Help choosing porch container plants

Hello everyone.. I'm brand new here, and in my first year of actually not killing every plant I touch. :)
I live just south of Jax, in Fleming island and I'm enjoying my 1st real garden this year very much. I've recently redone my porch to allow me to sit and enjoy the view of the garden and purchased an old "bottle crate" that I want to put seeds in and eventually have some short blooms growing there.

I was wondering.. has anyone ever used a crate like that as a container? And if so... which plants worked best?
I used the advanced search engine here and came up with flowering tobacco or pansy (violas) as possible choices. Any luck with either of these plants here in NE florida for you all?

Do you mean like a wooden bottle crate with a handle on it? I would think you would first need a few holes in the bottom of it so that excess water can drain out. Then the plants you put in it or grow yourself would depend on how much sun it will receive and what time of the year it is. Pansies will work from October-April, but they typically start dying back in May/June. Flowering tobacco would have to get very limited sun during the summer in order to continues doing well. Luckily its a plant that is pretty adaptable to a wide range of sun conditions. My Flowering tobacco is beginning to struggle in full sun right now, so I dug up the one I like the most (lime green) and put it in a container in very very little sun hoping that will help it. For this time of the year you might want to consider vinca, marigolds, calibrachoa (mini petunias), torenia, pentas, verbena, lantana, angelonia (summer snapdragon), argyranthemum (marguerite daisy), bracteantha (strawflower), short dahlias, gerbera daisies.

Jon