How to Garden When You’re in a Temporary Place
If you’re a military family or maybe you’re a student.. maybe you’re in residency… maybe you just move around a lot… well, you learn quickly not to get too attached to a zip code.
In ten years, my husband and I moved states or countries six times.
If I had told myself, “I’ll start gardening once we’re settled somewhere permanent,” I never would have grown a single tomato. Every place felt temporary. Every lease had an end date quickly approaching. Every backyard was borrowed for a short season.
But here’s what I learned:
You don’t need permanence to grow something meaningful.
You just need one season!!
Start Anyway: Gardening When Life Feels Temporary
I’ve been thinking about how often people want to garden, but talk themselves out of it before they ever begin.
Usually it sounds really reasonable. Life feels unsettled. Maybe you’re renting, maybe you’re in a smaller space than you pictured, maybe you know you’ll move again in a year or two. It can feel like gardening is something you’re supposed to wait for, like it belongs to a more permanent season of life.
That was my story for a long time. Over the past ten years, I moved again and again. Different states, different houses, different seasons. Most places we stayed for about a year, sometimes a little longer, but never long enough to feel established.
When I first started thinking about gardening, I almost didn’t begin because of that. It felt impractical. But when I look back now, I realize that if I had waited until life felt settled, I would have missed years of growing food and learning how to do this!
There’s a quote that’s stayed with me, especially with gardening:
“You can’t till soil by turning it over in your mind.”
You can”t till soil by turning it over in your mind
At some point, thinking about it has to turn into doing something with your hands.
1. Start with containers
If you’re in a temporary place, containers change everything. You don’t need to dig up a yard or commit to anything permanent. You can grow food in pots, buckets, grow bags, window boxes, even storage bins as long as they drain well.
One of the biggest benefits is that you can take them with you. When we had a short moving distance (about 5 hours away from South Carolina to North Carolina), we packed up all of our plants separately and brought them ourselves. It took a little extra effort, but it meant we didn’t have to start over.
And even if you decide not to take everything with you, nothing is wasted. You still learned. You still grew something!
2. Choose fewer, larger containers
It’s tempting to get a bunch of small pots, but a few larger ones are usually easier to manage.
Bigger containers hold moisture longer, which means you’re not having to water constantly. Your plants also have more space for their roots, which helps them grow stronger and produce more.
For something like vegetables, a five gallon container is a good starting point. For fruit trees, you’ll want to think much bigger, which I’ll get into more in a minute.
3. Make watering something you don’t have to overthink
If there’s one thing that consistently makes or breaks a garden, it’s watering.
Plants don’t need perfect conditions to grow, but they DO need consistent moisture. Most plants prefer soil that stays slightly moist, not bone dry and not soaked.
If you know you’re busy or forgetful, it helps to set up simple systems. A basic drip setup, a water bottle with twine, or even watering globes can help regulate moisture so your plants aren’t constantly drying out.
The goal is not perfection. It’s consistency.
4. Grow fruit trees in pots, even if you might leave them behind
This is something people don’t always consider, but it has been one of my favorite parts of gardening in temporary spaces.
You can grow fruit trees in pots, and they can do really well if you set them up correctly.
A few things that make a big difference:
- Choose dwarf or semi-dwarf varieties. Regular fruit trees will outgrow containers, but dwarf trees are bred or grafted to stay smaller and more manageable.
- Use a large container. Most fruit trees need at least 15 to 25 gallons once established, and often a pot that is 18 to 24 inches wide and deep.
- Make sure there is good drainage. The pot is their entire environment, so excess water needs to be able to escape.
- Give them full sun. Most fruit trees need at least six to eight hours of sunlight each day to actually produce fruit.
- Pay attention to pollination. Some trees are self-fertile, but others need a second tree nearby to produce fruit.
If you want the simplest route, look for self-pollinating dwarf varieties like certain peaches, figs, or citrus.
Some of the easiest fruit trees to grow in pots are:
- Figs
- Citrus like lemons and limes
- Dwarf peaches
- Cherries (if self-fertile)
- Apples (if you have two for pollination, or one self-fertile type)
Some of these, like citrus and figs, can even move indoors during colder months and continue growing.
And if you do end up leaving them behind one day, that doesn’t take away from the time you had growing them. I had a few small fruit trees when we lived in Japan, but had to leave them behind when coming back to the US. Though I never got much fruit off of the trees myself, I was able to bless another family with more mature fruit trees – and they will get to enjoy the fruit from those trees!
