Printable container garden planner
The Container Garden Starter Pack
A printable planning system for growing food, herbs, and flowers in pots — on balconies, patios, and doorsteps. Plan the pots once, log as you go, check weekly — on paper, where garden plans actually survive.
Instant digital download · secure external checkout · 14-day refund policy
Who this is for
This pack is for a balcony, a patio, a doorstep, or a fire-escape landing — anywhere the garden is a handful of pots rather than a plot. It suits renters, first-time growers, and anyone whose last container garden dried out in July. If you want apps, spreadsheets, and companion-planting matrices, this isn't that. If you want a few pots that actually get planted, watered, fed, and harvested this season, it is.
What's inside — an 18-page pack + 8 cue cards
14 worksheets & guides and 2 filled-in worked examples in one 18-page PDF (US Letter and A4), plus the 8 Container Cue Cards as a separate postcard-size file.
Plan it
- Quick Start Guide — the eight-step path from empty balcony to first harvest
- Container Garden Planning Sheet — light, wind, rain shadow, water, weight, goals
- Worked example: a completed Planning Sheet, filled in so you see it in use
- Container Layout Map — a fine grid for your space, plus a numbered spot table
- Worked example: a planted balcony layout — six pots, believably placed
- Pot Size & Depth Guide — the minimum container per crop, in gallons, liters, and inches
- Container Setup Shopping Checklist — pots, mix, feeding, tools, watering, protection
- Potting Mix Volume Worksheet — pre-calculated pot volumes, the conversions, a worked example
Log it
- Seed & Plant Inventory — crop, variety, source, qty, days to maturity
- Planting Log — what went into which pot, and when
- Watering & Feeding Tracker — a weekly grid with the feed column that pots need
- Harvest & Bloom Tracker — date, crop, amount, notes
Keep it going
- Weekly Container Check — the ten-minute routine, from finger test to root-bound pots
- End-of-Season Review — which containers earned their spot, and what changes next year
- 8 Container Cue Cards — pot sizes, mix amounts, watering, feeding, sun, moving and overwintering, problems, harvest timing
- How to Use This Pack — a one-page orientation
- Printing Guide & personal-use license
How you'd actually use it
The Saturday before you buy anything
You count the hours of sun on the balcony, fill in the Planning Sheet, sketch six pot positions on the Layout Map, and work out that you need 46 quarts of potting mix — before you carry a single bag up three flights of stairs.
Ten minutes every Saturday, all summer
The Weekly Container Check lives by the balcony door. Same eight checks, same order — you catch the aphids in week one, tip out the saucer that was drowning the pepper, and see the tomato going root-bound while a bigger pot still fixes it.
The first cold night of fall
You move the tender pots under cover, flip through a season of harvest logs, and fill in the End-of-Season Review — so next spring starts knowing which containers earned their spot and which never did.
Formats & printing
- US Letter PDF — 18 pages, 8.5 × 11 in
- A4 PDF — 18 pages, 210 × 297 mm
- Container Cue Cards PDF — 8 cards, A6 / postcard size
- Screen-friendly PDF — 18 pages, larger type for reading on a device
Instant digital download — nothing is shipped. Print at 100% scale on any home printer; every page works in grayscale. The cue cards print one-per-page on A6/postcard stock, or 2–4 per sheet via your printer dialog. Your purchase includes a personal-use license: print as many copies as your household needs.
Questions, answered
What exactly do I get?
Four PDF files, delivered as an instant digital download: the 18-page pack in US Letter and in A4 (14 worksheets & guides plus 2 filled-in example sheets), a screen-friendly edition with larger type, and the 8 Container Cue Cards sized A6/postcard. Nothing is shipped — you print at home, as often as you like.
Do I need special software or a color printer?
No. Any free PDF reader opens the files, and every page is designed to print cleanly in plain grayscale on a home printer. Print at 100% scale ("Actual size") so the worksheets keep their proportions.
Will it work on a small balcony?
That is exactly what it is for. The planning sheet asks about sun hours, wind, rain shadow, the walk to the tap, and what weight your balcony or roof can carry; the layout map is a grid you sketch your own space onto. Three pots is a perfectly good starting point.
Is this regional gardening advice?
Deliberately not. The pack is a planning and record-keeping system — pot sizing, potting mix math, layout, inventories, logs, routines. Wherever timing matters it tells you to check your local frost dates or regional extension service, because sowing calendars simply do not travel.
Are the pot sizes in gallons or liters?
Both, everywhere — plus inches and centimeters for depth, and dry quarts and liters for potting mix. The Pot Size & Depth Guide gives a minimum container per crop, and the Potting Mix Volume Worksheet pre-calculates common pots so you can buy the right number of bags.
I already have the One-Bed Garden Starter Pack. Is this different?
Yes. Same system and the same calm layout, but rebuilt around pots: pot sizing and potting mix instead of bed grids and soil volume, a feeding column in the watering tracker (pots run out of nutrients fast), and cue cards for moving and overwintering containers. They complement each other rather than repeat.
What if it doesn’t work for me?
If the files are unusable or not as described, we offer a 14-day refund — see the refund policy for the plain-English details.
Do I get future updates?
Yes. When we improve the pack, updated files are made available through the original download channel at no extra charge.
Ready to plan your pots?
A few containers, one season, eighteen pages that do the remembering for you.
Instant digital download · secure external checkout · 14-day refund policy
Growing in the ground instead?
The One-Bed Garden Starter Pack is the same system built around one raised bed: bed grids, soil volume math, and a free three-page sample you can try first.
See the One-Bed Garden Starter PackGet notified when the pack launches
One email when checkout opens (with the launch price locked in), plus occasional practical growing guides. No spam, easy unsubscribe.
Want something today? Grab the free One-Bed Quick Start Sheet.