Creating a Balcony Garden (For Complete Beginners

My first garden was in a space smaller than this. So that's all you've got. Do not be discouraged. There's so much you can grow. So we headed over to Chicago to talk to Bethany, a balcony gardener for over five years. She's going to give you everything you need to know to get your first balcony garden started and thriving. Imagine being able to harvest a bounty of fresh vegetables and cut flowers in a space no larger than your living room. And you don't even have a yard. Does that sound impossible to you? Well, I grew all of this in my 18 by 19 square foot rooftop deck. I'm Bethany. And over the last five years, I have transformed my rooftop deck into a thriving urban oasis that you see around me today. And I have battled wind. I have battled extreme heat to create this beautiful garden. In this video, I'm going to share six crucial lessons that I've learned over the last few years. I'm going to go over plant selection, container selection, how to master the watering techniques to make sure that all of your containers thrive. And by the end of this video, you will have the tools to create your own dream garden. Since we don't have any ground to plant in as balcony gardeners, I'm going to first go over container selection because that is going to be the start of your garden. Now I have a wide range of sizes of containers. I have everything from pretty good sized elevated beds to eight inch terracotta pots. And the different containers that I have each come with their own pros and cons. For example, smaller containers are going to dry out a lot faster than larger containers. However, it is much easier to move around my eight inch terracotta pots than it is for my elevated beds. Once my elevated beds are filled with soil and plants, that is where they are going to stay. Cost is a factor that you'll want to consider for your container selection. So I find that grow bags are really going to give you the best bang for your buck. You're going to be able to find large container sizes for a much lower cost than pretty much any other material. So my 30 gallon grow bags, I've been using them now for five years and I think they came out to about $5 per pot. You're not going to be able to find a 30 gallon pot of any other material for $5. So that is one of the many reasons why I love using grow bags. Another important consideration, especially for rooftop deck or balcony gardeners is the weight of your containers and not just the containers, but the additional weight once they are filled with soil and plants is very important to understand your deck capacity because you don't want to overload your structure. So the elevated beds in my garden, those are definitely the heaviest once they are full, especially and my grow bags are the lightest. So keep that in mind when you are thinking about the right containers for your environment. And also don't forget about growing vertically because vertical planting can take up a small square foot, but still give you plenty of growing room, whether that's getting a specific vertical planter or just using a lot of staking and trellising to keep the plants upright in your garden. I've even turned this flower cart, which I don't think was supposed to be used to grow plants into my own vertical planter. Next, let's talk about growing medium. So again, if you don't have any ground, you are going to have to provide the growing medium for your plants. So if you are container gardening, I definitely recommend using a bag potting mix. Potting mix is specifically designed for plants in containers, and it's also amended with extra nutrients to help the plants grow. You don't want to just take your pots out, find some dirt in the yard and fill the pots with that on its own because soil from the ground is too compact when you're growing in containers and that can end up suffocating the roots on your plants, which you definitely don't want to do. Now it is actually possible to make your own potting mix with soil from the ground and other amendments. But if you are just getting started, don't worry about that and just look for already sterile and prepackaged potting mix. I also like to add some compost to all my raised beds and my grow bags just for a little bit of extra nutrition. And I do not completely empty out my raised beds or my 30 gallon grow bags. Those I just amend every season with additional compost. Next, you want to understand the sun exposure of your growing environment. So before you decide what you're going to plant, make sure that you're going to be choosing plants that fit the amount of sun that your deck or balcony gets. Some plants are going to want full sun, which is typically more than six hours of sun per day. Some are going to want full shade, which is less than two hours of direct sun. And then there are some that fall in between that are part sun or part shade plants. So understand your space before you go ahead and choose your plants. Now my rooftop deck faces West and it does get full sun, which works out perfectly for most of the vegetables and flowers that I want to grow. However, it did take me a couple of years of killing some shade loving plants before I realized that if they don't fit into my environment that I have, I really shouldn't try to force them. So I now focus on plants that I know can handle the full sun, but also very intense afternoon full sun. Now is probably the most fun part and that is selecting the different plants that you're going to grow in your garden. So again, make sure that you meet the sunlight requirements for the plants that you want to grow. And you want to make sure that you have the right container size for the plants as well. So I find that I use seven gallon, maybe 10 gallon containers the most often for an individual plant, but plants vary greatly in size. So the container requirements are going to be different for every single plant. For example, an indeterminate tomato, which can get incredibly tall is probably going to need a larger size container than a determinate tomato, which only grows to a set size. So you can do just a quick search for the specific plants and recommended container sizes. That's what I did when I was first starting off. But again, seven to 10 is kind of my happy place in terms of gallon sizes for my pots. So while you obviously need to have the right environment for a plant, when you are a small space gardener, I say grow what you love. I spent so many years growing eggplants and okra just