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.

It started with an idea to use hydroponic principles to grow vegetables outside for people who don’t have the space for a traditional garden  – outdoor hydroponic vegetable container gardens.  It almost immediately “expanded” to embrace an organic component……………and I’ve been trying to simplify it ever since.

First it was a matter of getting rid of the overly complicated mixing and balancing of nutrients that are an inherent flaw with traditional hydroponic systems.  At least they’re a flaw if you want to get regular consumers interested.  Then it was about ditching the reliance for electricity – and luckily both of the first two problems had the same solution.  I thought the gravity fed valves were my answer but now I’m not so sure.  I think they’re overpriced and I can’t seem to do anything to bring the prices down and they are still a mechanical element that is subject to a few hiccups.

If it doesn’t work flawlessly, it can’t be foolproof and I want foolproof.

The second season is starting and the new lettuce garden is still hydroponic, still small space, still organic – but this time it might also be foolproof, too.  You see, I’ve ditched the valve for now and I’m working on something that is sooooooo simple – if it works – it will take the container and balcony gardening world by storm.  On the other hand – maybe I’m about to find out why this technique hasn’t found broader adoption.

I’ll let you know.

I’m pressed for time today (as usual) and don’t have time to download the shots I took of the pathetic site I returned to after only three days away from the house.  As luck would have it, after a cool ( some would say cold) and perpetually wet July, the August long weekend was warm and sunny.  I was in heaven.  My vegetables in traditional containers were in hell.  I returned home to find my herbs, and peppers pitifully wilted and the leaves of  my cucumbers, acorn squash and tomatoes yellowed and crispy.  It was not pretty and one cuke and both squash have succumbed to their injuries.  Piss me off!

BUT – Everything and I mean everything that relied upon my hydroponic watering system including tomatoes, herbs, peppers and all the salad greens were in perfect condition.

I’m struggling with an affordable way to bring this system to market.  The problem being that I’m just too small to buy the volumes that will command a great price so the cost of goods will be ugly and unless I want to market these for free ( or worse yet at a loss- which I can promise you is deadly easy to do) they are going to cost about twice what I hoped to bring them to market for.  Still – They work.  And the relative benefits just keep stacking up so I’ll just have to wait and see what I can do.

Gotta run.  Late for work – again.

So, we covered sunlight already – the only thing you can’t do too much about, unless you’re going to cut down a few trees or demolish the neighbours garage, which is probably not a great idea.

The next thing to think about is the question “Why?” as in’ Why do you want to grow your own vegetables?”

If you want access to favoured or hard to find treats like oriental eggplants or thai basil or snow peas that don’t have the texture of cardboard,  or heritage tomatoes- thats one possible reason.

Another is that you’d simply like to grow a few vegetables that you and your family like and ýou want to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are organic,  chemical free and as fresh as possible.  Another perfectly valid reason.

Another reason is that, even though you don’t have much room you want a vegetable garden that will make a solid contribution to your families consumption by  improving the quality of what you get and at the same time saving some money.  Value is good.

Or just maybe you’ve simply  been bitten by a desire to grow something, because it will make your soul happy.  Welcome.

Every reason is a good one.  Heck I don’t think there can possibly be a bad reason for growing a vegetable garden.  But if you’re going to be growing on a patio, balcony or deck , space will be at a premium.  If you want to be happy with the result, it won’t hurt to give a little thought to what result you’ll be happy with.

Every reason I’ve outlined will take you down a slightly different path when you plan your own garden- and anything is possible.

If you want to grow vegetables and you don’t have a lot of room, it doesn’t really matter if you have a balcony, a deck, a patio or simply a small unplantable space because what you’ll all have in common is the need to plant your vegetables in containers.

And everyone is working with the same simple equalizer- sunlight.  If you want to grow vegetables you need sunlight and lots of it and preferably you need sun morning – noon and afternoon.

The amount of sunlight you get is the number one factor you need to take into consideration if you want to grow vegetables in containers and it’s probably the only consideration that you won’t be able to find a work-around for.

