In a mews courtyard or a pocket-sized cottage garden, containers are not a compromise — they are often the most productive square metres you own. Sheltered brick walls hold warmth well into the evening, so tomatoes and peppers that would sulk on an exposed allotment will ripen happily against a south-facing wall. The trick is choosing compact varieties, getting the pot size right, and, above all, feeding properly once flowering begins.

Choosing the Right Pot and Compost

Containers fail for one reason more than any other: they are too small. A tomato in a four-litre pot will limp along and give you a handful of fruit; the same plant in a twelve-litre pot will crop for months.

• Tomatoes: allow 10–12 litres of compost per plant, roughly a 30cm pot.
• Peppers and chillies: 5–7 litres each, and no more than one plant per pot.
• Carrots: at least 30cm of depth for standard varieties; 20cm is plenty for round types.
• Salad leaves: a wide, shallow trough around 15cm deep is ideal.

Use a peat-free multipurpose compost with a handful of coarse grit or vermiculite stirred through for drainage, and mix in slow-release fertiliser at planting time. Raise pots on feet or broken tiles so water never sits beneath them. Never reuse compost that has already grown tomatoes — soil-borne disease builds up quickly in confined roots.

Tomatoes: Compact Varieties That Earn Their Space

Forget the towering cordons sold for greenhouse borders. In containers you want bush varieties and short-jointed cordons that stay manageable without endless tying-in.

• Bush and trailing: 'Tumbling Tom', 'Maskotka' and 'Garden Pearl' cascade beautifully over a pot rim or from a hanging basket.
• Compact cordons: 'Red Alert', 'Totem' and 'Vilma' stay around 60–90cm and crop heavily.
• Small-fruited types generally ripen far better in a British summer than large beefsteaks, which need more heat than most courtyards can offer.

Plant one tomato per 10–12 litre pot, or three per growbag. Support cordons with a cane and pinch out the sideshoots that appear in the leaf joints. Water little and often rather than flooding occasionally — erratic watering splits fruit and encourages blossom end rot.

Peppers and Chillies for a Warm Wall

Sweet peppers and chillies adore the reflected heat of a brick wall, which is exactly what a mews garden does best. Give them the sunniest spot you have and shelter them from funnelled wind.

• 'Mini Bell' and 'Mohawk' are reliable sweet peppers; 'Apache', 'Prairie Fire' and 'Hungarian Hot Wax' are generous chillies.
• Pot on gradually rather than over-potting straight away — they resent root disturbance.
• Let the top two centimetres of compost dry out between waterings; soggy roots simply drop their flowers.
• Tapping the stems or misting the flowers at midday helps fruit set in still, sheltered air.

Once the first flowers open, switch to a high-potassium tomato feed and repeat weekly through the season.

Carrots and Salad Leaves: The Quick Wins

Carrots need depth rather than width, which makes a deep trough or a tall recycled crate perfect. Round varieties such as 'Paris Market Atlas' and 'Parmex' crop happily in just 20cm of compost, while short 'Chantenay' types want a full 30cm.

• Sow thinly and thin the seedlings to 3–4cm apart; crowding produces twisted, forked roots.
• Keep the compost consistently moist — dry spells followed by soakings cause roots to crack.
• Carrot fly flies low, so raise containers to 60cm or drape fleece over the top.

Salad leaves are the fastest reward in any small garden. Sow cut-and-come-again mixes, 'Salad Bowl' or 'Lollo Rossa' in succession every two to three weeks, and 'Winter Density' for autumn sowings. Harvest outer leaves with scissors and the plants will keep producing. In midsummer, move troughs into afternoon shade to stop the leaves bolting.

Feeding Once Flowering Begins

This is the single most common mistake made by container growers. Hungry plants in a handful of compost have nothing left to draw on by midsummer, and the moment they start flowering is when their demands change.

• Begin feeding when the first flowers open or set fruit, not before — early feeding pushes leaf at the expense of roots and fruit.
• Use a high-potassium tomato feed, weekly at first and twice weekly by midsummer.
• Water first, then feed, so you never pour concentrated feed onto dry roots.
• Yellowing between the veins of tomato leaves usually signals a magnesium shortage; a dilute Epsom salt spray corrects it quickly.

Keep watering even and consistent. A plant that dries out and is then flooded takes up calcium poorly, and that is precisely what causes the sunken black patch of blossom end rot.

A Workable Plan for a Small Space

Three tomato plants, two chilli pots, two deep carrot troughs and three shallow salad troughs will occupy less than two square metres of paving, yet keep a household in salad and tomatoes from July to October. Tuck bush tomatoes at the front where they can trail, put the peppers against the warmest wall, and keep the salad troughs near the kitchen door so you actually cut them.

Feed them when they flower, water them before they wilt, and even the smallest mews courtyard will out-crop a much larger, windswept plot.