Edible Hanging Baskets

Hanging baskets are fantastic for adding colour to your garden fence, outside your front door or in a row against a garden wall. However they don’t just need to include plants – why not plant up a hanging basket that’s productive as well as beautiful?

An edible hanging basket is a clever way to get a little more produce out of your garden. Lots of types of fruit and veg do better raised off the ground: strawberries, for example, are kept well away from slugs, so you get to pick your crop unmunched and perfect.

Edible Hanging Baskets to Eat all Summer Long

Like flower planted hanging baskets, edible hanging baskets can be planted with a mix of different edibles mixing foliage (herbs) and fruits together. This will create an amazing mix of things to eat in the same basket as well as a vibrant display of contrasting plants. You can even create an ‘instant dish’ by planting complementary veg together, like tomato and basil for all the ingredients you need to make a flavoursome Mediterranean sauce.

Why not combine your favourite herbs for putting on the BBQ, adding to cocktails or herbs that you can add to salads? Herbs such as basil, coriander or chives are a great option to have hanging just outside the kitchen to add to dishes as and when required!

Edible Hanging Basket Ideas

You’ll find everything you need to create an edible hanging basket at Simpsons from the baskets themselves to liners, compost, water-retaining gel to cut down on the watering workload, and of course plants and seeds. Here are some great varieties to try growing up in the air this year:

• Tumbling tomatoes cascade fetchingly in jewels of red and yellow. Choose a container variety like ‘Tumbling Tom Red’. Keep well-watered and feed with liquid fertiliser once a week.
• Chillies are Mexican firecrackers which love a hot, dry spot and don’t mind restricted roots.
• Peas: mangetout peas and dwarf types like ‘Bingo’ or ‘Little Marvel’ do exceptionally well in hanging baskets and don’t need any support. Choose a larger basket and water well.
• Strawberries: fill a hanging basket with two or three strawberry plants and they’ll froth joyously over the edge.
• Herbs: Mediterranean herbs love conditions in hanging baskets. Hang your basket right by the back door for easy picking. Herbs that do well in hanging baskets include thyme, marjoram, basil and summer savoury.

Please ask the staff in our outdoor area for more information and advice about creating edible hanging baskets.