Space Saving Vegetable Garden Ideas

A Movable Garden

Scavenge supplies. At my last rental, once I was ready to get growing, the neighborhood provided much of what I needed. In a densely populated urban setting, the materials you’re looking for are likely not too far away. Keep your eyes peeled, and you might even find them in giveaway piles lying on the side of the road. I found various containers, buckets, and garden tools by asking my Buy Nothing group, browsing Craigslist and OfferUp, and visiting nearby antique malls, garage sales, and thrift stores. My partner salvaged untreated scrap wood from neighbors to build us a compost bin as well as a raised garden bed. Friends offered up old garden tools and seeds. Seattle also has numerous seed libraries, seed swaps, and plant sales.

Soil was harder to acquire, because I don’t have a car and didn’t want to grow directly in the dirt. At first, a friend with a bike trailer helped me haul bags of soil from our local hardware store. Since then, I’ve had another friend with a truck deliver a load of compost and a load of soil that she acquired from a local landscape supplier. In exchange, I offered to housesit for her free of charge while she was on vacation, and this barter granted me a truck bed’s worth of rich earth to fill my containers and beds. If you live in a city, look for soil and compost giveaways organized by the city itself or community gardens – if you’ve got a way to get it home, you can load up low-cost.

Start small. I frequently see lovely photos of luscious gardens and want to do it all right away, regardless of being a renter. But lately, especially as I learn, I’ve been trying to be realistic about what I can handle and what I could move. I sow fewer plants than the long list I fantasize about, and I grow in small and medium-sized containers I know I could lift, at least onto a dolly. More focused growing allows me to dig deeply into the needs of a handful of plants at a time, learning about their soil, water, and sunlight requirements before gradually adding more to the roster. Each year, I record what worked and what didn’t, and then I sow the same plants the following year while including a new plant or two. In this way, I build familiarity slowly rather than trying to learn everything about every plant all at once.

Trial easy annuals. I’ve had raised beds at the last two places I’ve lived, and these garden beds are my go-to grounds for experimentation with annuals and herbs. I’ve started with plants that I know grow quickly and successfully in this region: calendula, greens, kale, nasturtiums, marigolds, and radishes. Using Mel Bartholomew’s All New Square Foot Gardening as my guide – with its enticing tagline, “Grow More in Less Space!” – I’ve also grown a few crops that require less spacing. You can plant nine beets per square foot, 16 carrots per square foot, and 16 onions per square foot. Plants that require less space don’t automatically have higher yields, but I thought these plants were a good place to start – plus, onions are my favorite vegetable, and from my years spent editing gardening advice, I knew I should plant what I’d eat.

Plant perennials in pots. Because I’m far more likely to take containers with me when I move than to dismantle and transplant entire garden beds, I plant perennials in pots so they can grant me a sense of permanence that my housing can’t, returning year after year no matter where they’re placed. By observing what I see growing in parks and other people’s yards, I’ve picked a few that have proven to be foolproof. Lavender, lemon balm, sage, stonecrops, and rosemary grow everywhere in this city, regardless of how well-tended they are. So, I’ve grown these in pots and watched them thrive without too much effort on my part. I can feel rooted in my relationship with these plants because I know they’ll accompany me to my next location.

I plant some annuals in containers too, of course, with no expectation of their permanence, yet still benefiting from their mobility – being able to move them to sunnier spots in the yard works well when the buildings around me cast shade differently throughout the season. And both annual and perennial flowers in pots can add a splash of color wherever you place them; I found a trio of plastic planters on the side of the road, filled them with flowers, and settled them on the steps leading up to my front door. I appreciate their cheery greeting each time I arrive home.

Tips for Container Gardening

The author planted lavender in a pot from a garage sale.Container size. Because I’m getting my containers secondhand, I mostly eyeball them; big plants get big pots. I put one tomato plant in each of the biggest pots I have, two 15-gallon pots, with a DIY trellis strung up behind them. I purchased two circular 4-by-4-by-1-foot galvanized-steel beds from Plant and Plot in which to plant cucumbers, peas, and squash with a trellis in the center of each. My herbs have thrived no matter what size pot I use, but some herbs, such as those in the mint family, will spread as far and wide as they can, so the bigger your container, the more you’ll yield.

Growing medium. Garden soil isn’t recommended for a container garden, as it’s dense and can become too compact to allow for good airflow and water drainage. Use commercial soilless mixes, potting soils, or compost. Don’t put gravel at the bottom, as that can also cause water to oversaturate the soil. But too little water can be an issue too; containers won’t retain as much water as in-ground gardens would, so if you’re using traditional containers versus self-watering ones, you’ll need to water more frequently, in some cases once a day. You may also need to use a fertilizer to replenish any nutrients that drain away; try compost tea. Plants that like somewhat dryer conditions (such as lavender) do well in pots. And while I do have to water some plants more, I get to weed a lot less. After a couple of seasons, I’ll check my perennials to see if they need larger pots or if they can be divided and the growing medium replenished.

