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Eco-chic Outdoor Living & Exterior Design

May 16/10 Year in Sustainable Garden: 'How to' Create a Hanging Pepper Planter

Hanging Pepper Planters for Your Patio

Growing vegetables don't have to be restricted to your vegetable garden anymore. The wide variety of compact and miniature plants make it easy to put use these plants as part of your ornamental container gardening repetoire. And the best part is you can can harvest fresh food from them as well.

And with some 'out of the box' thinking you can use a wide variety of containers. Strawberry planters don't have to be restricted to planting with strawberry plants anymore! Herbs, and compact edibles can also be used for these containers. And the wide array of colourful vegetables can compliment or contrast nicely with the wide array of funky coloured containers.

What You Need

1) A colourful strawberry planter - I purchased this one from Home Depot, a bright yellow cylinder container that has pre-drilled holes on the sides for plants to grow out from.

2) Water Retentive Soil with special polymers act as a sponge that will hold extra water in reserve in the soil without actually waterlogging the medium. As teh soil dries out the water is released into the soi and reduces the amount of watering you have to do during the growing season.

3) Colourful edible vegetables that will compliment your colourful planter. For this planter I am going to use a combination of colourful compact peppers and eggplants.

Step By Step How To

Step 1

Add water retentive soil to planter. Fill planter with soil to just below the level of the first holes. LIghtly tamp the soil to help it settle.

Step 2

Plant seedlings - one per hole. A tip - if you use plants that were seeded in peat pellets they are the perfect diameter to cover the hole and keep the seedling embedded into the hole. It naturally plugs the hole and prevents soil from eroding out and washing out the seedling.

Step 3

Continue to fill the levels with soil and plug in the seedlings. For this planter pot I am using a combination (every other hole) of Eggplant 'Fairytale' and Pepper "Little Blue.' The blue and purple colours of the miniature fruits will perfectly compliment the brigth yellow container.

Don't forget to crown the top of the pot with a final plant.

Step 4

Water generously and thoroughly soak soil. Make sure water is running out bottom and sides.

Tip: Water once and return an hour later to resoak - these potting soils generally have a high content of peat which is on the dry side when it comes out of the bag. In such a condition the water will not thoroughly soak the peat the first time around so subsequent waterings will ensure that the pot is well covered.