Easy Container Herb Garden with Strawberries & Tomatoes

Plant an Easy Container Herb Garden on your deck or patio in a few hours and on a budget. Features best herbs for containers plus vegetables & fruit. 

Plant an Easy Container Herb Garden on your deck or patio in a few hours and on a budget. Features best herbs for containers plus vegetables & fruit.

The month of May has the tendency to get the best of me. There are so many things that need done outside and that makes it tough to keep up with what needs done inside. To me, it feels like I take on another full-time job. Anyway, occasionally amidst all the work, I find time to fit in an afternoon of pure pleasure. I recently had one of those afternoons when I planted my easy container herb garden.

Plant an Easy Container Herb Garden on your deck or patio in a few hours and on a budget. Features best herbs for containers plus vegetables & fruit.

Easy Container Herb Garden Ideas

Like always, this herb garden is nothing fancy. Some vintage galvanized containers along with a couple of new buckets that I hope will age over the next few months. This year I stuck with the herbs I use most: basil, mint and rosemary. I’m already picking the mint for infused water and my favorite mint lemonade

Plant an Easy Container Herb Garden on your deck or patio in a few hours and on a budget. Features best herbs for containers plus vegetables & fruit.

Even though I don’t have much luck with tomatoes because I have limited sun, I planted a couple of husky cherry tomato plants. I don’t need a huge harvest, just enough to make a few batches of caprese salad. They were very tiny when I bought them and they’ve actually doubled in size already. I’m definitely encouraged!

Author’s note: I know that technically my tomato cages are upside down. I prefer to bury the big circle in the dirt when I’m using a pot. They work great that way and I don’t have a top-heavy cage sitting on my pots. 

Plant an Easy Container Herb Garden on your deck or patio in a few hours and on a budget. Features best herbs for containers plus vegetables & fruit.

 Click to see last year’s herb garden!

Plant an Easy Container Herb Garden on your deck or patio in a few hours and on a budget. Features best herbs for containers plus vegetables & fruit.

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Every year I try to plant at least one new thing. Last year it was cucumbers but that didn’t work out so well. The vines were uncontrollable and I got just a few cucumbers. I thought because I chose a “container cucumber” that I wouldn’t need a net or trellis, but I really did need one. Anyway, this year I’m trying my hand at strawberries. I did some research and decided not to invest in a strawberry jar…at least not the first time. If I have success, I may branch out next year. I just put them in galvanized buckets and purchased these strawberry supports to keep the fruit off the soil. 

Plant an Easy Container Herb Garden on your deck or patio in a few hours and on a budget. Features best herbs for containers plus vegetables & fruit.

My old step stool is hanging in there and getting rustier by the year. I had some leftover asparagus fern, ivy and stream alyssum so I combined them in an old bucket to set on the stool. 

Plant an Easy Container Herb Garden on your deck or patio in a few hours and on a budget. Features best herbs for containers plus vegetables & fruit.

From start to finish, putting this easy container herb garden together took just a few hours. I refreshed the potting soil in my existing containers but used all new soil in the olive buckets. I lined them first with this landscape fabric so the dirt wouldn’t escape the slits. To save on potting soil and hold the landscape fabric in place, I added an upside-down pot.

Plant an Easy Container Herb Garden on your deck or patio in a few hours and on a budget. Features best herbs for containers plus vegetables & fruit.

After the soil was in, I trimmed the fabric to just below the rim of the olive bucket. The buckets have excellent drainage but no dirt escapes which makes it so much easier to keep the deck clean. 

Plant an Easy Container Herb Garden on your deck or patio in a few hours and on a budget. Features best herbs for containers plus vegetables & fruit.

If you’ve never planted an herb garden before, I hope you at least try your hand at one or two herbs. Basil and mint are basically care-free…all you have to do is set them in the sun and water them. Here are some of my favorite ways to use basil:

Related:

Plant an Easy Container Herb Garden on your deck or patio in a few hours and on a budget. Features best herbs for containers plus vegetables & fruit.

Here are my favorite ways to use mint:

Plant an Easy Container Herb Garden on your deck or patio in a few hours and on a budget. Features best herbs for containers plus vegetables & fruit.

Best wishes for a wonderful Memorial Day…and my heartfelt thanks to all military men & women and their families. They sacrifice so much for our freedom…and I’m personally very grateful.

See you soon!

 

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26 Comments

  1. where did you get those containers with the slits /handles in them? I love it. Great post. I wish hou page didnt have so many commercial popups.. it was really hard to read with a commercial that wouldnt go away..

  2. Penny Kafflen says:

    Regarding growing cucumbers, I highly recommend Baby cucumbers, also called Persian cucumbers. The seeds are expensive: 8 seeds for $2 – 3, but 8 seeds is plenty! These are the little cucumbers that are sold in a bag–often called cocktail cucumbers in our area.

    The vines will need to be controlled somewhat–I am trying a trellis this year–unless you want them to sprawl on a deck or garden. They bear heavily and are crisp and delicious, and much easier to handle than larger cucumbers.

