I think that I’ll get the ball rolling tonight and start my tomatoes, peppers and basil. I’ve got three heirloom tomatoes this year – a cherry, a plum and a beefsteak, three peppers a Passila, a Serrano and a hot Hungarian Paprika for drying, two different Thai basils, a lime basil, and I’m going to try growing some Stevia. Stevia is used as a sweetener.

I have a French heirloom cucumber that was grown for cornichons so I’m hoping that this will be the year that I can be organized enough to grow some cucumbers for pickling and pick the darned things when they’re ready and make small batches throughout the year.

One of the best parts of all of this is that I’ll be using a full Gourmet Garden -12 planter version of my new self watering container garden system which was launched this year at the Canada Blooms Garden and landscape show in Toronto. It’s called the H’Urban Garden and I created it last year for people – like me- who are growing vegetables in containers and want to get the best yield and the best quality…..or for those with more modest expectations – just keep them alive.

I’ll have four planters for my tomatoes and cucumbers- a total of 16 plants, another 5 planters for herbs, peppers and snow peas ( I’ll start them early and train them to the trellises in the back row. By the time the tomatoes are ready to take over the trellises, the peas will be done anyway.

How can you have your very own Korean Hornbeam trees or small white cucumbers or striped tomatoes? Start them from seed! Really, it’s the only way, unless you happen to be living close the worlds most exotic nursery.

The best part of all of this is that, when you’re talking about vegetables (and annual flowers) starting from seed is not at all complicated. In fact it’s easy.

So why are so many people convinced that it can’t be done and why are some people not successful. Two reasons I can think of.
1. Failing to follow simple instructions.
2. Failing to pay attention.

So, the flip side is that all you need to do is follow some simple instructions and pay attention.

The seed pack will tell you if you need to cover the seeds or not. Typically, very small seeds won’t be covered because they need light to germinate. They simply get sprinkled on and then pressed into the surface of the starting mix. You’ll notice I said starting mix and not soil. You can make your life a little easier from the get go and use one of the soiless seed starting mixes which have a better texture than most garden soil and are also sterile and that’s important too, because it will help to prevent “damping off”which is a disease that can kill seedlings.

If the pack says not to cover the seeds – don’t cover them. If it says to plant them 1/8th of an inch deep- don’t stick them an inch into the ground and expect them to ever see the light of day.

If it says to keep them warm, keep them warm and ditto for cool. Figure out the not too fine line between bone dry and soaking wet. It might take a little practice, but trust me- it’s quite possible.
So – step one is ready the flippin’ instructions and follow them.

Step 2 is pay attention! Once you’re seeds have sprouted – which for most vegetables will be within a week or so, check them every day. Just look to see that they’re not too wet and they’re not too dry. What you want are chubby, stocky little seedlings as opposed to tall, wobbly, spindly little guys that only grow like that because they don’t have enough light.

If you pay close attention to them, there’s a really good chance that as time goes by it will get easier and easier to look after them because rather than feeling a obligation to see if the little suckers are dead yet, you’ll be grabbed by a wave of curiosity to see what your plants are doing. They will become familiar friends and you’ll find that there is something very rewarding by starting at the beginning.

I was going to talk about growing vegetables that will allow you to get the greatest possible yield from a small amount of space, but maybe if you’re already going with something that is fairly compact we can deal with concepts like multiple crops from the same small planter later.

I’ve seen articles and blog posts that talk about the money that you can save growing vegetables on your balcony. Go fish! In my experience if you’re only growing vegetables in containers on your balcony because you think you’re going to make a noticeable dent in your grocery bill- I’m sorry- you’re going to be dissappointed. Yes, you might harvest a few quarts of tomatoes at the end of the summer, but you’re going to do it at the same time that every store is flooded with cheap local produce and you could have bought your entire crop for $10.00.

But what you can do is

grow something different

– not outlandish- just a variety that you can’t already buy. If you like cucumber, why not try a beautiful little white Dragons Egg Cucumber, or a Chinese Beauty Heart Radish or how about a Green Zebra Tomato?

By taking a vegetable that you already love and growing a unique version of it, you’ll not only have the pleasure of picking your own food right from your planter, you’ll be able to treat yourself to something that you wouldn’t otherwise have a chance to enjoy. Just for the record, your local grocery store will not be filled with produce that was grown because it’s unique or unusually healthy or tasty. In fact, most produce grown commercially is selected because of it’s uniformity of size or shape, its ability to ripen in the box or survive the rigours of being trucked across the continent. You can do so much better than that. Go for something special!

