Window Box Edibles
Improve your views with window boxes brimming with garden-fresh flavors. Learn which edible plants grow best in boxes.
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Photo By: Williams-Sonoma at Williams-Sonoma.com
Photo By: Gardener's Supply Co. at Gardeners.com
Photo By: Photo courtesy of Ball Horticultural Company
Photo By: Williams- Sonoma at Williams-Sonoma.com
Photo By: Gardener's Supply Co. at Gardeners.com
Photo By: All-AmericaSelections.org
©2013, Image courtesy of Ben Rollins
Photo By: Image courtesy of Ball Horticultural Company
Photo By: Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds at RareSeeds.com
Photo By: All-AmericaSelections.org
Photo By: Photo courtesy of National Garden Bureau
Photo By: All-AmericaSelections.org
Photo By: All-AmericaSelections.org
Herbal Perspective
Keep fresh herbs close at hand with a wooden window box filled with culinary favorites, like mint, cilantro, tricolor sage and spearmint. An edging of thyme alternating with silver thyme finishes the box with a flavorful flourish. Wood gives a rustic look to any window box garden. Untreated lumber offers an inexpensive option for a wooden window box. Treat wood to extend its life with two coats of cheap cooking oil. You’ll detect an odor the first season that will fade in subsequent years.
Window Box Edible Garden
Leaf Lettuce for Harvesting
Fill your salad bowl with homegrown lettuce from a window box. Using the cut-and-come-again harvest technique, you can enjoy a healthy, homegrown lettuce supply for several months. Plant lettuce seed thickly in rows. Within each row, snip alternating clumps to harvest, leaving a short stub. After harvesting, apply a water-soluble fertilizer to jump-start stub re-sprouting.
Indoor Window Box Herbs
Herb Window Box
'Terenzo' Tomato
Beets
Grow beets from seed to savor the sugary sweet roots. Beets accent a window box design with colorful leaves that are also edible. Don’t harvest too many leaves if you want roots to fatten up. Good beet varieties for the tight confines of a window box include Little Egypt and Early Red Ball.
'Cool Wave Frost' Pansy
Carrots for Containers
Sow seeds for carrots that form round or short, cylindrical roots. Round types include Thumbelina, Atlas, Romeo, Parmex and Parisienne. Nantes type carrots have shorter, cylindrical roots. This group includes Danvers Half Long, Chantenay Red Core and Little Finger.
Patio Baby Eggplant
Spring Peas
Add dwarf varieties of sugar snap or snow peas to your window box garden. Provide a few twigs for stems to climb, although if you stick with dwarf types, you shouldn’t need an elaborate trellis. Consider adding a short pot-size trellis or tuteur to add height to your window box design. Blooms and stems shoots are edible on early peas.
Cajun Belle Peppers
Mascotte Bean
Leeks
True bulbing onions don’t thrive in a window box setting, but you can harvest plenty of onion flavor by growing shallots, scallions or leeks. With shallots, expect to harvest small bulbs. Harvest scallions or green onions at normal size; pull leeks at a size similar to green onions. All of these oniony plants contrast nicely with leaf lettuces in a window box design.