I’d say as a rule of thumb your bare minimum to grow vegetables is 5 hours of direct light and I mean direct afternoon sun.  A spot that only gets morning sun simply will not cut it- sorry.  So think of sun from lunch to 5 and remember that’s the minimum.  You’ll get growth and a few things will grow reasonably well- but most of your plants will never hit their maximum potential unless they get the light all day.

This is especially true of tomatoes. They are -without a doubt -the numero uno vegetable choice, which you have to admit is a little ironic since technically, tomatoes are not a vegetable- they’re a fruit. sorry I couldn’t resist.

Well, it’s too early to say for sure what works, but I’m getting a feeling for what doesn’t work and I’m sorry to say I need to go back to the drawing board for the larger plants.  The two tubs that I made to hold 3 – 6 large plants each have some challenges and so far, they’re not insurmountable, but I think I have a much better idea for the design.

I shouldn’t have put the aggregated clay at the bottom of the bags, not sure why my brain was dead that day but until the roots reach into it, the clay doesn’t allow the moisture to work it’s way higher up into the bag.  And the roots aren’t likely to reach the bottom when the top and the middle – where they’re living now doesn’t get the nutrient.  I made the same mistake with the pipe gardens, but I used very little aggregate so some of the coir still made contact with the moisture.  This is not to say that any of the plants are doing anything less than thriving- they’re growing like gangbusters!

Even though the hydroponic test plants were 1-2 weeks behind the plants I potted into traditional containers with compost and soil,  they have pretty much surpassed them in size and have started to flower sooner.

The pipe gardens so far are total winners ( a.k.a. nothing has gone wrong yet) I’ve had 3 salads so far from the container greens- very satisfying and once the cukes take off I’d better dig up the pickle recipe again.

I now just need to refine the pipe gardens and figure out the most economical way to produce them- and I need a stand for balconies and patios that don’t have a place to affix them vertically and for people who don’t have the time, tools or the desire or skills to do that kind of job.

This was a lot more work than I expected it to be, but things always are – however  I’m very excited to say that I have the pipe gardens up and working and the tub garden is just waiting for my tomatoes to arrive.

I have  some pictures of the current state of affairs in my crowded little backyard and only wish that I had the energy to haul some of the ugly stuff out of the background before I took the shots.

The pipe gardens might need a little more waterproofing. I’m not sure yet because it won’t stop raining long enough to tell if the outside is wet from rain, dew or leakage – I’m hoping for the first two.

Hydroponic beans in the pipe garden

On top of everything else – it’s been so bloody cold here that on the evening of May 30 ( if you can believe it) I almost lost my hot peppers from the cold – one of two degrees colder and it would have been a frosty death.

The Hydroponic Pipe gardens

I have set beans, and peas on the top shelf so that they can climb up the deck posts.  On the second level I have my cut and come again baby salad greens.  and on the bottom shelf is basil, Thai basil and some small Thai peppers – The valves seem to be working just find and so I’m ready now to start tracking the growth and comparing it to the plants I’ve set up on the deck that are planted in compost.

One of the (not completely ) answered questions for my summer vegetables in containers project was picking the best ones to grow.  I was looking for a combination of decent yields for the work and – I guess you’d call it -functionality.  I wanted vegetables that could be eaten immediately or could be preserved or could provide a sustained yield for a long time.

I also couldn’t choose all that many, because like the people I’m doing this for I’m pressed for time and space. Finally I wanted to work with plants that would let me test some different container styles – particularly for the soil less containers where I want to be able to check out larger single plant pots, smaller individual plants set into a pipe garden configuration and also I wanted to check out a “broadcast” planter box.  I want to check into cut and come again salad greens so I wanted the most surface area I could acommodate in the space.

Here’s the list so far- Cherry tomatoes, beans, acorn squash, picking cucumbers, lettuce varieties (loose leaf) and hot peppers.  If the hot peppers seem like a strange addition – all I can say is that they can be dried and held for a long time, I like the taste of hot peppers and I happen to really like the look of them too.

Although I’m kinda late getting off the ground, if I can I’ll try and also get some snow peas added into the mix and that will probably be it.

The seeds are sprouting – I dont’ have any pots and I haven’t built the hydroponic planters yet … got to get this in gear!