Sometimes the word you put into something is meant to bless somebody else.
But, alternatively, you could also profit off of them! Older fruit trees cost more money for a reason. If you have spent a year or two caring for a fruit tree, you could turn around and resell it as it begins to bear fruit and make some pocket money! 🙂
5. Grow fast-producing vegetables so you see results quickly
When you’re in a temporary place, it helps to grow things that will give you a harvest within one season.
Lettuce, herbs, beans, cucumbers, squash, and tomatoes are all good options. These grow well in containers and don’t take long to produce.
You can also plant more than one thing in a single pot. A tomato in the center, herbs and flowers around the edges. It makes the most of your space and gives you more to harvest from one container.
6. Grow perennials too, especially berries
At the same time, it’s worth planting things that come back year after year, even in pots.
Berries are one of the easiest ways to do this. Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries can all grow well in containers and many of them will produce even in the first year.
Strawberries especially are easy to expand. They send out runners, and you can replant those into new pots and end up with more plants than you started with.
7. Keep building your soil over time
Your soil will only get better the longer you use it, especially if you keep adding to it.
You don’t need to overcomplicate it. Adding compost, kitchen scraps, leaves, or mulch is enough to keep nutrients cycling back into the soil.
Over time, that soil becomes something worth keeping. I’ve packed soil into bags and moved it before because it had improved so much.
8. Use your vertical space
When space is limited, growing upward matters.
Trellises, hanging baskets, and even simple rope systems can give climbing plants like cucumbers and beans somewhere to go. Strawberries can spill over the sides of containers or grow in stacked planters.
Once you start thinking this way, you realize how much space is actually available.
9. Plant flowers alongside everything else
Flowers don’t just make things look nice. They bring pollinators, help manage pests, and make the whole space feel more inviting.
You can tuck them into almost any container, even ones growing vegetables. Many flowers have shallow roots, so they don’t interfere much with what’s happening below the soil.
10. Put your garden where you already live your life
One of the most practical things you can do is place your plants somewhere you naturally pass by every day.
If they’re out of sight, they’ll slowly be forgotten. Not intentionally, just because life is full.
But if they’re near your door, along your porch, or somewhere you already spend time, you’ll notice them. You’ll water them more consistently. You’ll stay connected to what’s growing.
11. Know what you can grow indoors and what you can’t
If you’re gardening inside, it helps to understand which plants will actually produce fruit and which won’t.
These generally do well indoors in pots (especially with good light):
- Herbs like basil, parsley, oregano
- Lettuce and greens
- Dwarf citrus
- Figs
- Some peppers
These can grow indoors but usually need hand pollination to produce fruit:
- Tomatoes
- Peppers (some varieties)
- Strawberries
- Dwarf fruit trees like pomegranate
Without insects, you would need to manually move pollen between flowers for fruit to form.
These are best kept outdoors because they rely heavily on pollinators:
- Squash
- Zucchini
- Cucumbers (most varieties)
- Melons
You can grow them inside, but they typically won’t produce unless you’re willing to hand pollinate regularly.
Coming back to the beginning
All of this really comes back to something simple.
It’s easy to wait for the right season, the right house, the right setup. But waiting often stretches longer than we expect.
Scripture says, “He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap.” Ecclesiastes 11:4
And a couple verses later, “In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper.” Ecclesiastes 11:6
There is something freeing in that. You don’t have to know how everything will turn out before you begin.
You can just begin.
It might be a few pots on a porch. It might be herbs in your kitchen. It might be one tomato plant that teaches you more than you expected.
But nothing grows if nothing is planted.
And sometimes, the simple act of starting is what makes everything else possible.
A Simple Temporary Garden Plan
If I were starting from scratch today, knowing I’d move next year, I would plant:
- 2 cherry tomato plants
- 1 zucchini
- 2 bush cucumbers
- 3-4 pepper plants
- A large pot of basil
- A pot of mixed salad greens
- Weekly trays of microgreens
All in containers! And that would be enough.
Gardening while moving frequently taught me something I didn’t expect: Roots don’t only grow in soil… they grow in skills, habits.. in the rhythms of tending something. Even if it’s temporary and even if you have nothing to show for it after the address changes.
If you’re in a temporary season – plant anyway! 🌱
