When the pandemic shut down our educational programs in 2020, we put our energy into increasing our food production for the community. With the support of Whole Cities Foundation, we doubled our garden space. We chose to use pots for the expansion for the following reasons:

Getting the garden started in late 2020.

The farm’s soil is contaminated with arsenic (a heavy metal that is poisonous to people and creatures) so anything we grow must be separated from the soil - either in pots or raised beds with bottoms.
Pots allowed us to install a garden quickly without needing lots of site work (digging, leveling), construction or infrastructure.
Pots were affordable and reuseable. Ten gallon fabric pots cost under $3, and we hope they will last for at least 5 years.
Pots are mobile. Sometime in the distant future, we would like to build an enclosed educational building. The containers allow us to grow food now and still have the option for using that space for a building or other purposes if more funds are available in the future.
The container garden demonstrates one way to build a garden in a city. If you have a patio, a concrete driveway or an old parking lot, you can still have a garden.

The next post will cover how we put the container garden together, and a third will cover what we’ve learned so far. Remember, you don’t need a 48X50 ft space to have a container garden. Maybe you have space for one pot or five. Hopefully some of our lessons learned will help you garden in containers, too!

How it’s growing now! Mini eggplants growing in ten gallon fabric pots from July 2021.

Gardening in Pots Part 1 - Why?