Growing fresh produce for the picking needn’t mean having a “French Intensive” vegetable garden, a square-foot garden or an acre truck farm. Porches, patios and decks are becoming the vegetable sites for urban gardeners, and as we enter into a new year you too can jump on this bandwagon.

Vegetable gardening can be as simple and fun as growing a hanging basket of petunias. Hanging baskets offer opportunities to have fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and even lettuce. Trailing over the rim of a container, a “Tumbling Tom” tomato will thrill as much as a blooming Supertunia and provide tasty produce too. In larger containers, lettuces like “Red Sails,” “Black-Seeded Simpson” or the new “Galactic” can be used as filler plants, giving added interest and texture along with the perfect salad complement for your tomatoes.

Plant and harvest 65 days later

From the harvest potential, you may wonder whether it’s worthwhile to grow a tomato in a hanging basket. The answer is yes: In trials, the “Tumbling Tom Yellow” tomato generated 4 1/2 pounds in one harvest. Although you may not want to harvest all at once, rest assured you’ll be picking as desired for a long time.

“Tumbling Tom” tomatoes come in both red and yellow and are among the easiest cherry tomatoes to grow. You can buy transplants at your local garden center once spring planting season arrives. Or there is plenty of time to buy seeds and start your own. Typically, you can expect to harvest about 65 days after sowing the seeds. This is relatively fast in the world of tomatoes.

Growing vegetables in containers is like growing any other plant. You will want to choose a good, lightweight potting soil. Feed regularly with a dilute water soluble fertilizer to keep the plants growing vigorously.

In addition to “Tumbling Tom Red” and “Tumbling Tom Yellow,” look also for “Tumbling Junior Yellow.” In addition, squashes like the “Buckingham” zucchini and such pumpkins as the small “Windsor” are fun to grow and will get your children interested in gardening.

Get the kids involved

So far, I’ve only talked about gardening in hanging baskets but containers of all shapes and sizes are possibilities with today’s compact vegetables. Can you imagine what your children or grandchildren will think if you get them growing a “Sweet n’ Neat Scarlet” tomato that could have as many as 40 red ripe fruits in a 6-inch container? Partner with lettuce, and you will not only have a new gardener on your hands but probably a new salad eater, too!

In addition to the “Scarlet,” gardeners can choose other varieties like “Sweet ‘n’ Neat Cherry,” “Sweet ‘n’ Neat Yellow” and an impressive “Little Sun Yellow.”

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