Gardening Question?
Question:I would like to get some potted plants for my patio, I live in an apartment that's kind of dark so I can't do indoor plants to well. Anyway, I would like to have some outdoor plants that perhaps bear fruit, and seeds, and even some herb plants. I need some tips on what the best outdoor fruitbearing plants for very hot summers are (it gets to be about 100 + degrees here) and that are fairly easy to take care of since I am new at this. Also, are there any good websites for viewing pictures of fruitbearing plants and seeing info on them?
Answers:
Tomatoes are fairly easy if you are able to give them plenty of sun, strawberries also. Herbs of almost any kind do well in small pots in a sunny window or a sunny spot outside. If you have to keep tomatoes in a container, make sure it's large - about 5 gallons - and plastic, as clay pots dry the soil very quickly. Plant about 2/3 - 3/4 of the tomato plant under the soil so that you'll have a very strong plant (remove all bottom leaves that would be under the soil first). Keep it moist, but not wet. Too much water will split the fruit. Strawberries look nice and do well in hanging containers since they like to vine a little bit. This will help to keep the slugs and snails away, too. They LOVE strawberries. Sprinkle herb seeds on top of some soil in a pot, then cover with a very light layer of more soil. Keep them moist at all times (very difficult in the heat, I know) until they sprout. Or buy them already started. I use a watering can for mine and just give them all a sprinkle in the morning and again in the late afternoon or early evening. So far mine are all doing well. I have a tomato, some chocolate mint and some rosemary. Good luck and happy gardening!!
The best plant to grow in a pot or bucket for getting fruit off of would be a tomato. They like the heat, too. There are cherry tomatoes that are about as big as a cherry and are good to just pop in your mouth.
I have English lavender growing in my flower bed and the leaves have a great fragrance so that would be nice to have on a patio.
Parsley is a good herb for multipurpose use in cooking.
It should be fairly easy for you to set up an herb garden on your patio with whatever herbs you like to eat. A great fruit-bearing plant for a patio is the dwarf Meyer Lemon tree (follow the link below). I think there are some species of dwarf orange trees as well. Hope this helps.
What zone you're in makes all the difference.
Mild winters? Try limes, rosemary, lavender.
Try your nursery, there are some great mini fruit trees (apples & cherries in particular) available, bred for growing in largish pots. Ask for 'patio' fruit trees. Try raintreenursery.com - they have a great site and great selection of fruiting plants.
when I lived in an apartment I grew tomatoes, squash and eggplant all in pots on my porch. . my friend has a peach tree on her porch in a pot we live in Texas so it gets darn hot here. . check out this site www.gurneys.com . . I purchase from them yearly and always have good turn from the veggi plants, Mexican heather is very HOT hardy and makes a lovely flowering pot plant . . .
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