After extensive searching, I eventually settled on The Bountiful Container as my bible of sorts. The Internet is good for obscure information or some quick fixes but for this I figured that a more authoritative source was required. As usual, I cross-referenced the amazon.co.uk reviews with the amazon.com reviews, and, once I was happy, bought it on play.com. In particular, I was encouraged by the reviews which said that, although the book reflected a slight North American bias, the authors were sure to cater for varying climates and spacial logistics.

And they do. There is advice for everything from people with very low levels of sunlight to what do if all you have is a fire escape or a window sill. After reading about people with only a fire escape, I felt particularly well-endowed / fortunate / spoilt for choice with just over eight square metres.

I was a little apprehensive upon seeing the photograph of Rose Mare Nichols McGee and Maggie Stuckey on the front cover as they didn’t seem to come from any demographic that I had related to extensively in the past. Perhaps our shared interest in non-garden gardening would get us through. After the first chapter though my fears were allayed as they demonstrated a very level-headed and friendly approach to explaining basic principles and intricacies of container growing alike. They have no problem with delving out some frank truths and are definitely not short of imagination or creativity in pushing what is possible. Throughout the book they state realistic expectations of yield, sun and space requirements and time to harvest. Oh, and they don’t mind justifying what they say using science. Good good.

Having said all that, I did skip bits of the book about colour co-ordination and edible flowers. Well I can’t change that much can I?

So the first thing to learn seems to be the principle differences between container gardening and “traditional gardens” (Rose Marie and Maggie’s term for in-the-ground gardening). A few of the main ones seem to be:

1) With container gardening, pests, weeds and disease are less of a problem. This is most definitely a good thing.
2) It is easier to control what comprises the soil mixture in a container. Tradition gardens require “hours of extremely difficult physical labour” to achieve this according to our two experts. Exaggeration or not, it sounds like something I can gladly do without.
3) Watering containers is more awkward as in hot weather plants may need to be watered at least daily. This obviously doesn’t apply to Ireland.
4) Some plants just aren’t really suitable for containers. Watermelons and marrows will have to wait. Apples are possible, but not likely.
5) Space considerations force you to consider carefully your planting decisions. No room for the hit and hope variety of gardening here where you try everything and see what works, it seems this will call for something more careful and methodical.

Something tells me that me and the girls are going to get along just fine and that the meticulous bout of planning ahead should be fairly manageable given my obsessive tendencies.