  3. No matter what you do with those olive buckets they always look great. Good luck with your container gardening.

  4. Your deck looks great. Your containers together are quite pretty. Good luck with all the tasty recipes you can create with your herbs.

    Nancy

  5. Gina@ginadiamondsflowerco says:

    Your herbs and galvanized containers marry so nicely. Last year I started my herbs in terra cotta pots and transferred them to my beds. People gasp when I tell them I planted mint in a wide open space, but I love it. It is beautiful and so fragrant. I also love to work mint and other herbs into flower arrangements. It gives them a very earthy, natural look. Good luck with all your plantings. Please show them to us in a month or so. It will be fun to see how much they have grown.

  6. Enjoyed today ‘s post. I FINALLY have healthy mint growing! I always start with a small plant and it flourishes for a bit, then just as suddenly it starts to shrivel up and quit producing. Living in south TX and having our back patio facing the northwest can be a bit challenging but worth every bit of it. How timely to see your post and suggestions for using mint. I definitely will try them alongside hopefully having enough mint leaves for nice refreshing mojitos on the patio!
    Thank you for all your thoughts and ideas, I always take time to read and enjoy them!

  7. I have two olive buckets. Will the landscape fabric allow for the pot to still “breathe”?? Would a plastic garbage bag work as a liner? Do you put holes in the other galvanized buckets? Oh so many questions I have but there are many basils, which grow tall, and I put them all in one container. Now I know what I shall do!! Just wondered about the drainage.

    1. Ann Drake says:

      Hi Gwen,
      Yes, the landscape fabric allows for air and water to get through. A garbage bag would work but you would have to cut slits in it for drainage. Yes, I drill holes in all my buckets on the bottom. Hope this helps!

      1. Thank you for emailing me. I hope to get the fabric tomorrow and little feet or something to keep them off the patio! My olive buckets aren’t real so I see they do rust over time. Perfect solution for my basil varieties and a Greek oregano. I appreciate your help.

  8. Container gardening is the way to go. We have a metropolis of birds and squirrels so I tend to just have flowering plants for the butterflies and hummingbirds. Your yard is just lovely and I have been working on an area in our yard using a rock border, copycat, ha-ha!! Have a blessed and safe Memorial Day.

  9. Great idea to use your olive buckets for your herbs. I battle so many critters here, that container gardening is the only way to go. At least this way I am able to harvest what I grow! Enjoy your weekend! ;)

  10. I love basil on tomato sandwiches. I can hardly wait to harvest mine

  11. Love your idea using olive buckets; they really caught my eye. I hear ya with not having enough ‘indoor time’ in the month of May. I’m the same way; gotta get so many things done outside. Really I would much rather be digging in the dirt than dusting knick knacks and polishing silver (which I don’t do anyway haha).

  12. Ann – just wanted to let you know how much I enjoy your blog. I don’t comment much but I so look forward to every single post. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!

    We have so many squirrels that we can’t plant anything – they eat everything! Good luck with the strawberries – hope they grow well for you.

  13. Once again, thanks, Ann, for easy-breezy ideas to cheer our days !
    : )

  14. I don’t have much of a green thumb, but I try.Your herb garden is adorable, good luck !

  15. Charmaine says:

    Thanks for the ideas for containers for gardening. I’ve never used galvanized buckets, but they look so pretty on your deck that I might have to try out a few. I’ll be looking forward to those recipes, too, since basil is one of my favorite cooking herbs!

  16. I know you’re probably tired of hearing this, I just love all of your posts. Thank you and have a God filled day.

    1. Ann Drake says:

      Hi Daisy…thank you so much for your kind comment. I never, ever tire of hearing that someone likes what I do! Comments like this one totally make my day. Have a lovely summer…Ann

  17. I always enjoy your posts-very uplifting, practical and fun. Cute, simple ideas and confirmation to just enjoy the simple pleasures of life. Thank you and I do look forward to reading each new one!

  18. Yep you’ve given me another job to do. But this is a very satisfying one. My mother always said if you are down in the dumps to “dig in the dirt” I believe she was right. It is very therapeutic.
    I’m going to try tomatoes since that is something we really love. I’m truly not a gardener like my parents were. I’m very disappointed in myself that I didn’t inherit their green thumbs.

    Great ideas.
    I’m like you I am truly grateful to our men and women who keep us safe and give their lives to keep us free.

  19. Ugh! I am so behind this year. I bought a couple herb plants but they were too mature. I’ve already had to cut the parsley all the way back to keep it from falling over. I love to have fresh herbs on hand but i have the opposite problem you have – too much sun. The plants get burned up so I try to keep them going in the house and it isn’t easy.
    Great idea using landscape fabric to line your olive baskets!

  20. How do these pots have drainage?

    1. Ann Drake says:

      Hi Wendy…I have drilled holes in the bottom of all the buckets!

  21. Enjoy your blog. Your artwork is so pretty. FYI, we use the tomato cages with the closed end at the top and the loose ends stuck in the dirt.v

    1. Ann Drake says:

      I know that’s the proper way to use a tomato cage…but I have always used them upside-down. I just bury the circle in the dirt and they work fine that way.