This year we decided to see if we could grow some food on our balcony. We are using a product called Earthboxe (No connection to them).
These are perfect for us since we have a very limited space and sometimes forget to water our plants. Also Earthboxes have casters which makes it nice if you want to move them around to follow the sun.
Its a complete system: planting mix and dry fertilizer (we are using organic fertilizer) enclosed within the box for the entire growing season - just keep adding water through the watering tube.

We planted most of our veggies between April 1st and 15th.

Overall, we are pretty satisfied with the way its turning out for our first stab at growing veggies. Can't wait to finally eat some!

April 18th, 2 weeks after planting. Earthboxes have the following in them. From front to back, left to right: 2 tomatoes, 6 wild strawberries, 1 tomato and 1 zucchini, 2 more tomatoes, 4 cucumbers.

May 3rd. Zucchini is now 32 inches. Tomato is 24 inches

Cucumber buds on May 16th

Tomato buds on May 16th

Wild strawberries on May 16th

Zucchini buds on May 16th

Zucchini flowers on May 16th

May 16th. Zucchini is now 64 inches, tomato is 35 inches.

5-15 The other 2 boxes of tomatoes. Notice a funnel through which you water the plants.

Nice looking plants redflare; but it snowed here today so our gardening days are a ways off.

Mike

Those look great!

Thanks for the info and the link.

We used an Earthbox last year for 2 tomato plants. The Earthbox system seems to work well. The plants grew bigger than any tomato we had ever grown in the ground. We'll be using them again this year.

Thanks for the post and pictures. I'd considered the Earthbox but was put off by the price. I'm an incompetent gardner and hate to spend too much on failure.

I found the following on instructibles.com that I'm going to try:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Building-your-own-Earth-Box/

I am an incompetent gardener as well - that is why I went with a proven design. I considered building them myself too, but was put off by the amount of time I would need to spend cutting plastic.

Before planting anything, and especially to help you with selecting the proper planting mix, please check out the earthbox forum and read some of the stickies they have there.

http://forum.earthbox.com/index.php?board=4.0

Thanks for posting this, RedFlare. I was just looking into Earthboxes for our deck. It's good to know that they work well!

Here's a similar self-watering container that's somewhat easier on the wallet:

http://www.gardeners.com/Self-Watering-Planter/PotsPlanters_SelfWateringPlanters,35-901RS,default,cp.html

However this version doesn't have the excellent customer support that EB does, which might be helpful for novice gardeners.

So is it best to grow plants almost "TOUCHING" I've seen TONS of gardens that look like they are super full and all overflowing onto each other and I've seen other's where there is a couple incehs between each plant / limbs / leavs and it looks more 'airy'.

Which is better and why?

The Earthboxes are very specific about how many plants to put into each. http://www.earthbox.com/consumer/grow.html
2 tomato plants, 4 cucumbers, 6 strawberry plants is all you want to stuff into each box. I heeded advise and resisted the urge to put more then the recommended amount of plants into each box
Earthbox forum is a superb place to ask questions about this: http://forum.earthbox.com/index.php?board=4.0

tomatoes and wild strawberries July 1 2009
tomatoes july 1 2009

cucumbers July 1 2009

8 feet tomatoes July 1 2009

squash july 1 -2009

armenian cucumber almost ready for picking july 1 2009

Wow I didn't know we had different time zones in CA, hahha !!

Those look great! We have over 8 plants of maters and 0 yet and they are pretty big

oops, I am living in the future

The earthbox forums are a wealth of information! I think we may have to get 2 now and try them out..

have you done potatoes in them?

I would do high yield plants in earthboxes: tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, etc. Since there are 3 cups of fertilizer (I use organic) in each box, the potatoes will come into direct contact with it and might not work out.

If you have a backyard, I think it is better to grow potatoes in old truck tires. They explain it here http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/sanders98.html
scroll down to Potato stacks.

"Generally, a stack of four or five tires that are progressively filled with some good compost and a couple of pounds of seed potatoes will produce around 25 pounds of potatoes. A few of these stacks can provide your winter’s supply of potatoes with no problem. "

Awesome info.

Thanks

Since the Earthbox plant spacing is mostly pre-defined, I will assume that you're asking about a more traditional "in the ground" garden scenario. So, here's my opinion as it relates to that.

Sometimes, the spacing of the plants doesn't really matter at all... and, sometimes, it can make a real difference.

In general, if your garden tends to be damp/wet most of the time, a little more spacing for the plants to "get some air" can help ward off disease/rot problems.
For gardens that tend to be too dry, plants being closer together can shade the soil, which often helps to retain some moisture and "choke out" weeds. Wide Row plantings are a popular technique.

That's a very general way to look at it, but lots of other factors can be involved.

Tomato plants seem to like to "rub elbows" with each other.
"Heavy feeders" (like Corn) that take up a lot of nutrients and water, can suffer from lower productivity if spaced too tightly.
For melons, you will think you gave them too much room when planted, and then they look so thick that you can't even find the ground when the vines mature.

Every soil and climate combination is different; so, it's best to just experiment and see what works the best for you.