Persons living in an apartment also have the right to grow their own vegetables, don’t you think? Actually, you don’t need to have a lot of land to plant seeds or plants. With our tips and tricks you’ll discover how easy it is to have your own vegetable patch on a balcony!
It may even be that your children will want to start gardening, too!
First of all, you should know that in specialized horticulture stores, there are ready-made kits that will help in setting up a vegetable patch on your balcony.
However, it is also perfectly possible to showcase your DIY-skills, or at the very least your second-hand marvel detector capacity.
Indeed, although you can perfectly well build a garden box yourself with a few wooden planks and nails, you can also re-use objects that you already have in your home.
For a mini-vegetable patch, simply recycle a flower pot. In the very simplest case, start with a simple wooden crate from the market. And if your balcony can fit it, why not use a wheelbarrow? On top of letting you grow your own veggies, this solution has the advantage of being nice to look at, too. Add one or two flowered plants and the result will be an enchantment.
Is your balcony so small that you can’t even lay down a pot or container on the floor? Not a problem – there is always a way!
Small spaces can also welcome their vegetable patch. For that, recover a few bags made of thick cloth and hang them on the railing, either towards the inside or towards the outside. The advantage of this system is that it will bring everything to standing height, so you won’t break your back.
The article suggests several ways of holding your soil mix, from a shop-bought kit to a recycled crate. Here is what each one suits best.
| Container | Where it goes | Best suited to | Bonus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ready-made kit | Anywhere on the balcony | Starting without any DIY | Nothing to build or find |
| Home-made garden box | On the balcony floor | Anyone with a few planks and nails | Built to the size you want |
| Flower pot | On the balcony floor | A mini-vegetable patch | Recycled from what you already own |
| Wooden crate | On the balcony floor | The very simplest set-up | Picked up free at the market |
| Wheelbarrow | Balconies with room to spare | Veggies plus one or two flowered plants | Nice to look at as well as productive |
| Thick cloth bags | Hung on the railing, inside or outside | Balconies too small for a pot on the floor | Everything at standing height |
Whichever you choose, the container only becomes a vegetable patch once it is filled.
Making or finding a container isn’t yet a full-blown vegetable patch on the balcony. Once that’s ready, you need to fill it up! And you’ve got a lot of choices to choose from.
Once your garden boxes are filled with soil mix you’ll be able to plant carrot, bean, onion, radish, tomato, parsley, mint, etc., well, anything you like !
Of course, larger vegetables like squash can also adapt to growing on a balcony, but if you decide to plant those, you won’t have much room for anything else. Yup, those gobble up space! If you’ve created a mini-vegetable patch on your balcony, it can also be fun to grow mini-vegetables like small carrots, cherry tomato, bell-pepper, chili, radishes, etc.
Together with the pruning of these vegetable plants, you’ll also have to consider sun exposure that is required for their proper growth. If your balcony is in the shade all day long, for instance, you might have to forget about tomatoes and select vegetables that don’t quite need as much sun.
Lastly, don’t forget that in your balcony vegetable patch, you can also plant fruits. Potted strawberry for instance will fit perfectly in bags hanging from the balcony’s railings.
