each other and will extend your harvest season since both brassicas will improve in flavor after being exposed to a light frost.
Both plants thrive in potting soil that is evenly moist and rich in nutrients, which is simple to provide in containers due to the nature of the container method. As long as you keep harvesting the outer leaves, they will continue to grow, and both plants will keep growing until a hard freeze.
Dwarf Kale and Scallions: The Succession System
The smart way to succession plant is to have high productivity even in shallow planting containers. Start by establishing a dwarf kale as your first crop, then every two to three weeks, sow scallion seeds around the base of the kale. The scallions will fill the gaps as expected, while the kale will protect them by providing shelter.
You should continue the scallion harvest and take care of the kale to ensure it continues leaf production. This way, there is always something available to harvest, and the containers look great.
Mustard Greens Radish Spinach, The Speed Team
This mix is great for first time container gardeners. It allows for quick harvests as they are planting all three seeds together. This can be done in any container that is 10-12 inches deep. After doing so, they will want to do a light thinning as everything continues to grow. In 25-35 days, the first radishes will be ready to be harvested. This will create room for the spinach and mustard greens to fill in the container.
Each plant develops different root systems, therefore competition for nutrients is avoided. While radish roots reach only shallow depths, spinach and mustard roots penetrate deeper into the soil. By growing at varying depths, the roots of these different plants maximize the use of soil, as well as providing a range of tastes, flavors, and textures.
Container Success Essentials
Starting with a good setup will help ensure successful combinations of plants in containers. Mixing potting soil with compost will give you a good combination for drainage and nutrients. Also, make sure to get containers with enough depth, as most vegetables need a minimum of 10-12 inches for proper root growth.
Plants do best with proper water management. With bottom draining containers, you can maintain consistent moisture without the risk of water logging. Check your container plants daily in hot weather as they will dry out faster than ground beds.
To avoid stopping the productivity of the container plants, each combination container will need an organic feed every 2-3 weeks, as container plants cannot access nutrients from the soil. For regular harvesting, feeding will be essential.
Start using frost cloth as a protective measure when the temperature begins to dip below freezing. While most combinations are capable of handling light frost, with protection, the seasons can be extended significantly for the combinations.
This example emphasizes that container gardening is about positive possibilities, not negative limitations. Each combination creates collaborative relationships that singular plantings cannot achieve. They change restricted areas into very efficient producers of food that surpass conventional gardens.