Just imagine for a second what a hoot it would be to invite your friends or family over to dinner and stun them with these awesome cool green striped tomatoes or green radishes with a bright red center. Now that’s something that you can’t find in every grocery store and they taste delicious. Check out some of the wonderful heirloom vegetables at http://www.rareseeds.com

Yes, it means you will start your vegetables from seed, but trust me – it’s not difficult to do and its a ton of fun.

When you’re considering what to grow, a good place to learn about their needs is from seed catalogues and another – even better source – is from other gardeners, but there just never seems to be a master gardener handy when you want one!
Some plants like cucumbers, and tomatoes can be trained to a trellis and indeed so can some melons and squashes – but not all of them.

Pumpkins and watermelons for example, turned loose on your balcony would not only take it over completely- they could probably take possession of your neighbor’s balcony and your living room too. Corn is another example of a plant that’s entirely unsuitable for a balcony. For one thing it’s tall but you don’t grow it to a trellis which means that on your balcony the wind would easily break it but more to the point, you need to have a fairly large patch of corn growing to be assured that it will pollinate properly and therefore actually produce any corn.
As you’re making your list, keep the really large plants off.

Actually, for what it’s worth – here are the plants that I think are best suited to balcony vegetable gardens:
Beans, peas, some cucumbers, some sweet peppers, hot peppers, tomatoes, some eggplants, salad greens but not many cabbages and most annual herbs.

Asparagus and rhubarb are not suitable since they’re perennials.

Although I successfully grew hot peppers last year, some of them came in just under the wire and I tend to favour short season tomatoes. Crops (although “crops” seems like a bit of an exageration when describing the amount to be grown in containers) that I will probably never try include such long season goodies like cantalopes and honeydew melons.

Respecting your growing season and what you would like to grow also means that some vegetables like spinach will grow early and late in the season, but not during the “dog days”of summer – although last summer in Toronto we didn’t have anything like that.

Look, if I talk too long here, all that will happen is that I’ll make a very simple idea much too complex and instead of helping you grow something great to eat on your balconies or decks or patios, I’ll just scare you off.

That is NOT my plan. So I’ll wrap up with this. Do just a little bit of research on the length of your growing season and get a feeling forthe things that just need more time to grow than your summer will allow.

The first principle I’d like to present you with is the idea that you need to grow something your already know and already like. This might sound very simplistic, but seed catalogues and nurseries can make even a vegetable you don’t care for sound irresistable! (Heaven only knows I’ve fallen for it more than once.)

If you have a 20×20 foot plot in the ground you can afford to take a chance, but when you only have a small amount of room, go with a proven winner that you know you’re going to enjoy.

Also, you need to adopt a very Stephen Covey idea and begin with the end in mind. By that I mean only grow vegetables or herbs that you not only like but you actually know exactly what you’re going to do with. to make my point, just think of zucchini. Every year at the end of the gardening season when abundant harvests are generously distributed to friends, family and neighbors – what gets handed out more than anything else? Zucchini! Why? Well, because almost everyone plants too much of it and almost no one knows what to do with it! Do you?

Vegetable gardening on your balcony deserves a bigger reward than harvesting your crop and then watching it go bad when you realize you really don’t know exactly how to cook or preserve it or what to eat it with. I did that the first time I grew Thai Basil – which I love and NOW know what to do with.

Think it through!

But I know that anyone who is interested in growing vegetables – hydroponically – will have a ton of questions and I don’t really know what they will be.

So, if you have questions about how you can use the system that I use to grow container gardens – vegetables, herbs or flowers. Please send me comments and questions.

There are so many things I can say and so much I can write about, it would be incredibly helpful to me to know what you would like to know.

Thanks,
Lorraine

If you have a balcony or a patio or deck or even a postage stamp sized backyard there is only one non-negotiable requirement to grow your own vegetables. What you need is light. You need a spot with at least 5 hours of direct sunlight every day – unless you want to bring it all indoors and grow them under lights – and come to think of it – if you want – I can show you how to do that.

