Now that the bok choy (and green onions) have been harvested, I'll plant Tom Thumb and Little Leprechaun lettuce seeds - I'll put about 10 radish seeds between the lettuce. The 14" in diameter area should give me enough room for two heads of each lettuce, and it will be ready to harvest in about 50 days, or by June 20. All the plants I've grown so far in this basin like cool weather - at June 20, we have probably moved into summer so I'll shift to warm weather plants.

OK, after June 20, this container is empty again. This time, I'll plant Pronto Baby Beets in it - I think six beets will fit. (Beets are really a cool weather plant, but at least in my area, they will grow in summer as well.) Since it's only 5" high, I'll need to pick the beets when they're quite young, but this is OK: they're delicious young. I'll also eat the beet greens: they're the very best green of all, in my opinion. The baby beets and greens will be ready to harvest 50 days after planting or - in this case - by roughly August 9.

This brings us up to early August: it's still hot weather and fall vegetables won't be happy yet. So I'm actually going to let the container (gasp!) sit empty for a while.

Mid-to-late August is time to think about planting fall vegetables for growing on into cool weather. So let's say that I return to the Asian veggie theme and plant four kai laan (Asian kale) plants in the container, together with Parisian Market Carrot seeds, on August 20. Both are frost hardy, cool weather plants. I think that four kai laan plants and about six carrots will fit comfortably. The kai laan will require about 45 days to mature and the carrots about 50 days. That gives me a harvest date for both of October 10, well before winter sets in.

Let's sum it up. Here's what we harvested from a container that's 14" in diameter and 5" high:

• Hybrid Green Baby Bok Choy - Four plants - enough for two stir-fries for two people (with other veggies)
• Green Onions - two
• Tom Thumb Lettuce - two heads
• Little Leprechaun Red Romaine - two heads
• Radishes - ten
• Pronto Baby Beets - six
• Kai Laan - Four plants - enough for two stir-fries for two people (with other veggies)
• Parisian Market Carrots - Six

That seems pretty good to me, considering that this is the harvest from a dishpan! There are many, many possible permutations of this, many combinations. If you start with a larger (especially deeper) container, naturally you have a lot more choices of plants, plus you can harvest more plants.

Other combinations that have worked well for me include:

• Planting beets or carrots in a circle around a tomato plant or pepper plant
• Planting lettuce around a tomato or pepper plant (by the time the larger plant has grown enough to shade the lettuce, the weather is hot, and the lettuce appreciates the shade).
• Basil planted together with tomatoes or peppers.