because I thought it would be interesting, but then realizing I didn't really like to eat the eggplants or okra that I was growing. So now instead of having one of each different plant, I'll have three or four of the same plant because I know I eat that a lot. So cucumbers, zucchinis, peppers, tomatoes. That's what I focus my vegetable garden on now, instead of trying to grow everything that I can get my hands on. And something I feel like has changed a lot in the last 10 years as well, which is great for balcony gardeners and small space gardeners is the availability of compact plants. I have so many compact varieties in my garden of plants that I love, but wasn't sure if I was ever going to be able to grow on a rooftop deck. For example, I have here two columnar apple trees. There's one back there, one right here, and I have my first apples ever on my rooftop deck in Chicago. How cool is that? So definitely check to see either at your local nurseries or online if there are compact varieties of plants that you love. I know I also have a mini peach tree. I know there are tomato varieties that only get to a couple feet tall. So see what's available for you. However, small space gardening doesn't mean that you just have to grow small plants. For example, I have sunflowers in my garden that get to probably six feet tall, but because they grow vertically, they don't take up much space on my deck. I also have indeterminate tomato plants because I love tomatoes so much, but I just keep them upright with a plant cage. So again, cages, trellises, anything that you can do to keep your plants upright and taking up a very small square footage on your deck is perfect when you're growing in balconies or smaller spaces. Next, let's talk about watering, which is very important for us container gardeners because plants growing in pots, that soil is going to dry out a lot faster than if we were growing in the ground, especially these eight inch terracotta pots that all of my herbs are growing in. So I water in two different ways. I do have an irrigation system set up and I would highly recommend that. Irrigation systems are not just for large gardens. For me, I have my system set to run every morning. It probably waters 90% of the pots that I have out here. So I can come out, I can hand water with a hose, the ones that aren't set up to irrigation, but then I can go about my morning doing other gardening tasks instead of worrying about watering all of my raised beds. But it's also great for when you're out of town. I still am anxious when I leave my garden alone for a little bit, but knowing that it's going to get watered does give me peace of mind and it just makes garden maintenance so much easier. Now, like I said, even though I do have an irrigation system set up because of the varying sizes of my pots, I set it to run for kind of what I would say is the average watering needs of my containers. And then I do have a hose for any pots that again, aren't set up to irrigation or maybe just need a little bit more water than some of my larger containers. My herbs dry out the fastest. So sometimes I am watering these with a hose, whereas my raised beds can go a lot longer in between waterings. How often to water is probably one of the questions I get asked the most. And even though it seems like such a simple question, it is something that has a bit more complicated of an answer because the answer is it depends. It depends on sun exposure. It depends on the plant. It depends on the container size, the container type. So what I recommend doing is that when you water your containers, you want to water thoroughly, which means water until you see the water coming out of the bottom of your containers. Then just monitor your containers, stick your finger in the potting soil, see if it feels dry a couple inches down. If it does water, if not, let it go for a little bit longer. And you will start to understand the different containers and their watering needs in your garden really pretty quickly. And lastly, let's talk a little bit about fertilizing because if you are growing in containers and you are watering them more often than you would, if you were gardening in the ground, that means that the nutrients that is in the potting soil is getting washed out a lot faster. So you are going to have to supply your plants with additional nutrients. So I fertilize using two different types of fertilizers. When I'm first planting, I will apply a granular fertilizer. Granular fertilizers will take longer to break down, so they won't be taken up as quickly, but they will last longer in the potting soil. And then I'll also apply a liquid fertilizer throughout the season. That's going to give your plants a quick boost throughout the gardening season. Now there are so many different fertilizers on the market, and if this seems overwhelming to you, like it did to me when I was just starting out, choose an all purpose fertilizer and just stick with that. Now as you get a little bit further along in your gardening journey, when I'm starting off with plants that are just focused on the green growth, I look for a fertilizer that's a bit higher in nitrogen. Once my plants start to flower, then I will switch to a fertilizer that is higher in phosphorus. Now as far as how often to fertilize, I try to stick with once every two weeks. I find that that's just really worked well for my garden over the last few years. But if we've gone through a period of heavy rain, like we just had three days in a row of storms, then I'll go out after the storms have cleared and add another round of fertilizer just to get the nutrients back into my garden. And just as a fun additional balcony gardening tip, let's say this is number seven. I love wheels in my garden. It makes gardening so much easier. I can move around heavy plants and heavy pots so much easier than if I didn't have them on wheels. In fact, some of these I couldn't even move around if they weren't on wheels. So my 30 gallon grow bags, which are hidden back here by all the plants, I could not move those on my own, but now they're on wheeled platforms. I can move them around as needed throughout my garden. I don't necessarily move around the large containers that often, but it's nice to know that I can do that if I ever need to. So as you can see, there is so much you can do in a small space just like this. And if you're wondering what kind of containers are best to use, check out this video right here. Good luck in the garden and keep on growing.