Do you only have a terrace or balcony but would you like to grow your own vegetables? That’s possible! Pots, bins, a green wall in a little place you can spend surprisingly much.
The easiest way to grow vegetables on your terrace is in pots. It’s easy to change places so that the most beautiful plants are always insightful, and you can also quickly rearrange your terrace if you feel like a different look. In the heat of summer, you can shift the vegetables to a place with a little more shade.
This is a much more flexible system than a square foot box on legs, which immediately takes up a whole piece of your terrace. Moreover, you have to pour such a container more often, especially in the summer, and there is a lot of potting soil in it – in a square foot box of 15 inches high, that is soon 105 gallons. Do not put plants in metal containers on a sun-drenched terrace, the plant roots get too hot in it.
In a bucket
Most vegetables have enough growth space in a pot or bucket of 2.5 gallons for a growing season. If you want to keep courgettes, pumpkins, or cucumbers on your terrace, count on a pot of at least 4 gallons per plant. Grow your tomatoes in a pot, then opt for cherry tomatoes, which are stronger. Slide them under a canopy when it rains; tomatoes are very sensitive to (rain) water on their leaves and rot quickly.
On a terrace, in full sun you can keep peppers perfectly. These elegant bushes take up less space than tomatoes and require much less maintenance. Put some chili peppers in various colors; they also love the sun. Plant your vegetables in organic potting soil for vegetables or herbs, and mix liquid bio nutrition under the water every 14 days between April and September.
On the windowsill
Cutting and picking lettuce, rocket, Little Gem lettuce, cress and radishes can easily be sowed in a narrow flower box on the windowsill. Potatoes can be cultivated in a special potato bucket, or in an empty, inside-out potting compost bag. Do poke holes at the bottom, so that excess rainwater can easily be cleared away.
Vegetables grow amazingly well in black pots or bags: black attracts the heat and plastic holds the water for longer. Just a small terrace? Pumpkins and cucumbers can be climbed along with a climbing frame, which saves space and it still picks easily. Do you like to pick up your own harvest? Consider climbing fruit: little space and lots of snacking! Herbs can also be easily stored in small places.
Against the wall
Use your terrace wall! A vegetable garden against the wall is not only extremely convenient to harvest, on 10 square feet, depending on the system, fit about 10 to 20 plants for so little space. Make it yourself, from palettes, or buy a ready-made green wall. Be sure to put strawberries in there, there you can snack for weeks. The more sun, the sweeter the strawberries.
Provide a drip irrigation system, with water tubes that lie alongside the plants, because in such a narrow wall plants need a lot of water. You connect the system to an outdoor crane. In such a candy wall you can grow just about all vegetables and herbs, even pumpkins and (mini) courgettes.
Hang your green wall against an east or west wall, preferably not in full sun, the plants dry out too quickly. Six hours of sun is enough. Fill the wall with quality soil for patio plants, preferably with water crystals (‘less casting’), which will save you a lot of castings.