Container gardening, honestly explained.

Almost every beginner guide to container gardening is written to be encouraging. This one is written to be useful, which sometimes means less encouraging. A first season done properly costs somewhere between $150 and $400 — pots, mix, plants, a feed, a watering can — and takes about fifteen minutes a day once things are growing. That is genuinely small. It is not free, and it is not zero effort, and pretending otherwise is why so many balconies have three dead pots on them by August.

Three decisions do most of the work: the container (too small is the single most common failure), the mix (bagged potting mix, never garden soil, and not the $5 bark), and the spot (count the actual hours of direct sun before you buy anything). Get those right and forgiving crops — lettuce, beans, chard, radish — will crop for you in six weeks.

Everything in this pillar assumes you have no yard, possibly no hose, and a landlord. Start with the size chart, then the soil guide, then pick one crop.