I know the tomatoes will do just fine in pots. You just have to make sure that the pots are big enough...5 gallons is about the standard for tomatoes. I don't have any experience with eggplant so I'll leave that to other more experienced GWers, but I would think it would do just fine in a pot.

I have no idea about the squash. You could probably pull it off in a large pot, but the plant will be sprawling everywhere.

Curt

If I might borrow you thread?
First time for me with a small greenhouse.
Is a shoebox (8 by 12 plastic) OK to grow lettuce?
Or other salad greens?

Hogan_nj and colokid, if you will go to the Container Growing forum, you'll get all the info you need for growing in pots, buckets, etc. By the way, a shoebox would be fine for growing lettuce and other salad greens.

I've heard of tomatoes being grown in 4 gallon buckets, but I think the smallest most people recomment is a 5 gallon container per tomato plant. I use 20 gallon totes (Rubbermaid, etc.) that I make into self-watering containers and grow 2 tomato plants per container. I would think you could do one eggplant or squash per 5 gallon container would work, but I don't know for sure.

I usually put some tomatoes, peppers and eggplants in containers. Tomatoes & Eggplants like big containers (5 gallons or more.) I think my eggplants do better in containers than they do in the ground. Peppers can withstand a small container (2 gallons or more.) I just went to Lowes yesterday and bought 5 gallon paint buckets for $2.34 each. Home Depot has them for th same price. Tractor Supply Company has them for $2.99. I know other people have hit up restaurants for for large (food) containers to grow in.

I think lettuce would be fine in a shoe box of that size.

Here is a link that might be useful: Growing in containers

I've grown full-size tomato plants (as in not dwarf varieties) and also eggplant and squash in containers, all with no problems.

But as other people have pointed out, you need to make sure your pots are big enough. The ones I've used are BIG - 60 litre and 75 litre capacity, which would be about 15 and 20 US gallons respectively. Certainly for tomato and squash I wouldn't recommend going much smaller than 15 gallons.

Eggplants you could get away with a bit smaller pot, but remember, the smaller the pot the more difficult it is to keep the potting mix from drying out in warm weather(unless you make a self-watering pot). This matters particularly for container tomatoes because uneven moisture will lead to blossom end rot. Blossom end rot can also occur in eggplant and squash but I've never encountered it personally. I think tomatoes are much more susceptible.

I have growen eggplant in containers for many years and think it is better than in the ground less bugs. have used everything from half wiskey barrals to 10 gallon containers just rember the smaller the containr the faster it drys out and also if you use small cont. they tend to get top heavy as plants get bigger. tom. plants tend to tip over easy when loaded with furit so keep that in mind. squash do ok in 10 gallon cont also.they low plants so balance not as much of issue. good luck.

Self-watering containers might be really nice. I've never used them, but when it gets hot and the plants are huge, you can have to water them at least twice per day in north Texas. We used 18-gallon 'yard buckets' aka laundry baskets. My mother-in-law likes to grow mesclun. This year she got a rubbermaid tote, think about 20 gallon size, to use. She wanted the larger surface area to depth ratio for the mesclun.

I swear by 5 gallon buckets for eggplants. Since they are heavy feeders, the bucket allows the perfect growing condition w.o having to worry about over fertilizing anything else. Just make sure you have adequate drainage and a support system for it

Have you thought of just doing a small raised bed with recycled bricks (or similar) around the edge? If your soil isn't great, you could add some decent garden soil on top, just turning it in a bit as you plant your veggies. It would likely end up costing less money and time than container gardening. You wouldn't need to buy special soil or containers or have to spend as much time watering... and you could easily fit a few tomatoes, eggplant, and a squash in a 4'x6' (or so) bed. Weeding is minimal if you space the plants close, like with square foot or intensive gardening.

Here's another suggestion if you decide to go with the container garden. I go to the bakery section at a couple of our grocery stores and ask if they have any empty icing buckets to get rid of. I picked up a lot of the 5 gallon sized buckets doing this last year and they were free. Try to find out from the bakers what time of the day is the best to pick them up. Usually they have been washed before they toss them so you don't even have to do that. I made most of mine into self-watering containers.

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