You already know the mission: get 100,000 people growing their own food in 10 years. Well, the word is spreading. Joe Skibbie, the founder of Beats, Beds & Browns, was recently featured in a national magazine, Real Simple, sharing his knowledge on how to grow fruits and vegetables in containers: pots, buckets, whatever you have on your porch, patio, or fire escape.
The message is simple: you don’t need a backyard or a plot. All you need is a container, some good soil, some sunlight, and a little patience.
“Understanding the way the sun travels through your yard is important.” — Joe Skibbie, Beats, Beds & Browns, as quoted in Real Simple
Whether you’re working with a small balcony or a full patio, container gardening is one of the most accessible ways to join the #100kin10yrs movement. Here’s the rundown on what to grow and how to do it right.
The 8 best things to grow in containers
Real Simple’s experts, along with Skibbie, landed on these eight as the best options for pots and planters:
Sugar snap peas (Joe’s pick)
Easy, productive, and you can eat them right off the vine. Perfect for small spaces.
Tomatoes
Go with determinate or cherry/grape varieties. Stake them up and they’ll produce all season.
Peppers
Hot or sweet, peppers keep producing all summer long in a sunny container.
Strawberries
Strawberries are a perennial; you plant it once, and you can harvest for years. Look for everbearing varieties.
Leafy greens
Kale, chard, collards, spinach. Sow fresh seeds every few weeks to keep the harvest going.
Lettuce
Same approach as greens. Lettuce can be succession-planted with a shade cloth during peak summer heat.
Cucumbers
Train them up a trellis to save horizontal space. Bush varieties work well in containers too.
Herbs
Basil, cilantro, dill, parsley. Easy to grow and useful in the kitchen, or with a good bourbon.
One key thing to keep in mind when choosing what to grow: look for crops that give you more than one harvest. Gardening expert Carly Mercer of Love & Carrots explained it well in the article — a pepper plant keeps producing for months from the same square foot of space, while a carrot gives you one bunch after 70 days. Plants with a continuous harvest stretch every inch of container space you have.
Joe’s tips from the article (and a few extras)
Tip 1 — Know your sun
Before you plant anything, pay attention to where the sun hits your space and for how long. Most fruits and vegetables need at least 6–8 hours of direct light per day. Also think ahead — a tall tomato plant can end up shading your spinach by midsummer if you’re not thoughtful about placement. If possible, put large containers on caster wheels so you can move them as the sun angle changes through the season.
Tip 2 — Build a theme garden
Your container garden doesn’t have to be a random mix of plants. Joe suggested two ideas in the article that people love: a pizza garden (tomatoes, garlic, oregano, basil) and a salsa garden (tomatoes, peppers, cilantro, onions). Growing everything you need for one dish is satisfying, practical, and a great conversation starter.
Tip 3 — Plant in waves, not all at once
For greens, lettuce, and similar crops, sow a new round of seeds every three weeks instead of planting everything at once. That way you always have something ready to harvest. Joe calls it succession planting — a simple habit that keeps your container garden productive from spring through fall.
Tip 4 — Go big on the container
Bigger containers are almost always better. Aim for at least 18 inches deep and wide — roughly the same volume as a 5-gallon bucket. Larger containers retain more moisture, keep soil temperatures stable, and give roots the room they need to develop. A cramped root system means a stressed plant and a smaller harvest.
Tip 5 — Don’t overlook the soil
Soil is where a lot of first-time container gardeners cut corners. Regular garden soil compacts quickly in a pot and kills drainage. Use a lightweight potting mix designed specifically for containers — it makes a noticeable difference in how well your plants grow.
This is what #100kin10yrs looks like
A porch. A bucket. A bag of potting mix. A pack of sugar snap pea seeds. That’s all it takes to get started. Nobody needs a half-acre to grow their own food — they just need a reason to begin and someone to show them it’s possible.
Joe being featured in Real Simple is a reminder that the message is reaching people who never would have considered container gardening before. Let’s keep that momentum going.
Ready to start? Grab your free seed kit and get growing. #100kin10yrs
To read the full article on Read Simple, click here.
About Real Simple
Real Simple is a lifestyle magazine founded in 2000, published by Dotdash Meredith. It covers home organization, cooking, health, beauty, and personal finance — all through the lens of simplifying everyday life. It has a large national readership, both in print and online at realsimple.com.