For the past six years, my husband and I have been growing a home garden. The only thing is, we don’t have a yard. We live in a private apartment above a garage, and our outdoor space consists of a driveway and some landscaped beds. While functional landscaping is an integral part of every home garden, it doesn’t feed you.
As cities sprawl, urban dwellers are exploring creative ways to source good food for ourselves and our families. Growing food and greenery in small, confined spaces is just one way those of us with only windowsills, balconies or concrete slabs can contribute to the local food culture and extend our personal growing season.
CHOOSE YOUR LOCATION
Sometimes, urbanites don’t have a lot of options when choosing a site for their container garden. The outdoor space at my home is almost solely north-facing and deprived of direct sunlight for the most sunny parts of the day. This means we have to carefully select what plants we grow.
If you are able, pick a spot that offers the most variety of sun. Windowsills, inside or out, are great for herbs, succulents and other small plants. Putting your plants in a place where you will see them on a daily basis helps you remember to care for them and notice when there might be a pest or disease issue.
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POTS
Our first year of container gardening, we used four wooden wine boxes, three square milk crates and a basket for herbs, all lined with burlap coffee bags. We still use the crates for greens and herbs, but the wood degraded quickly. Since then, we have been gradually expanding a collection of 5-gallon pickle buckets, garnished from the deli kitchen at our local natural foods store. But there are so many things you can use and reuse to grow in: bathtubs, boots, wagons, desks, dresser drawers, chairs and much more.
Containers only require a few things – drainage, root space and surface area, dependent on your plant.
SOIL
Potting soil for containers should be nutrient-balanced and well-nutrified with compost or worm castings. Fertilize often throughout the season, as needed for the vegetables or fruits you are growing. Heavy feeders, like tomatoes and peppers, can quickly eat up the nutrition in their containers and must be fed regularly. Water as needed or as specified for each particular plant.
PLANTS
Because we have a north-facing space, we grow tomatoes that are more cold-tolerant, like Siberian and Polar varieties. Herbs, lettuces, onions and more delicate flowers also tend to do well in a partial-sun environment. However, if your balcony gets baked by the sun, you would want to plant more traditional sun-loving tomatoes, hot peppers, zucchini, hops and cucumbers.
While some professionals say you can grow pretty much anything in a container, I have found that larger root vegetables, like carrots and beets, are stunted in pots, and I don’t recommend growing corn. Corn requires a minimum of two plants to grow, plenty of root space and, many times, hand pollination in order to kernel.
DIVERSIFY
Start simply, but try to grow more than one thing at a time. Tomatoes and basil are companion plants, both agriculturally and in the kitchen. Adding a bee-friendly flower or two increases your production because fruits and vegetables need to be pollinated in a variety of ways. Then, plant one experimental thing. If it works, you have created something special. If it doesn’t, there’s always next year. N
As Featured In: Summer/Fall 2020
By S. Michal Bennett
Photography By Joel Riner
