What bunnies like and can get to, they will eat. Unless you put a fence around and make sure it is buried so hey can't dig under. They did not care for my kale, but loved spinach :) And they keep 'pruning' some of my shrubs (they really like my haskaps!! they get severely 'pruned' every winter and I have to either pot them into big containers to keep them high up, or fence them).

Do you have to keep containers on a deck? If you keep them directly on the soil, there won't be any problem with watering.

They require all containers to be on the homeowners deck, in ground can be either a tree or have the approved type of edging around them which looks like bricks. The plants not in containers have to be ornamental, and the neighbors I’ve talked to said it’s really hard to get them to okay veggies as ornamental. Everything on an individual lot besides decks, driveways and porches is taken care of by the company contracted for lawn/yard care and thus has to get a landscape plan approval. So far they’ve okayed the tree. :p

Could you add a few of pallets or something to still be considered your "deck", or would that be too unsightly for the HOA? We had a fairly nice deck at our last house, and didn't mind a few container stains. As long as the containers stayed in the same place the stains didn't show :-)

They’d probably deem the pallets unsightly, this is the first time we’ve had a deck, though to be fair I’ve only lived 3...4 different houses my entire life so there’s not much to compare. :p We like not having to clear snow or mow lawn, and we were used to having to follow even more conformity standards at our previous home. But it is a tiny bit annoying that so far I’ve only gotten the okay to plant a few years old tree once the ground isn’t at risk of more snow. So...we have to wait until like....June. ;)

If you get plates for under the pots, with little legs, then the deck won't stay wet under them and the deck should stay okay. I think...

To answer your initial question, yes, a container vegetable garden is entirely feasible. But there is a limit as to how much and how varied a selection you can undertake unless you have a good number of pretty large pots :-)) I would list out what vegetables you really must have home grown and start from there. Tomatoes, tomatillos, eggplants and peppers all are easily grown in a container. Various salad greens work well also since they are almost always succession planted. Root crops are harder but also possible, depending on the exact type. I would avoid brassicas as you won't get much bang for your buck (only one or two plants will fit in a container) and they prefer a cooler soil than can easily be maintained in a container.

I had a very large container garden on the wooden deck of my previous house for almost 7 years and there were no issues with watering or staining. Just make sure the pots are on low feet (keep them from direct contact with deck surface) and watering is no more concern than a heavy rainfall :-)

Do you think that peas and snap beans might do well? If it wasn’t on the deck I’d want pots on those wheeled things to move them as needed, but those are best on a consistent flat surface like concrete. Now that the snow has melted everything is ugly brown, hopefully we’ll see some green appearing soon!

Peas will work if you start them early. Again, these are not veggies that appreciate a lot of heat :-) Beans are a good choice. But unless you have some vertical structures to support either plant, you might want to look at the bush types rather than pole beans or vining peas. Even with supports these tend to be messy, unruly looking plants so keep that in mind if you have an HOA peering over your shoulder.

I have some cone-type trellises my mom gave me, not sure what she used them for but now that I have them I guess it’s not important. ;)

A neighbor had a sunroom type of thing installed on the deck level and uses the walkout basement to access a small concrete patio area while the sunroom thingy is her greenhouse to grow salad variety edibles. Makes me wish we had a walkout and the money for a sunroom enclosure. ;)

I am planning on a few variety of lavender and some blue delphinium that will be planted in ground somewhere, as they are prominently featured in the book of native plants along with others that do well in our area but are still fairly easy to not kill without excessive babying. Here in Nebraska the fresh produce available is limited so all winter I’ve been filling the gap with frozen. But a lot of people have gardens to grow some produce in, its more popular to do that here than it was back in California where only the super healthy vegan types would put the time into it on any significant scale.

My mom gets so mad every year at the bunnies that eat her flowers (they like hydrangea and a couple other flowering plants she grows I guess), my dad finally convinced her of the futility in trapping them to release elsewhere because more bunnies will just show up. I kind of like them as long as the dog is on a leash so she can’t go chasing after them. We have a man made lake a 5 minute walk down the hill and it’s surrounded by a wooded recreational area and come May it will be wall to wall bunnies. (And that’s not exaggerating).

Northern Lights chard is very ornamental and could easily be slipped into an ornamental planting bed. But the bunnies will find it :-))

Interestingly, I raised pet rabbits for years and kale was their favorite of any of the leafy greens!! Maybe domesticated buns have more sophisticated tastes :-))

gardengal

I gave bunch of kale to my daughter - she has a pet bunny...She didn't care for it either, but spinach and swiss chard were gone in no time. Must be kale I grew - both wild and the pet didn't like it.

I also grow Northern Lights and that chard is very ornamental. Wild bunnies also devour my peas...

Gosh, rina - I spent more money keeping those buns in food than I did for my dog and cat!! Fresh kale, chard, cabbage and carrots (with tops, mind you!). They wouldn't touch lettuce. Apples, bananas, grapes. Cantaloupe in season - mostly the rinds. And then the alfalfa pellets and timothy hay....which I had to drive miles to purchase (no feed stores in my neighborhood). And I made the big mistake of getting some molasses treats for horses (had apples and various grains) and they went nuts over those, so often mixed dried fruits and veggies in with their pellets to make them more appealing - banana chips, dried apples, coconut shavings, sunflower seeds, dried sweet potatoes, dried green beans, etc.