There is nothing you can do that is more in keeping with a long list of “it’s about time” trends than sweep off your deck or balcony take out some containers and use them to grow organic produce for your own table. Not only is it tastier than what you’ll buy in the store, it’s waiting for you, literally on your doorstep. Besides, when you release your hidden gardener, you might also find out why gardening is such a hugely popular hobby. It’s a calming, infinitely rewarding pastime that you might fall in love with. I did.

I started my first garden when I was about 7 or 8 years old. Everything died, from a combination of ignorance, neglect and the simple fact that my dad, anticipating my possible shortfalls as a beginner gardener allotted me a corner of the yard that were missing both rain and sun. I didn’t really care and over the years kept trying.

Right now I’m living in rental accommodations and don’t have any ground to call my own. I stopped putting gardens into my landlord’s yard because every time I moved I got to watch the next tenant kill my labor of love and I swore I’d never do it again. But, recently my interest in vegetable gardening was rekindled when I discovered an awesome technique for growing vegetables in containers. Using a gravity-fed, hydroponic system that is almost criminally easy to maintain, I harvested a wealth of peppers, tomatoes and simply the best salad greens that I’ve ever enjoyed and it was 100% organic.

If you’re still reading, I’m gathering that the idea interests you. So stay with me and I’ll tell you exactly how to do it…..although it’s going to take a few articles.

Step 1

How to Choose What to Grow

While there are a lot of things that can easily be grown in containers, some plants don’t do nearly so well. Luckily, the most popular vegetables including tomatoes, peppers and salad greens are excellent choices. I’m devoted to indeterminate tomatoes – that’s the kind that grow as a vine, as opposed to a bush. Yes you need to tie them up but having grown the special patio tomatoes in the past; I will personally never waste my time or my very precious space on them again.

I’ve also had decent luck with cucumbers although not such great results with squash. I don’t think they cared much for getting their roots cramped and any plant that needs a root run the size of Oklahoma will not be a great choice for containers.

Peas will do well, although they are a fairly short season crop and even more so given the extra warmth they’re experience in a container. If you’re going to grow beans – I’d suggest going with the pole beans even though I’m not sure they’re quite as tender as the bush variety, but the simple truth is that the bush beans just don’t give you the return on your space and seeding progressive crops is not as practical in a container garden as when you have lots of room in the ground.

Corn is a non starter and similarly I would also stay away from broccoli, cauliflower, and sprouts – something for which my son is eternally grateful. You also don’t want to try anything that has serious rambling issues like watermelon and I don’t recommend root crops either – meaning carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets, turnips, radishes or parsnips. You can’t grow asparagus in containers either.

If you don’t know anything about growing vegetables and you’ve never done it before, advice like “vines are good” isn’t going to be much help. So maybe I should step back for a minute and approach this question from a different perspective. Try this on for size, “grow what you can’t easily buy”.

Yes, you can buy tomatoes – but the tomatoes you can buy in the stores have been selected for qualities which appeal to agri-business. For example – tomatoes that are going to be trucked across half a continent – or more- need to have fairly tough skins so they don’t get mashed to a pulp – yummmmmmy. They need to be picked when they’re green and ripen in a truck. They need to stand up well to refrigeration. They need to be uniformly sized so that they pack well and display easily in a grocery store. If you’re growing your own tomatoes – none of these things matter!

You can have plum tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, beefsteak sized tomatoes, grape tomatoes in a range of colors and sweetness levels that will simply amaze you. If you’re not a gardener already, then you’re probably not familiar with the craze that is heirloom vegetables. Oh what a wonderful surprise you have in store. I grow lots of tomatoes – surprisingly I’m not a huge fan of big chunks of tomato. But I love little grape tomatoes in Greek salads and I’ve found that oven dried cherry tomatoes packed in olive oil with basil are like eating candy.

Peppers are terrific – because there are so many different kinds of them – especially if you like hot peppers.

Salad greens – Mesclun mix – Baby salad greens – you know the ones I mean. They cost about 16 bucks a kilo and 9 times out of 10 the ones in the grocery store have already started to wilt. I don’t know about man – but woman cannot live on iceberg alone!

Other great small space crops include Chinese greens, eggplant, kale, spinach and Swiss chard. And then of course a simply wonderful idea is to also grow herbs – some of which – like parsley and cilantro also make great salad greens.  Basil is another example of a crop available in a mind numbing variety. I love Thai basil.

