I buy bottled water and recently I've started hoarding all the empty bottles because I'd like to find something to grow in them.
I have access to soil so I'd like some ideas for what I can grow in the bottles that will continue to give food until the soil needs to be changed.
I know I could grow beans but my understanding is that they are not sustainable (won't continue to give food).
You need to check the recycling symbol on the bottles - that should look like a sort of triangle with a number in the middle. If the number is 1, 3, 6 or 7, you should not grow food plants in them, see here https://themicrogardener.com/choose-safe-containers-for-growing-food/
As for something permanent that gives fruit every year, that would be a fruiting perennial, like an apple tree or a blueberry bush. Clearly, either of these will outgrow the container fairly quickly; the material of the bottle will also degrade quite rapidly outdoors in sunlight/cold temperatures, so I don't think you can plan on planting something in one of the containers and still have it fruit and grow for, say, 3-5 years.
If the plastic the bottles are made of is not one of the numbers mentioned above, you'd need to put drainage holes in the bottom; you could use them to grow annual vegetable or fruit plants, such as tomatoes, but that would mean replacing them every spring. Alternatively, you could plant some hardy herbs like chives - not precisely a food plant, but useable for culinary purposes, though you will still need to replace the containers every 2 or 3 years as they degrade, possibly sooner.
In regard to your comment re 'access to soil', garden soil should not be used in containers, it should be new, sterile potting medium.
Those bottles would work as pots for plants as long as you make sure they have a big drainage hole at the bottom and that you do not use your garden soil for soil in these bottles. The only soil you should think about using is the cheapest sterilized potting soil available. A little fertilizer is critical. Proper watering; not too much not too little...and yes you could grow food in them.
Have you ever grown vegetables in the garden? In regular pots? These bottles are 1 gallon. Way too big to grow tiny plants or seeds at first. Way too small for some vegetables such as tomatoes as an end pot. The pot you will harvest from...tomatoes require at least 5 gallon, 10 gallon pots...using only potting soil. There are huge reasons for this rule.
What have you got going for property? Patio? Experience. You will not be able to shovel garden soil in these bottles, put a seed in them and grow food. There is a bit more work involved to ensure you don't waste your time, not much!
Fill us in with more details, where you live, your experience, what you would like to grow, will these plants be indoors or will they be out of doors?
Try strawberries. They are perennials. Need plenty of water and sunlight, but not a huge amount of dirt (i.e. small plants with shallow roots). In addition, even if they don't produce in huge amounts, each small fruit is a beautiful treasure that you could enjoy even one at a time, if that's what you end up with.
