Balcony Gardening Advice

Don't believe everything you read about what you can and can not grow in a container on your balcony. Search around the internet to see what other people have been doing. You don't need an 18 gallon tub to be successful at growing tomatoes. But don't expect to get bumper crops form one grown in a one gallon container either. I've learned that it has much more to do with the amount of sunlight you get and less about container size.

Here's a list of some things I've been able to grow on my balcony

• Tomatoes: Very easy to grow in containers. Just give them plenty of water and sunlight. I've grown a number of cherry tomato varieties, plum tomatoes, beefstake tomatoes... even tomatillos and ground cherries. Click here to learn more.
• Cucumbers: Quite easy to grow although I've had problems with mildew and wind damage. They grow best with some kind of support like a tomato cage. Choose a bush variety.
• Herbs: Very easy to grow in containers. I always have lots of flat leaf parsley and basil growing. Mint thrives in containers but plant it in its own container or it will take over and crowd its neighbours. Rosemary, thyme, oregano and chives are a few others I've grown that can be moved indoors to a sunny window sill for the winter. Unlike vegetables, herbs don't need constant watering and some taste better if you let them dry up between waterings. You can see some of the herbs I've grown in my balcony garden here.
• Watermelon: I've had success and failure going watermelons in containers on the balcony. Check it out here. It's not easy though. The vines get long and need a trellis for support and I had to "hand pollinate" the female flowers. Certainly not a beginner plant.
• Peppers: I've grown loads of peppers on the balcony. It takes lots of hot weather to get good peppers but otherwise they're easy to grow. Just feed them lots of fertilizer. I've managed to grow several varieties of hot and sweet peppers. My bell peppers never get that big but my jalapenos always turn out just right.
• I've also had good luck with swiss chard and kale. Broccoli will grow nicely in a container but it is a big plant and needs lots of overhead light. Root crops like radishes and beets are hit or miss and again, it comes down to lighting. Even lettuce which is a joke to grow in a "traditional" garden, I've found can be a challenge on the balcony. Some plants do well and others don't.

For more advise on what you can grow in a container and how to grow it, check out McGee and Stuckey's Bountiful Container.

Can you safely and legally grow a garden on your balcony?. Before loading up your balcony with lots of heavy pots (don't forget that they will weigh much more with water in them) make sure you won't be breaking any weight restriction. I don't worry about it myself figuring if I can stand out there, a couple of plants are not going to be heavy enough to harm anything, but you never know. At the very least, make sure there are no rules stating that you can't plant anything at all. There may be some restriction regarding how high above the balcony railing your plants can be.

Use self watering containers. You'll be greatly rewarded on many fronts for investing the time and/or money in self-watering containers but not all garden plants enjoy living in them or need them. Watch out for root rot. Make sure you understand why you're using self-watering containers and how they impact the life of your plants before switching over completely. Edward C. Smith's book entitled Incredible Vegetables from Self-Watering Containers does a good job explaining why self watering containers are such a great idea. There are instructions on how you can make your own from a pair of 5 gallon buckets on this site.

Don't irritate your neighbours. Or at least, don't irritate them if you don't intend to. When using traditional containers with drain holes it's a good idea to place some kind of tray beneath them to prevent run off water from running off your balcony and onto your neighbours balcony below. Any structure or overgrowth protruding from you balcony, particularly if it is visible from the street, may be seen as an eye sore to some people.

Don't be tempted to save money and use garden soil or a cheap potting soil in your container. Garden soil will quickly compact when watered and prevent plants from establishing a healthy root system. Poor potting soils do not contain enough of the necessary components that make up a good container soil. Instead of compost and peat you get sticks and stones. You get what you pay for when it comes to potting soils which actually don't have any soil in them at all. Look for something with a mix of peat, perlite and/or vermiculite and a good quality compost. I avoid using soils with those moisture retaining polymer crystals for vegetables but I've used them in containers for growing annuals.

Find a good all in one fertilizer. Potting mixes never contain enough fertilizer to do much for you plants. Apply a liquid fertilizer every now and then if you're using traditional containers, or apply a single large does of a dry fertilizer to the soil surfaceof a self-watering container. Keep it simple but keep it fertilized. I used to use a well known water soluble tomato formula on all of my plants inside and out before we went full-on organic. Try different things, research and experiment.

Be prepared to be watering plants every morning. At first you'll probably be able to skip a day or two, especially if using self watering containers. But once you're plants hit full maturity and the summer heat is at it's peak, you'll probably be hauling gallons of water out there every day. If growing a big plant in a small container, probably twice a day.

Don't hesitate to sacrifice a plant infested with pests (aphids or spider mites for example). Without natural predators, pests will thrive in the semi-closed environment you've created. It doesn't take long for a dozen aphids to turn into thousands and spread to every plant on your balcony and nothing you do will save your plants after that happens. I once kept a seedling I brought home from a nursery that had a few aphids on it. I figured I could manage them just by squashing the few I found every other day. Within a month, every pepper plant I had (3 large containers worth) was covered with aphids. The plants barely produced a single pepper. And worse was that the sweet excrement of the aphids attracted a constant swarm of wasps that were living nearby. It made my balcony garden completely un-enjoyable that season.

Unless there are lots of flower loving insects around, you may have to resort to hand pollinating some of your plants. Melons, cucumbers and squash plants for example, will produce male and female flowers. To pollinate a female flower, break off a male flower, rip off the petals, and wipe it across the female flower's stigma several times (30,40,50 times). Use more than one male flower if you can to increase the chances of pollination. Female flowers are the ones that look like they have a tiny veggie at the base of the flower. They don't normally stay open for long so don't hesitate. Apparently this works best if done in the morning. You can learn more here.