I don’t know if I can have a fruit tree. I need to first look at the yard and work out the exact placement of my vegetable garden, bonsai beds and greenhouse and then I can figure out if a fruit tree can even fit into the mix. Fruit trees raise other questions as well, because they’re a bit of a pain in a lot of ways.
They need to be sprayed and even though I am an organic gardener and there are a lot of things I refuse to touch, that spring hit of dormant oil is not one of my favourite jobs. A lot of fruit will not set and will instead drop to the ground and I really hate stepping on it and I’m not too nuts about constantly picking it up either. It’s not as if there is nothing else I need to do- I already have my work cut out for me.

I need to keep a fruit tree away from my eating area because it will attract those pain in the neck yellow jackets. Fruit trees also attract birds and squirrels (at least) who are intent and usually very successful at stealing the fruit that survives the early summer drop. And finally, when all goes well a fruit tree can be like having too many zucchini plants (that would be two zucchini vines) because it pretty much all comes ripe at around the same time.

But if I do have a fruit tree it will be a peach. They’re good looking and the size is easy to control and I can think of lots of things to do with peaches . One of my favorites involves a hefty amount of brandy. I can freeze them for smoothies all winter and I know of a great peach marmalade I can add to the Christmas baskets (OMG that makes me sound like such a perfect little Martha Stewart, but the real truth is I’m just cheap!)

But that leads me to start thinking about all the other food producing plants I plan to grow. At the moment the plans are pretty fuzzy, but nothing will make the cut into the final planning until I am satisfied that I’m growing something I like to eat and I know what to do with. That might sound like a silly thing to say, but bouncing back to the subject of the much maligned zucchini, how many people do you know who grew it and then had no idea what to do with it – besides try to pawn it off on their friends?

People get sucked in by seed catalogues and garden centers and end up growing vegetables that they either don’t like or don’t know what to do with. And a lot of home gardeners grow plants that just don’t fit their space. Take corn for example. I know a few people who’ve tried to grow corn and met with dismal failure because they couldn’t grow a big enough patch of it to get any real pollination going and for all the space and the plants, the actual yield of corn was pitiful. I nearly get seduced every year by Brussel sprouts. Have you ever seen them growing? They are so cool looking the way the sprouts grow up and around the stem and the leaves pop out the top, they remind me of a palm tree and I love the way they look, but I don’t like to eat them.

So really the point is that if you want to grow something to eat, you’re definitely thinking in the right direction, but like everything else you also need to think it through. For the last few years I’ve had very, very little space to devote to vegetables and the ones I’ve grown have been raised in hydroponic containers where space was at a super premium. Planting them into the ground offers me the luxury of more space than I’ve imagined in a long while and I plan to use it well.

Have I abandoned hydroponic vegetables in containers? Heck no! I’ve just moved them to my greenhouse for the winter.

On earlier posts I’ve covered some of the basic areas you should think about before deciding what vegetables to grow on your balcony, deck or patio. If you’ve gardened for years then you already know how to accommodate the length of your growing season and you probably already have a good idea how to estimate how big your plants will get. But if you’re new to growing – especially to growing vegetables – these are important areas to consider.

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.

If you’ve never had a garden and if you’ve never grown vegetables it not fair to take anything for granted. There are a lot of things you’ll need to learn and one of them is how much room some plants demand. Now, when you’re growing in containers and certainly if you use my hydroponic planter system, you can reduce the space that any plant will take up but some choices – frankly are beyond hope.

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.

Living in Toronto, it’s easy to be jealous of someone in the south with a growing season that seems to me to last all year. But you live where you live and if you want to enjoy the fruits of success it’s necessary to respect the limitations of your growing season.

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.

Acorn Squash

I guess that, in a way, gardens are like your children.  They grow a little bit every day, but you’re so close you don’t realize it, until something makes you stand up and take notice.  The garden that I’ve referred to as my summer project is absolutely taking off.  The hydroponic versions have pretty much outstripped the regular soil- in-container versions, with the exception of the Thai hot peppers and I realize that the soil versions are getting about 1 1/2 more hours of sun each day and it’s making a real difference.

If I start thinking now about all the new ways to use acorn squash I might be able to manage what is looking to be the start of a bumper crop.  The snow peas are starting to produce very tender and very tasy pods and I’ve recently added some beefstake and heritage “Brandywine” tomatoes in a newly configured garden that I’m hoping will create “The Tomato Solution” because I cannot possibly bring this to market without a tomato configuration.

But what has truly blown me away beyond my wildest expectations is the cut-and-come-again salad garden.  I’m a big salad eater and so far, from a 4 foot planting of mixed greens I’ve taken at least 6 salads for 3 people in a two week period and it just keeps getting fuller.  And the taste and texture of these greens is like nothing else I’ve ever had- which is I guess what happens when you’re not eating a commercially grown crop that must be a variety that travels well.

Here are some more shots!

Salad Greens

Snow Peas