How many tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, or cucumbers per container? Here are the results!

87 peppers, 653 tomatoes (including cherry), 36 eggplants, 25 cucumbers (in a disease shortened season), and much more! That's quite a haul for a porch garden!

It's been an incredibly busy few months, so I've taken a break from blogging about the garden. However, part of the reason I started this blog was to get some data out there for would be container gardeners as to what one could expect in terms of yield given a specific planting scenario.

It was a pretty good year overall. Sadly my cucumbers were killed early on by powdery mildew (aka the bane of my gardening existence year after year)! Aside from tomatoes, cucumbers are probably my favorite garden crop, as they are so versatile and tasty. This year I am looking into mildew resistant varieties (look for a post to come on that soon).

Keeping track of all the harvest numbers was a great experience in terms of planning for future gardens as well. We have a roughly 24x8 upper porch, and we were able to get quite a bit of harvest this year. However, there were many inefficiencies (such as packing a Brandywine and Evergreen tomato plant into one pot and getting very little out of them). This year I am looking to plant just enough of each crop that we have it all year, with minimal extra. Except for tomatoes, that is! I can't help myself there!

Without further ado, here are the results: 

	Crop Type and Variety	Potting Setup	Yield (does not include any fruits lost to disease or damage)	Notes
Peppers	Bell Pepper (Carnival Mix and California Wonder)	4 plants per square 6.5 gallon container	33	Good yield, seems to take to crowding well, 20% crop loss due to blossom end rot
	Banana Sweet Pepper	7 plants in a long 7 gallon window planter	54	Very high yielding plants… these just keep producing!
Tomatoes Tomatoes	Sweet 100 Cherry Tomato	2 plants in a 7 gallon container	185	Excellent flavor, continuous production right up to frost
	Jellybean Grape Tomato	2 plants in a 6 gallon container	58	Good flavor, moderate yield in this growing condition, 20% loss due to high winds knocking immature fruit from plant
	Yellow Pear Tomato	3 plants in a 12 gallon flexible plastic tub	255	Extremely high yield, mediocre flavor with mealy texture
	Green Zebra Tomato	2 plants in a 12 gallon flexible plastic tub	61	High yielding plants with large clusters of fruit, amazing flavor when picked yellow, 25-30% loss due to blossom end rot early in season
	Black Krim	2 plants in a 12 gallon flexible plastic tub	43	Great flavor and texture, good yield, 20% loss due to blossom end rot
	Brandywine	1 plant in a 12 gallon flexible plastic tub (with one Evergreen tomato plant)	7	Incredible flavor (best of the garden this year) but not high yielding. Could have been crowded.
	Evergreen Tomato	1 plant in a 12 gallon flexible plastic tub (with one Brandywine tomato plant)	5	Great flavor (sweeter than Green Zebra), low yield
	Tomatillos (Giant)	2 plants in a square 6.5 gallon container	39	Healthy plants, good yield, but I will stick to the smaller tomatillos for container gardens
Eggplant	Round White Eggplant	2 plants in a square 6.5 gallon container	18	Very good yield in likely crowded plants, excellent flavor and texture, last batch of fruits in early fall turned yellow when ripe and were inedible due to bitterness
	Black Beauty Eggplant	1 plant in a square 6.5 gallon container with 1 round white and 1 long eggplant)	4	Amazing that we got anything from this highly crowded plant.  Yielded 4 very large (approx. 1.5 pound) eggplants! Great flavor and texture.
	Long Purple Eggplant	1 plant in a square 6.5 gallon container with 1 round white and 1 long Black Beauty)	14	Good yield, also very crowded. Seems perfect for a container. Very pretty plant.
Okra	Red Okra (Burgundy)	4 plants in one 6.5 gallon square container	37 pods	Attractive plants, very large and healthy, but not high yielding enough at any one time.
	Green Okra (Clemson Spineless)	4 plants in one 6.5 gallon square container	21 pods	Attractive plants, very large and healthy, but not high yielding enough at any one time.
Cucumber	Straight 8 Cucumber	7 plants in one 12 gallon flexible tub (w/ 3 Lemon Cucumber plants)	11	Delicious and  high yielding, but plant with dozens of immature fruits was killed by powdery mildew in late July
	Lemon Cucumber	3 plants in one 12 gallon flexible tub (w/ 7 straight 8 plants)	14	Another very high yielding plant, good flavor, pick before they turn too dark yellow or they will be tough. Also killed by powdery mildew in late July.
Miscellaneous Crops	Rainbow Swiss Chard	5 plants in one 6.5 gallon square container	5 large meals	Delicious, highly productive cooking green well suited to containers. Leave the center leaves when you cut and it will continue to grow back until it bolts in late summer. Then, plant again in same container for a fall crop, as it likes the cool weather.
	Red Potatoes	3 plants in 7 gallon nursery pot	About 2 pounds	A fun experiment, and delicious flavor, but they take up a lot of room for the yield.
	Detroit Red Beets	Various small planters	6 medium sized beets	These were planted in very small containers as they became available, good flavor, would be well suited to dedicated containers for a better yield.
	Zucchini	1 plant in a 6.5 gallon square container	1	Delicious fruit, enormous plant (so plan on it needing some space) but killed by powdery mildew soon after it bloomed.
	Broccoli (major hybrid)	3 plants in a 6.5 gallon square container	3 large crowns	Delicate, sweet, and tender flavor. Not a great yield to space invested ratio, as the crowns don’t grow back (you do get smaller side shoots though)