Growing in Containers:
First off, this is an open thread, so post whatever you want in the comments, please! Me, I'm gonna be talking about growing plants in containers. This is something I've done for a long time and learned to make fairly easy and profitable and as completely organic as possible.

Anything can be a container! Anything

Experience: I've grown plants in containers on the balcony/porch of my apartments in Philadelphia and Bryn Mawr, PA, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, as well as here in the PacNW of USA. The containers have been on the porch, in the greenhouse, in the hoop house and out in the garden. Every house or apartment I've lived has had house plants, which I love. I've got 30 year old houseplants, which have given other plant starts each time I divide them every few years. And I don't 'do' anything but water the houseplants, divide them once in a while and repot them at that time.

I've grown corn, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, squash and melons, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, mesclun, beans, peas, all kinds of flowers, berries, fruit trees, and more in pots. Once I learned the 'rules', at least those needed for my growing habitats, I've been successful with growing just about everything I wanted.

One year we grew potatoes in boxes, each box about 3 ft by 3 ft. Here they are in July. They produced a LOT of potatoes!

The 'Rules' or Considerations, as I Know Them:
1. The Pots or Containers: Clean, clean, clean. We grow many of our plants, like tomatoes and peppers (and squash, etc!), in 8 inch plastic pots. I hate the plastic, but we clean the pots between uses and we've had these pots (which I bought when I started the farm) for 30 years! Our flowers go into other size pots, and those get cleaned before each use as well. The seedling flats and trays also get cleaned and reused. Even the pots made from ceramics get cleaned.

To clean pots and trays we use a common household cleaner, like Mr. Clean. We use a scrub brush, and scrub them down, then rinse them out, wash them in water with the cleaner in it, then put them into a 'soak' for 20 minutes or so. The 'soak' is water with bleach in it; it's about 1 gal bleach to 15-20 gal of water. This bleach water will be strong for about 2 hours. So we can do 6 soaks in that time. We wash all our pots, our seedling and water trays, flats, etc, this way. Once 2 hours is up, and the bleach water is not strong anymore, we dump it on the cement floor of the greenhouse and spread it all over. This stops moss, molds, algae, fungi, and ants! We only dump once or twice a year, usually in the early spring when washing all the pots. But the effects of dumping the bleach water last us all year. Ohh, and the bleach water is almost 'done' when it is dumped and will be 'done' (the bleach has degraded and is not potent) soon after. Once the bleach water has lost its strength it can go into the environment and not harm, or poison, anything. Once in a while, I'll dump some old bleach water (from cleaning in the house) on parts of the floor, or throw it against the plastic and glass walls in the greenhouse which tend to stay wet (from plant leaks/drippings/etc). This stops molds and algae from growing.

2. Placement. You truly can put the container pot of your plant just about anywhere, with some considerations:
a. Sunlight - Most plants need a fair amount of light, or very strongly lit shade. Place the container where that is possible.
b. Air - Most plants need air. By that I mean air that moves gently, not stagnant, not super stale and super hot or cold. So, inside, by a window or in an area that gets air (like on a table in the living room), is great.
c. At the same time, unless the plant is a cactus, protect it from extreme heat. Water it often when it's hot/warm outside, mist its leaves, or take care to moderate the heat. We've got a fan which turns on in the greenhouse when it's over 85-90 in there and moves the air through, cooling everything. We had the same in the hoop house.

3. Bad Guys - Bugs and So on
Washing pots and trays will help control diseases, molds, and so on. Washing also kills baby aphids and such. Rinsing the floors and walls with the bleach water does this too.

If you get diseases, like molds, etc, treat organically, if possible. We haven't gotten these in years, but when we did, we sometimes got white mold. You can buy organic sprays for these, which we did.

Aphids - to us these are the curse of greenhouse growing, and very prevalent at times outside on roses, fruit trees, etc. We spray the outside plants (and inside ones if needed) with something like safer soap. We make our own, with regular hand washing dish soap, diluted in water, with a bit of vegetable oil to make it stick. I learned over time, and my husband did too, that the aphids outside were only bad for a couple of weeks, until their predators hatched and brought everything under control. Some ants will farm aphids on fruit trees, like we farm cattle. Except for the farmed aphids, we now just let nature take its course, and the predator bugs outside take out the bad bugs every season, all the time.

This applies inside the greenhouse and hoop house as well. We leave the greenhouse door open all season with a block at the bottom to stop animals. Leaving the door open helps moderate the temperature, but it also lets the predatory bugs, like ladybugs, some wasps, mantis types, spiders, etc, into the greenhouse. They eat the bad bugs and do a great job. In the hoop house we use screens with large holes over the door, so the bugs can get in, but the birds can't.

Vermin - Cats and dogs are the best for keeping rodent type vermin away and out. Birds can eat fruit and vegetables too, so putting up screen to keep them out of the area is good, or put bird netting over the pots and garden beds! It'll keep out vermin too, depending upon the size of the holes in the netting. If you don't have natural deterrents, like cats and dogs, then traps, etc, can help. Also, planting some things that the vermin don't like, like marigolds, in pots around the vegetable/fruit pot helps too!

4. Feed and Water
Feeding is very important for vegetable, fruit and flowering plants grown in containers. It isn't that big a deal (in my experience) for house plants. We feed organic fertilizer (like Jobe organic granular plant food), or, sorry to admit it, Miracle-Gro (for tomatoes and flowering plants). I put a heaping teaspoon full of the food on the top of the 8 inch pot for each plant. I then dissolve it, over time, by watering. The plants love it. I do this about once a month for vegetables and fruit, maybe every 6 weeks for pots full of flowers.

When the plants are first planted into the larger pots (like the 8 inch pots) we use soil from our compost heap. So the soil starts off fertile. But after about a month or 6 weeks, the plants have exhausted the nutrients in the potting soil, and they have to be fertilized. One thing to note, we do NOT use soil from our compost heap to grow seeds in seedling flats/trays. The seeds are started in sterile organic potting soil, so they have less chance of getting 'sick' before they can grow, get strong and deal naturally with any illnesses.

Watering - check the plants' water every day. Water if the soil is dry or is going dry. Don't fill the water catch trays underneath the plants if possible. This is so the plants don't sit in algae infested water. Instead, water from the top of the pot. We've used automatic waterers, set with timers, or handwatering. All work well. Vegetables and fruits in the greenhouse have to be watered about twice a day. Pots with flowers and such on the porch, in the garden, etc, need to be watered frequently as well, but only a couple times a week if that. So keep an eye out.

And those are the basics for container planting, at least, in my experience. I know others have had, or are having their own experiences. I enjoyed usefewersyllables comments about the self-watering wheeled planter, for instance. I learned stuff! And there's also particulars which I didn't discuss for different types of vegetables and plants (supports, trellises, hoops, etc) as well. I'll go into those later if people are interested.

So, thanks for reading and here's the open thread - and remember, everything is interesting if you dive deep enough, so tell us about where you're diving!