Setting up your container garden

I love growing a mix of quick cut-and-comeagain salads and vegetables alongside fruit trees and shrubs that repeat every year.

While setting up a container takes a little time and effort at the start, picking and mixing plants and pots is a fun way to let your creativity flow. A big bonus of container kitchen gardening is that many edibles enjoy sunny, sheltered conditions and benefit from the additional warmth found next to the house. The first thing to consider is how many pots you can fit into your outdoor space. Bigger containers need watering less frequently and, as a rule, make bigger plants that produce more to pick and eat. In this garden, for the blackcurrant bush and climbing French bean I’ve used reclaimed zinc tubs (from a salvage yard), which are more affordable than buying new and are a generous size. Terracotta pots are a good choice, with the advantage of keeping roots cool in warm weather, while their porosity means plants never sit too wet. I like the mix of colours and tones of old and new pots.

Growing in pots also means that you are free to use different compost mixes to meet the individual needs of each plant. Plants that are to spend several years in a pot – here, the apple tree and blackcurrant bush – are best grown in soil-based, peat-free John Innes No.3 compost as it offers a longer-lasting supply of nutrients than multi-purpose compost and holds on to moisture well.

Otherwise, for sun-loving herbs such as sage, peat-free multi-purpose compost with a scoop of horticultural grit added is the best option.

Use a soil-based, peat-free compost for plants that will spend a number of years in a pot

3 Use seed compost to fill three 9cm pots. Sow one with a courgette seed and the others with either tagetes, lettuce or borage. Keep on a sunny windowsill until there’s no danger of frost, then move outside and transplant into final containers.

2 Fill two pots with multi-purpose compost. Sow the climbing and dwarf French beans into one and broad beans in the other, pushing them in to 5cm depth. Water, then add sticks for support.

1 Plant the apple and blackcurrant in slightly larger pots. Fill one-third with compost, ease out a few roots and backfill with more compost. Tuck the thyme in with the blackcurrant and pot up the sage.