Oregano, thyme, chives, tarragon, marjoram and sage are all perennial herbs, which mean that they will live from year to year. Sadly, that makes them a not too good choice for a container garden since plants which can survive the (Toronto) winters in the ground will not necessarily do so in a container on a balcony. Ironically, rosemary, which is also perennial but one too tender to survive the Toronto winters in the ground can easily spend those winters on a windowsill and go back out next spring.

But what I’ll say right now is, “if you really want a perennial herb, and it’s easy for you to find the plants, give them a try and we’ll touch back on the subject before the fall of 2010 and talk about how you can get them through the winter. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

To help you begin to make your decision about what you might want to grow, here is a list of websites that offer herb and vegetable seeds. Take a look at what they have to offer and make some choices – you’ll probably choose too many, but that’s ok. You haven’t ordered them yet.

http://www.heirloomtomatoes.bizland.com/

http://eternalseed.ca/index.php?ID=1&Lang=En Canada only

http://victoryseeds.com/

http://www.seedsavers.org/

http://www.sandhillpreservation.com/catalog/seed_menu.html

http://www.heritageharvestseed.com/

http://www.uharvest.ca/zenstore/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=21

http://www.richters.com/

http://www.stokeseeds.com/cgi-bin/StokesSeeds.storefront

http://www.dominion-seed-house.com/en-CA

Now, if you’re thinking that come spring, almost every grocery store in the city will be offering trays of little vegetable plants that you can grow, you’re absolutely right. Some of them will have a simply excellent range of choices too and if you want to go that route, you certainly can. But at some point you’ll probably want to grow something that you can’t find unless you start it yourself. So for now, you don’t need to make an absolute decision, check out the seeds and if you’re just not ready to make this leap yet, you can always start with pre-started plants.

I pulled the beefsteak tomato, green bell pepper, Brandywine tomato and flat leaf parsley – each in their own one gallon pot (which is only 6″x 6.5″high) from the planter they shared with a single gravity feed valve.  Of all the hydroponic designs I played with this summer this simple configuration – 4 pots in a single tray, with a single valve, from a single purposed nutrient reservoir- was the most successful.

when I pulled the plants from the pots, I was gratified to see the kind of solid mass of roots that you’ll be shown in any picture that demonstrates what a root bound plant should never look like.  But since I had no intention of either increasing the pot sizes, planting them into the ground or extending the life beyond a single growing season the solid mass of roots was good news to me becuase the purpose of the exercise was to confirm that – You Can Grow a Full Sized Tomato or Pepper in a Six Inch Pot!

OK,  so neither the beefsteak tomatoes nor the peppers will yield Fall Fair Blue Ribbon sized fruit ( yes they’re fruit!)  but they will yield a steady, generous crop of food – and you can do it in the lowest maintenance container garden that you can imagine.

Since I’m about the worlds worst artist,  I won’t be sketching out the designs but I’m going to create a PDF with photos to show how to make these gardens.  I hope that for anyone who would love to grow their own organic vegetables and herbs, but don’t have the space to plant a garden – these designs will set you along the road to your first harvest.

I’ll post information about the designs here – and probably post the PDF on my ecommerce bonsai site – Zen Garden Bonsai.

Oh – the flat leafed parsley is actually still good until a hard frost takes it out – here’s a shot of what it looks like.

I Love to Garden.  Always have.  I planted my first vegetables when I was about 8.  They all died, but that’s hardly the point.

I’ve tried to do lots of different businesses on my own but in spite of wanting to be objective about what business I’ll go into and evaluating the opportunities based on research, somehow I keep ending up growing something.  But looking at my ideas for outdoor-hydroponic- container-vegetable gardens, that truly are effortless and idiot proof, I’m wondering if there will be any appeal beyond pure gardeners.

And if so, who are my buyers?  Are they organic and natural health types?  I can certainly understand why this group would want to grow their own vegetables, but do they live in high rises? and if so will they pay about $80.00 for a planter that will grow a few tomatoes a herb and some peppers?

This is not about the price of the food or even the quality.  It’s about choice.  Its about going out to a balcony in the middle of Manhattan and being able to pick organic produce for your dinner.  Its about a feeling and bragging rights.

But I just don’t know if anyone will care.