Getting your home garden started can seem like a challenge at first. Here’s a few tips to get you started:

What to grow
You can grow a wide variety of flowers, herbs and vegetables in container gardens. Smaller more ornamental vegetables work particularly well and require less maintenance. Vines also grow well in containers, however they require trellises or wire cylinders for support.
Here’s a list of plants that work well for fire escape, window or rooftop gardens:

Plants with low maintenance and small space requirements (can be grown in containers smaller than 10” in diameter):
Radishes, beets, lettuce. basil, chives, and parsley

Larger plants requiring three to five gallon containers:
Tomatoes – (cherry tomatoes are particularly easy and produce fruit more regularly), cucumbers- (Spacemaster and Fanfare varieties are recommended), eggplants, and peppers

Picking your planters

Almost anything can be used as a container to house your vegetables as long as it meets the space requirements of the plants you are growing. We recommend repurposing and recycling existing containers rather than buying new planters.

Clay pots are breathable however they are porous and soak up water, so your plants must be watered more frequently. They also have a tendency to chip and crack in the winter
Broken clay pots can be recycled by laying the pieces over the soil. This helps retain moisture

Plastic containers are cheap and widely available. They can also be easily modified to suit your particular needs

All containers should be raised on bricks or some kind of feet for better drainage and air circulation, and container plants must be watered as needed to prevent dehydration.

For instructions on how to create your own Two Bucket Sub-Irrigated Planter click here

Where to go from here

The New York and Brooklyn botanical gardens offer year-round workshops on urban gardening, and the BBG staffs a Gardener’s Resource Center to vet questions. The hotline (718-623-7270) is open on Tuesdays through Thursdays from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Check online for walk-in hours, helpful e-mail addresses, and other resources.

Garden Cycle planner - Provided by seeds of change, The Garden Cycle planner allows you to schedule important gardening events like watering cycles and succession plantings and note seasonal changes and harvest dates as well as tracking weather events and temperatures.

References

http://greenroofgrowers.blogspot.com/2008/07/how-make-two-bucket-sub-irrigated.html
http://www.seedsofchange.com/digging/containable_garden.aspx
http://nymag.com/restaurants/features/37275/