Bucket Gardening 101

This page may contain affiliate links. Learn More.

A great way to get started with gardening is to try bucket gardening. There is no weeding and it’s a small space to keep up with while you’re learning how to grow things yourself. Gardening at home is super important, but it doesn’t have to be big or complicated. Bucket gardening can produce a substantial amount of food.

Bucket gardening can be a year-round project. We planted radishes and lettuce in early spring. We got a harvest of radishes and several harvests of lettuce (lettuce can be cut and will continue to grow back). Then we put in a tomato plant and some green bean seeds and got some summer harvests. Next, we again planted fall crops and harvested in early winter.

(check out my favorite seed brand here)

We had a ton of fun trying bucket gardening and recording what happened so we could show other people how much you can really do in a small space in the garden. There is no maintenance to a bucket and no weeding (which I LOVE). I hope you will give it a try whether you’re a seasoned gardener or a newbie. You might fall in love with container gardening too!

You can also grow strawberries in a bucket.

✔Here’s a link to a great vegetable garden planner you can print right out and use at home! So cute!

Growing tomatoes in buckets

Tomatoes grow great in buckets as long as you choose one that is large enough. You could grow a smaller tomato variety in a one-gallon bucket, but for most tomatoes, a 5-gallon bucket is perfect. You can grow them in bigger buckets as well.

Bucket garden

I love a 5-gallon bucket for a garden. You can grow quite a bit of food in a bucket. It’s fun to see how much you can grow. This past summer, we grew 5 pounds of tomatoes, about a pound of lettuce, half a pound of radishes and a pound of green beans in one bucket. It was a fun experiment, but we have loved bucket gardening for years.

You can use any kind of bucket for growing. You can even get free plastic buckets at bakeries that have to throw tons of them away throughout the year. Stop by your grocer’s bakery and ask if they would save you some. I liked this metal bucket because it was super cute, but use whatever you can get. I think half whiskey barrels are adorable too.

Once you have your container, the first step is DRAINAGE! You need your bucket to drain so your roots don’t get drowned. We just turn ours over and grab a drill. We use at least a quarter-inch bit and drill a bunch of holes in the bottom. I think 8-10 at minimum.

5-gallon planter

Next, you need planting medium. I would suggest potting soil rather than garden soil for this because a garden in a bucket needs lots of nutrients and needs to hold moisture so it doesn’t dry out too fast. Potting soil is formulated for just that purpose. The kind of potting soil we bought for this bucket gardening project wasn’t the best. Next time, I’ll add compost to the medium to improve growth.

Fill your bucket garden with your soil or planting medium all the way to the top and a little heaping over. It will settle pretty quickly so don’t be afraid to really fill it up. Add some water so the soil starts out moist. Bucket gardening is simple, but keeping it watered is the most important part. Once the soil is damp, it’s ready to plant. You can use seedlings or start seeds directly in the soil.

Container gardening in a bucket

Plant seeds according to package instructions and seedlings up to the same soil level they were in their original pots. (Except for tomatoes, you can plant them a little deeper) Water them well once planted to make sure you removed any air pockets around them.

When the seedlings are all sprouted, cut all but the strongest ones off at the ground with scissors so the best ones will have room to grow.

Once your seedlings are about 5 inches tall or so, you can mulch the top of the soil to keep in additional moisture. The bucket will need to be watered once a week until it gets very hot and then watered more than once a week as it dries out.

For more on how to grow tomatoes in a bucket, check this out.

Growing food in a 5-gallon planter is simple if you keep it watered well enough AND remember that since you’re watering more often, you’ll have to add nutrients more often. This means using some type of fertilizer. We like to use diluted fish emulsion about once a week in the heat of the summer. Every other week is fine in spring and fall when it’s not so hot!

Check out these ideas on how to start a survival garden too.

For more details on what to plant when, check out this month by month garden planning guide.