Why not try growing some vegetables this year in those pretty pots you've collected?

You won't have to worry about deer or rabbits stealing your crop, or about soil-borne diseases that persist in the ground. Just fill the container with a bag of high-quality soil-less mix and time-released fertilizer. You won't even have to get your feet dirty or bend over to care for or harvest your crop. Best of all, container gardens almost never have weeds.

With more of us moving into condos and apartments, or just settling into patio and deck living, the $1.4 billion market for container gardening products is growing at 20 percent annually, twice as fast as the overall gardening market, according to the National Gardening Association.

Rose Marie Nichols McGee's first container garden was one she created for her mother, a lifelong vegetable gardener whose activity level had been curtailed by arthritis. As they experimented, the two found that most books on container gardening focused almost exclusively on flowers.

So McGee decided to write a book on growing edibles in pots and windowsills with garden writer Maggie Stuckey, who had recently surrendered her home and garden to live in a condo with a tiny balcony. Their book "The Bountiful Container" (Workman) has been a best-selling container gardening title on Amazon.com.

The writing and research project involved extensive testing of vegetable varieties to find out which performed best in confined space. This came naturally to McGee because she owns a third-generation seed company, Nichols Garden Nursery.

"I want first-time growers to be real successful, so I steer them to varieties that will guarantee productivity," McGee said in a telephone interview from her home in Corvallis, Oregon. She favors tall-growing vines "because in a container, your footprint may be small, but your vertical space is unlimited." She also likes varieties that yield continuously over a period of time, because on a tiny balcony, you may have room for only one plant and you want to enjoy it for as long as possible.

Below are some of her recommendations on what to plant now.

Beans: McGee favors pole beans over bush beans because of their longer season of productivity. For support, she recommends sticking five 6-foot bamboo stakes inside the edges of a large container such as a half whisky barrel and lashing the tops together to create a teepee effect. Plant a couple of beans at the bottom of each stake. Beans are easy to grow from seed and are seldom sold as young plants. She likes the Blue Lake, Kentucky Blue and colorful Purple Peacock varieties, but there are many other good ones. Pole beans make good windbreaks on roof and balcony gardens because the vines are supple and don't mind being batted around, unlike tall tomato plants. They should never be allowed to dry out completely.

Cucumbers: You can't have a summer salad without these, and the fresh ones really do taste better. Steer away from the American slicing varieties similar to those in the supermarket, though. What would be the point? McGee suggests growing a European- or Asian-style cucumber. Her favorites are Sweet Success, Japanese style Suyo, and the heirloom variety Lemon (which looks like one) - all of which need a trellis - and Fanfare, a compact plant that requires no support.

If you buy these as seedlings, be careful when transplanting them to disturb the roots as little as possible. If you have trouble finding any of these varieties at local nurseries, it's not too late to grow cucumbers from seed, and now you can start them outdoors if you use the milk-can method.

"Put three seeds in a pot, then take a milk jug and cut the bottom off it and leave the cap off and use it to cover the pot and keep it warm," said McGee.

Cucumbers like constantly moist soil, and weekly fertilizing once they set fruit.

Eggplants: You either love eggplant or you don't. Most varieties adapt well to deck or roof-top living, so if you are an eggplant lover, go for it. The lime-green, Japanese variety Green Goddess is "a little factory. If you see it, grab it!" said McGee. She suggests covering the container with black plastic for a few days before planting to warm up the soil, and covering the seedlings with plastic on cool nights. After planting, keep the soil moist and fertilize every two weeks.

Peppers: There are a lot of choices.

"Hot peppers are really nice to grow because they turn red earlier and look pretty," said McGee, who prefers less fiery varieties such as Senorita Jalapeno.

"With sweet peppers, look for something that will mature in 70 days or less, like Ace and Gypsy, so you won't be hanging around all summer waiting for some fruit. Get peppers that are smaller fruited, such as Jingle Bells or Cherrytime. Italian roasting types such as Giant Marconi tend to be really productive. Frying peppers are long and skinny but earlier maturing. Sometimes a pepper plant can take off, and if you see that happening, stake it."

Summer squash: These plants can be easily grown in containers except that most varieties want to spill out onto your entire deck. Eight Ball is a very compact zucchini variety that works well in a 12-inch-wide container. The squashes are round (hence the name) and cluster around a strong central stalk.

Tomatoes: When it comes to growth habits, there are two types of tomatoes, determinate and indeterminate, and you need to find out which you are buying, even if it's in the tiniest print on the label. Determinate varieties are bushier and shorter, which would seem to make them better for containers. However, McGee generally prefers indeterminate varieties because their fruit doesn't ripen all at the same time. Indeterminate tomatoes require trellising systems or staking and you need to prune the plants to a single stem, unlike determinate types.

McGee recommends Celebrity, Early Girl, Jet Setter, or First Lady, top sellers widely available at garden centers now. Among grape or cherry tomatoes, she likes Sungold.

Heirloom and beefsteak tomatoes are not the best choices for containers, but she has successfully grown Big Beef and found it very disease resistant and productive.

No matter what you grow, many containers will fit the bill, as long as they can provide a minimum soil depth of 6 inches and a width of 12 inches and have drainage holes. Tomatoes, peppers, and beans need pots at least a foot deep.

Bear in mind that small pots often need daily watering. Putting a plastic pot inside a decorative outer container (called a cachepot) is one way to reduce moisture evaporation. There are also many "self-watering" pots on the market that let plant roots drink from a reservoir filled from below.