If you want to start gardening immediately, the fastest way is with containers.

You can garden in almost anything that can hold soil and has drainage. I’ve seen old boots, coffee cans, even those big blue IKEA bags used to great effect. I’m sure you’ve seen cinderblock gardens. Start looking at everything you see and thinking, “Can I put a plant in that?” That perspective will also provide you endless opportunities for re-use, as suddenly fruit and pastry containers become valuable for seed-starting efforts. Old newspapers and cardboard boxes should also be saved to start your eventual no-till garden. Use what you have and supplement with fabric grow bags.

Why I love fabric grow bags:

1. They are cheap yet durable. Most are made of felt. Even after years of use, they show little signs of wear. You buy one pack of 10 gallon pots* you can plant enough tomatoes, peppers, and basil to keep you in salsa and spaghetti all summer long. They can be folded and easily put away for re-use. If you sew, you can even make them yourself out of felt or sturdy landscape fabric.

2. You can move them. Because they are weightless and have handles, you can move them a lot more easily than pots. Perhaps you start your tomato plants in the bags and they are in a great spot for spring. As spring turns to summer, that sun will turn into a laser beam. Because of the grow bags, you can move the plants to a protected place where they will get shade in the afternoon. In a storm, you can move a newly planted seedling out of the heavy downpour so it won’t get hammered. If you are find yourself turning into a helicopter parent, you can even treat your vegetable garden like a fancy houseplant, and rotate the pots daily to ensure even sun exposure. You can also easily bring plants indoors if you want to over-winter them (just beware of ants).

3. They remove the threat of over-watering and over-heating. Even if you don’t move them out of a downpour, they’ll survive. It’s hard to over-water a plant in a fabric bag because of their excellent air circulation and drainage. For that same reason though, with smaller grow bags you may need to water some thirsty crops like tomatoes twice a day to keep them from drying out in a hot summer.

4. Roots are air-pruned. Fabric pots accommodate even huge plants because they don’t get root bound and lots of oxygen gets to the roots. You’ve surely seen it in some plants you’ve bought at a nursery. If they have a lot of roots, they’ve grown endlessly looking for a way to get oxygen and end up spiraling around themselves uselessly. This doesn’t happen in fabric pots. When the roots hit the edge, instead of finding no oxygen and turning, they stop and instead build a new root that does the same, growing outward to the edge. So if you do later transplant one of your fabric-potted plants into the ground, the roots will be perfectly situated to immediately spread into the soil.

5. They are versatile. I like to buy big ones, 7 gallons and up, so that I can use the whole bag to grow beasts like artichokes, but also turn the bigger bags down and flatten the dirt for short-rooted plants like lettuce and radishes. Or you could plant 3 or 4 herb plants in a half-filled ten gallon bag. Seven gallon is good for most individual plants, including tomatoes and peppers. You could easily build a whole garden row on your balcony this way, but if they are on wood get large enough saucers to place them in so they don’t cause water damage.

Think about what you want to grow before ordering your pots. See how much room your crops need and plan accordingly. Corn for example, needs to be grown as a patch, so it may be better to go with something larger, like an entire raised garden bed in a bag! These are super cool, but pricier. Just take into consideration how much room you have and what you want to grow, and go from there. Start small, you can always add on later. And remember, most crops need FULL SUN IN WINTER to reach their joy max potential. That means six hours a day (in late spring and in the summer months they will do great in shadier areas).

These are the bags I am currently using:

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