Container location. I’ve situated my largest containers in full sun and won’t move them throughout the season, but I love being able to relocate my smaller pots based on where sunlight is falling and other factors. Most of my potted perennials successfully overwinter outdoors, but you may live in a location where you want to nest smaller pots into larger ones for a bit of insulation, or even overwinter them indoors if you have the space.

Lessons Learned

Part of growing a renter’s garden means seeing it as a journey and not a destination – you’re seeking an education instead of steady harvests year over year.

Not all of my “experiments” with annuals have been successful, but I’ve learned a lot from my blunders: planting too early, too late, or in late-season shade I hadn’t anticipated. I’ve also lost crops to aphids, heat waves, and my own inconsistent watering. Two seasons ago, the carrots and onions I pulled out of the ground were miniature – and not intentionally. The first time I planted cilantro, its leaves shriveled in a heat wave, much to my dismay. But it still went to seed, and I harvested handfuls of coriander for use in the kitchen. Despite the “failure,” I’d yielded my own spice. I no longer live beside the garden where I grew that cilantro, but what I learned about the plant will stay with me wherever I go.

In addition to learning from the plants, you can learn a lot from other people. In 2022, I visited my grandma in South Dakota, where I helped her plant dahlias. We researched how to divide the tubers and then carefully tucked them into the soil along the side of her house. In 2023, I figured out that a neighbor’s outdoor cats were using my raised bed as a litter box, so my partner helped me bend chicken wire into a makeshift removable lid that would keep them out. In 2024, a close friend visited to help me prepare my garden beds, and she showed me how to grow kale transplants with little trenches around them to hold extra water, since kale has somewhat shallow roots and can dry out quickly. None of these lessons required owning a home or tending to the same garden, and I won’t have to leave this know-how behind.

Also, there may be plants growing around your home that preceded you and that’ll be there long after you’re gone – look to the bushes, trees, and weeds for your lessons. My current rental came with a mature elderberry tree and a large rosemary shrub. I’ve paid attention to their growth patterns and harvested from them to make elderberry syrup and flavor food, respectively. Creeping over and under every fence are the incessant blackberry brambles that grow invasively in the Pacific Northwest – I revel in the abundant berries but have also learned a lot about how to diminish, if not eliminate, their presence in my yard. And in other nooks and crannies around and near my home grow dandelions, fennel, sorrel, stinging nettle, and purple dead-nettle. These plants belong to themselves as much as they belong to anyone. We don’t need to own them to learn from them.

Each year, I take detailed notes about what I forage and grow so I can remember those lessons the following year, always building on the wisdom offered by experience, which for me has been more enlightening than the years of reading that preceded it.

Home Is Where the Heart Is

My final method of growing a garden that feels like “home” even though I don’t own it is to incorporate elements that remind me of the people and places I love.

My grandmother’s favorite flower is the dahlia, so I plant these and think of her when I see them. As a child, I helped my mother in her garden, and I remember how excited we’d get to pull peas off the vine, so I’ll plant those this year to relive that experience. I grow strawberries in honor of my namesake great-grandmother, who was well-known for her strawberry patch. My friend who helped me plant the kale bought me some mums that I planted in pots. I grow nasturtiums because they were the first flower I ever ate, right in front of the Topeka, Kansas, building that houses Ogden Publications, the publisher of Mother Earth News; at a co-worker’s prompting, I popped one into my mouth and fell in love with their peppery flavor. I get to keep these memories no matter where I am.

I also incorporate garden décor that could make any garden of mine feel like home with hardly any setup. A DIY salvaged-wood compost bin full of wriggling worms; sweet dragonfly wind chimes I found at an antique mall; large rocks my partner found to form a firepit to sit around with friends; and bird feeders and a birdbath to invite winged creatures to join the backyard revelry. (Birds don’t live in just one structure either, after all.) Earth, air, fire, and water – these elemental touches will give me a sense of consistency and belonging in any setting.

While owning land does provide some security, change comes for all of us, sooner or later. I try to embrace the change while giving myself some anchors that’ll ensure that each of my temporary homes will reflect what I like, what I’ve learned, and whom I love. And as for the plants I have to leave behind, I revel in the idea that I’ve left food and flowers for the next renters (and other creatures) to enjoy. That’s really what it’s all about.

Amanda Sorell is a storyteller who lives in Seattle. She’s an editor for Mother Earth News and is passionate about food access and foraging. Read her newsletter at eClips.Substack.com.