How To: Balcony Gardening
One of the biggest struggles for me when I moved last summer was moving to a place that doesn’t have a garden. Since 2018, I’ve really gotten into gardening, and often found myself excited to get up in the mornings during the summer, to get outside, water and check on my plants. I even eventually found myself buying planters & more plants to fill because I wished there was more to caring for your plants rather than just checking them out & watering them everyday. All of this to say, I needed to find a way to garden on a balcony this summer — and I did! So I want to share my tips and tricks with all of you in this blog.
TIP NO. 1: FLOWER BOXES & POTS
Since I’m dealing with balcony gardening, obviously there is no option to put flowers directly in the ground, so that pretty much exclusively leaves the options of growing in flower boxes or pots. Whether you decide to go the Vegtrug route, or individual pots, as long as your balcony has the space, there’s no rule telling you not to go for it! I personally use balcony railing flower boxes & individual pots to grow herbs & other various florals.
TIP NO. 2: LIGHTING & WHAT TO GROW
I moved from a space where there was pretty much full sun from sunrise to sunset, so I was used to being able to grow pretty much whatever I wanted — veggies, flowers, it didn’t matter because I had a space whether it needed full sun, partial sun or full shade. That unfortunately is not the case with my current place — I had to take some time to really figure out what would grow with the amount of sunlight we get, and what time of the day we get sun! We’re luckily enough that we get morning sunshine for approximately 6 hours a day, so that left a lot of partial sun options for me, and we’re even trying out some full sun (6+ hours) options to see how they go!
TIP NO. 3: WATERING SCHEDULE
In pretty much any type of gardening, you want to make sure your plants are well watered and preferably on a schedule. I highly suggest watering your plants first thing in the morning so they have the entire day to soak up the water. If you water them too late in the day, and the temperature drops at night, your plants roots may end up sitting in water overnight & rotting. To help in avoiding this, you also want to make sure that the bottom 1/4 to 1/3 of your planter, whatever it may be, is filled with small rocks to aid in drainage. You can also get a planter with a drainage hole, but this will result in water all over your balcony.
TIP NO. 4: TOOLS TO GARDEN & CLEAN UP
If you’re limited on space, you can really keep your gardening tools to a minimal, especially if you don’t mind getting your hands in the dirt. I do most of my gardening with my hands personally, but I like to have a trowel on hand, just in case. I also like to have a watering can, for obvious reasons, as well as a hand brush or broom with a dust pan to clean up any dirt that may get all over the place while transplanting.
There you have it! My tips for gardening on a balcony. Whether you’re in an apartment, condo, whatever the case may be, if you’ve got a small space & you want to garden, there’s no reason that you can’t — you just have to be strategic about it.
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