Spoiled little devils!! But they did produce a bumper crop of excellent fertilizer :-))

You could always try out some hasenpfeffer recipes... :-D

gardengal

I never thought of them as fertilizer producers!!! Will ask my daughter to collect it, haha...Sounds like your bunnies are real gourmands/foodies :)

Jenn

I was just reading a magazine where latest trend in gardening is called 'fusion gardening'. According to them, it is ..."using perennials, bulbs, shrubs and trees to create a contemporary look + incorporating innovative water-saving features such as rain barrels, infiltration trenches, rain gardens and permeable paving, to allow property owner to use water on site"....(I am laughing a bit, since all of this has been used by gardeners for a long time, yet it is current trend...)

The reason I am mentioning this is only "new" name - that I would use to justify incorporating lots of veggies and herbs into garden, with 'regular/typical' perennials. I am lucky since I don't need anybody's approval, but using catchy and very current/modern term "FUSION GARDENING" would be something I would use if there were any complains...

I am planting strawberries into some new beds (where they can spread as much as they want) as edible groundcovers...purple kohlrabi and Swiss chard 'Northern Lights' in-between perennials like Shasta daisy, Penstemon 'Dark Towers', Huechera 'Lime Rickey'...bush type beans with yellow and purple pods, or pepper plants (as already suggested) in-between others...I will grow only few cucumbers and few dwarf and patio-types tomatoes in containers; indeterminals are going to be probably in beds.

Any herb will look great in ground or containers and they are mostly not demanding of too much water. Short ones are great groundcovers. Many are perennials and have nice flowers = butterflies magnets...Others could be overwintering indoors if you have space (I have 3 bay trees that do) and can be shaped/pruned into topiaries too. They look very ornamental in containers.

I better stop rambling now...winter seems to be too long and I am itching already :)

Hahaha “No, I’m not trying to sneak in a veggie garden, I’m practicing the historical method of FUSION GARDENING that was once common amongst those settlers moving west to homestead in the upper plains!”

Might work, I’ll have to start planting, then wait and see. ;)

Right on, lol. How could they complain and refuse the most 'current trend'?

Oh no, I’m going to try to make it seem like they’re the ones who are doing it wrong, because they aren’t returning to the traditional way of gardening ‘fusion gardening’. I just have to do a little research to find something that I can point to and say “this is what fusion gardening used to be called”. ;)

Tell 'em it's a potager and has been a style of combined ornamental and edible gardening that's been popular since the Renaissance!!

Potager Garden

It’s not like I’m going to try growing great big and ugly orange pumpkins or anything! (Do bunnies like them? Meh, even if they don’t they’re still orange and ugly so nope, no pumpkin planting - the purpose of edible gardening is growing things that my family and I are willing to eat, after all!)

When you say peppers, what varieties are we talking about? Something tells me if I lug in a bunch of super hot types and expect my heathens to eat them, shortly afterwards I will be looking for neighbors I can unload them on. ;)

I need to buy new gardening gloves, mine got left behind with the mini shovel and rusted clippers when we moved. I wonder if my Star and pink jasmines are still flourishing, I had finally gotten them to fill in all over instead of just growing upwards. I kind of feel a tad guilty for skipping over the challenges of being a two car household in a townhome with only one assigned covered parking spot at a gated HOA with significant issues of not enough parking spaces for multivehicle families much less guests. But we also didn’t want to wait to sell our home, with the local and property tax changes, waiting to move out of California until 2018 would have been waiting too long.

There are so many different varieties of peppers available; I like to grow what is generally called mini peppers. Fruit is small and colorful - green, red, yellow. I grow some hots but hardly ever eat them (use them as gifts to friends that are 'chili-heads'; and use little to flavour food), since they are really hot - BUT I like the look of small bushes and great color of fruit. Google sweet+mini/small peppers. And there are ornamentals - Christmas Ligts; Black pearl and more. You can even grow peppers as bonsai! Same with tomatoes - I grew 18 different varieties last year...Seeds have been sowed already :)

As Rina mentioned, there are mini peppers that are quite colorful .... many grocery stores carry them. They look like jalapeno pepper in shape but may be red, orange, or yellow and are not the least bit hot. Instead, they are more on the sweet side or like a bell pepper.

...Anyone else feel like they battle their spouse and kids to get them to eat less pickily? ;) I know I’m not as badly off as my SIL is in this respect, but it’s still annoying. ;)

My mom had it rather easy with respect to my dad -- he isn't terribly picky at all.

As far as we kids went .... what we did or didn't want to eat was irrelevant. You ate what was on the table. There was no "cooking a separate meal" for the picky eaters or "go and make yourself a pb & jelly sandwich then" option. Or eat only the item you want to. If you didn't eat it then you went to bed hungry and you'd have it for breakfast the next morning. I know plenty of folks who would be aghast "Oh that's so mean!" As a kid I would have agreed. But in hindsight, I'd have to say she was right to do so -- as a parent you draw the line/make the rules and your kids are to follow them. They don't have to like it. And it had it's positive side. I have been to "get togethers" with friends or relatives and have seen/heard kids and even adults turn up their noses or say something rude about how awful/yucky this or that dish was ... even without trying it. My siblings and I were brought to know that if someone has you over for a meal, you eat what is offered. You do not make a face or say anything disparaging. You find something good to say about the meal and thank the host. (If the host asks you in advance what kind of foods you like or don't, then it is okay to say that you don't care for this or that.)

We’re foster parents (right now we have a 7 year old and her 9 year old sister) so we’re still figuring things out in many aspects - but they haven’t been exposed to a lot of veggies and fruit, what little they have had before coming here has been canned. And as the 7 year old says - canned is yucky. :p

The only foods I don’t eat are dislikes for the texture issue, or taste like metallic dirt to me.