I am a little south of you in north county San Diego. Last year was my first year with container vegetables. I have full sun and lots of drying wind all day long. I had excellent results with summer squash. No matter what I do in the garden, squash wilts mid day. In the container garden there was no wilting and high production. Very good success with basil and broccoli. Bell peppers were good but some of the garden peppers did better. Same for tomatoes. Bigger pots do better as they hold more water. i water about once a day. The squash was in 20 gal pots which seems adequate. Some squash in #15 (12 gal) did ok. #15 for tomatoes seemed too small. 25 gal for tomatoes was ok but I want bigger. For smaller plants it is ok but I am trying 40 gal for bigger plants this year. Basil did fine in 5 gal pots. However You can't leave for a day or two unwatered so bigger is better. This year I am going to get saucers for watering if I have to leave them for a couple of days. Saucers for the 20 gal and up is more difficult I may try to make my own with concrete. I like the Earth Gro ground cover bark at Home Depot. Batches vary a lot. Sometimes it is good, sometimes not so good. My biggest mistake last year was not enough nitrogen. The bark eats it up. I mix about eight parts bark, one peat, one Kellogs Amend (composted poultry manure, rice hulls, gypsum and etc.) and one part calcined clay (kitty litter) I add Vigoro citrus and avocado fert (has some micros and slow release nitrogen), gypsum,epsom salt and dolomite lime and a little Am nitrate to the upper half of the containers. I use black nursery pots because they are the cheapest pots I can find. Twelve bucks for 25 gal and 22 bucks for a forty. Zeuspaul

This is my first year container gardening so you can pretty much take everything I say and do the opposite! If you have a place to hang something, try strawberries in hanging baskets. You can put 3-4 plants in one regular basket and they're beautiful with the green leaves, white and pink flowers, and red fruit. As far as the other stuff, all I can say is whatever size container you think is good, go a little bigger. Pretty much everything I've done this year, I wished I had used a little bigger container. Also, self-watering containers are worth it! I'm not really sure if I'm over-watering or under-watering but the plants I have in self-watering containers consistently look much better than the others. I haven't decided whether to do containers again next year or some raised beds but if I do containers, I plan to make some self-watering boxes this winter. Hopefully somebody here will have better advice for you. Good luck!

My question is regarding the annual herbs cilantro, basil, parsley, sweet marjoram, and dill. I have a couple of rectangular planters, but I'm not sure how close together the plants can be, basil, parsley, sweet marjoram, and dill. I have a couple of rectangular planters, but I'm not sure how close together the plants can be Extremely close. Last season I grew thyme, basil, dill, marjoram and sage in an 18" container and all did very well. I could have squeezed another 2 or 3 herbs in there. Dill gets quite tall, but it is very 'airy' and doesn't really shade much. I would give each plant about 4-6 square inches of growing space in a container and let them fight it out. Herbs are herbs because they are pretty tough and adaptable plants. Virtually all of them do very well in containers, even when extremely crowded. If you want the absolute best yield from a particular herb, then give it it's own space, but otherwise dense container planting works really well, yields acceptably and looks terrific.

There's a lot of good stuff in this thread. I'd like to point out that I did not like the MG Moisture Control the one year I used it for my tomatoes. Strange things happened, including BER. I'm using a mix of 2/3 old potting soil and 1/3 new this year, which is normal for me, and feeding them every two weeks. I'm only growing three in pots this season, two Sungolds and one Black Cherry each in a 10 gallon container. I also have four pepper plants in a 7 gallon container, and I'm trying to grow cucumbers in a pot. (Damn squash vine borer killed everything last year, so nothing squash like in the garden this year.) Between the 10 gallon size, close attention to watering needs, and frequent feeding, those three cherry tomato plants will easily grow to 8 feet tall and produce WAY more cherry tomatoes than I need. If you've never grown plants in pots, but think you might have a reason to do so, I highly recommend it. I grow cherries in pots, because I find it easier to stay on top of the harvesting when they are on the front porch. When they are in the garden, they always seem to get away from me. It also lets me start them a couple weeks ahead of the main garden without fear of a deadly late frost.