Yesterday I introduced the topic of urban gardening. Urban gardening presents several issues because in most cases it falls into small space gardening. In some of these cases no actual ground is available for traditional row gardening and while raised beds may be an option for some those living in apartments and row housing may not be able to use raised beds due to restrictions of the tenancy. Even if the unit is owned restrictions may prevent raised beds or traditional row gardening due to home owner's association restrictions. With this in mind there are still plenty of ways that urban residents can still produce some of their own food.
One area to look for growing fruits and vegetables is the balcony. A balcony may be about 8' x 12' or 96 square feet. If half of this was used for growing space it would be just slightly larger than one of my 4' x 10' raised beds (40 square feet). So that is a good sized growing space. But consider on balconies you can add planter boxes on the railing and hanging baskets to help increase the growing space. You can also add shelving to increase growing space. When used effectively a small balcony can produce a surprising amount of food.
Balcony gardening is the same as any other gardening in that you need to take into consideration sunlight and watering. There are a few things you do need to consider:
- lightweight yet stable containers
- fertilizing the containers
- additional watering demands
- shading
- wind effects*
Happy Gardening!
Garden Gnome
©2006-2010
for the balcony we use the pot and hang it around.. but seems this one is interesting.. are we can also use another media for planting??
ReplyDeleteI like this post -- Balcony gardening. I think I'll try this also. It will enliven my balcony (we call that "azotea" which is a Spanish word), the place where we gather to relax, converse, even take coffee. It will put life to our balcony and have some greens.
ReplyDeleteI'll come back for your tips on how to do it right.
Thanks for sharing this great tips. By the way, I'm visiting your blog thru CMF Spikes.
Hi pandi and thanks for visiting. It's quite easy to set a balcony up for growing in containers sitting directly on the floor then look for other ways to add growing space such as hanging and railing planters.
ReplyDeleteHi Eli and thanks for visiting. It's surprising how you use container gardening on a balcony to create the feeling of being right in a small garden. Water features are quite a popular addition to balcony gardening as well so I'll write a post on that as well.
ReplyDelete