Summer is gone, winter is coming on, and you have the age-old urge to grow something be sides your hair. As long as you provide the basics... i.e. light, water, fertilizer, and soil... you can grow vegetables in window boxes, hanging baskets, or containers set on doorsteps, patios, or balconies.

CONTAINERS:

* Give leaky buckets, discolored basins, rejected wastebaskets, and pock-marked polystyrene coolers a new life as garden containers. They must be about 12 inches deep to contain vegetables.

* Nail together simple and inexpensive boxes from scrap lumber. Treat all wooden surfaces with a non-toxic wood preservative such as copper naphthenate to keep the wood from rotting.

* Buy fancy pots from your garden center or hardware store.

* Add wheels to the bottom for easy moving around if you like.

* Try hanging baskets for plants with trailing growth like tomatoes or dwarf cucumbers. Make sure the baskets are sturdy. When they fall they are a real mess to clean up!

* It is important to provide good drainage material in the bottom of each container. Gravel, pebbles, pieces of crushed brick, or bits of broken clay pots work well. If the container has no drainage holes, increase this bottom layer to the depth of approximately one inch.

GROWING MIXES:

* Use equal parts garden soil (Potting Soil), compost, and sand. To make potting soil combine these: 7 parts of rich garden soil, 1 part peat moss, 1 part vermiculite, and 1 part of perlite.

* Try a soilless growing medium especially if you are gardening on a rooftop. At roughly 25 pounds per cubic foot, regular soil can become heavy. Soilless growing mixes are about half the weight.

* Mix up your own soilless potting material from 3 parts peat moss and 1 part coarse sand, perlite, or vermiculite. To neutralize the acidity of the peat moss, add six ounces of ground dolomitic limestone per bushel of mix.

* Faithfully replenish the nutrients in a soil less mix. Why? A soilless mix will release nutrients all at once.

PLANTING AND CULTURE:

* Seed sown directly in containers and transplants will grow equally as well.

* Give container grown vegetables at least six hours of light daily. As a rule, leafy greens and some root crops can get by with less light and still produce, but fruiting plants need nearly full sun for a successful harvest.

* If your containers cannot be set in a well-lighted area, make use of reflected light. Place the containers against light colored walls, or make a portable reflective backdrop by painting boards white and placing them on the East and West sides of your container. This simple solution will markedly increase the amount of light your plants receive and if in a breezy place, the boards will act as a wind break.

* Check the soil at least once each day. In warm weather the plants will need to be watered twice a day. If the top soil feels dry to the touch, add water until it drains out the bottom. (If you are using water that is treated with chlorine or fluoride, let it sit over night before using.)

* Conserve moisture by applying a mulch of wood chips, pebbles, shredded leaves, or peat moss on the surface of the soil. If you have cats they may want to use this as a sand box. The use of large rocks, coat hangers, or tin foil may pre vent the problem from arising.

* Throughout the growing season, feed the plant at every third watering or a least once a week with dilute solutions of manure tea, compost tea, or fish emulsion. Another approach to fertilizing is to feed every third week with a nutrient-rich solution of equal parts bonemeal, granite dust, flaked seaweed, blood meal, and either fish emulsion or manure tea.