Crops
Twelve crops chosen because they genuinely work in containers — not because they are easy to write about. Each page lists pot size, soil depth, sun needs, the timing windows for your zone, and the mistakes that actually happen.
Nightshade · Easy
Cherry Tomato
The highest-value crop you can grow in a pot. One bush-type cherry tomato in a 5-gallon container can give you a handful of fruit every day for ten weeks.
Legume · Easy
Bush Bean
The best first crop for a new container garden: fast, cheap from seed, fixes its own nitrogen, and needs no staking.
Aster · Easy
Loose-leaf Lettuce
The fastest route from seed to salad, and the crop that proves a 2-gallon pot on a shaded balcony can still feed you.
Mustard · Easy
Radish
Seed to harvest in under a month. The fastest win available, and the best crop to give a child or a first-time gardener.
Mint · Easy
Basil
The herb that pays for its pot the first week. Cut it correctly and one plant gives you a cup of leaves every ten days.
Mustard · Easy
Kale
The most cold-hardy leafy crop in this list. It survives frost, keeps producing for months, and one pot is genuinely enough for a family.
Cucurbit · Medium
Bush Cucumber
The most productive crop per pot if you give it something to climb. Three plants in a 5-gallon pot can out-yield a garden row.
Cucurbit · Medium
Zucchini
One plant feeds a household; three plants feed a street. The most space-efficient summer squash, provided the pot is genuinely large.
Nightshade · Medium
Hot Pepper
Slow to start and then relentless. A single 3-gallon pot gives you more chillies than most households can eat.
Rose · Medium
Strawberry
The only perennial on this list. Plant once, get fruit every June for three or four years from the same pot.
Amaranth · Easy
Spinach
The cool-season crop that finishes before summer heat arrives. Two pots in April will out-produce a supermarket bunch.
Carrot · Medium
Carrot
The crop that punishes shallow pots. Give it 12 inches of loose, stone-free mix and short varieties, and it delivers.