First Post! Urban Balcony Vegetable Container Garden

Hello all. First time poster here. I just set up my balcony veggie garden. A little prematurely since the temps have dipped below 50 in my city but everything should warm up in 2 days so im hoping I don't lose anything. I have an average sized balcony and am trying to maximize my space. I added some shelves for lettuce, arugula, strawberries etc. The rest of the stuff went in 16" planters. I am using organic potting mix and will be fertilizing with castings and tea from my Worm Factory 360 in addition to other organic liquid fertilizers from the local hydro store.

The plants in the Pots are :
-Green Beans
-Celery
-Green Bell Pepper
-Early Girl Tomato
-Red Bell Pepper
-Neon Chard

On the Shelves:
-Salad Blend Mixed Greens
-Romaine Lettuce
-Bok Choi
-Strawberries

Sown in the peat pods:
-Arugula
-Mesculin

I have 2 extra Pots and am planning on planting sweet corn in one and cucumbers in the other one. I have a few pics and was curious what you guys think? The balcony gets fullish sun. Some parts of the roof cause a shadow to fall on certain parts of the balcony but I have wrapped the entire glass sliding doors with Mylar to reflect the sun's light back towards the balcony and hopefully help provide better light for my veggies.

Any tips/advice would be much appreciated :-D :-D :-D Thanks!




Shelves with leafy greens ( photo / image / picture from InCaseOfZombies's Garden )






Balcony Garden Pots ( photo / image / picture from InCaseOfZombies's Garden )






Mylar covering sliding doors ( photo / image / picture from InCaseOfZombies's Garden )






Mylar covering sliding with door open ( photo / image / picture from InCaseOfZombies's Garden )






Sown arugula and mesculin ( photo / image / picture from InCaseOfZombies's Garden )






Worm Factory 360 Composting system ( photo / image / picture from InCaseOfZombies's Garden )






3500 Red Composting Worms ( photo / image / picture from InCaseOfZombies's Garden )

 

I soooo want a worm factory, but am bulking at the commercial set up price. I haven't found one for less than 100.00 yet and the do it yourself ones look a little rough. I did find some old grey medicine totes from rubbermaid that a farmer gave me and I might just break down and use those to make one. Your plants are looking good. How warm is it where you are? Here the ground is frozen underneath and SLIMEY on top since it has warmed up and all the snow is melted....

 

I agree the price is ridiculously too high. Its basically just plastic. The material costs are probably in the cents. But it is well made and will easily last a lifetime so I justified it by all the good it will do for the environment and for me. I've heard great things about worm castings and quite frankly it is wicked cool! For the coolness alone it's worth it.

The weather here in SoCal is warm. Up until a month and a half ago it was still pretty much 70's+ Nights were 60's ish. This last week night time temps have dipped to 45-50 but that will change in the next few weeks. 8 months out of the year its 80-95 degrees during the day and 70 at night.

What is this frozen you speak of? I don't think ive ever encountered it.

 

Hi there and welcome from Texas. Frozen,, surely you watch the weather and see all that white stuff that falls from the sky? LOL
I don`t think you should try corn in those planters and pots. They require a lot of room for the roots. But if you do, stay with the smaller hybrid sweet corn. You might make a few ears.
You balcony looks very good. Excellent work.

 

Hi Zombies! Your garden looks like is is off to a really good start. Everything looks very healthy. I agree with mart about the corn. It is a very heavy feeder and you would need a good block of it in order to get good cross polination. How hot does it get there in summer?

 

Hmmm...you guys are making me think twice about the corn. The variety I had chosen was Corn, ON Deck Hybrid http://www.burpee.com/vegetables/corn/corn-on-deck-hybrid-prod003168.html Supposedly well suited for containers but I dunno. Seems like a lot of work for very little reward. Are the ears at least full size or are they little minis?

Thanks for the kind words from all. To answer your question Cayuga the temp here is usually 80-95F (26-35C) for 8 months out of the year. Im gonna be doing a hell of a lot of watering with these containers and the heat. I was planning on putting some kind of mulch or something on the surface of the soil to keep the water from evaporating too much. Any suggestions? Can I use the chunks of tree bark more commonly used for landscaping or is that over kill?

 

Frozen....Oh, we have this gigantic freezer that we put outside and make that white frozen stuff that falls from the sky (we call it snow here) in the northpole naturally and we let is cool down our area so we can go skiing and tubing and sledding and if we put it out there long enough the water in the ponds and even the Great Lakes freezes and we can ice skate and ice fish. Then come March we turn it off and let it warm back up so we can get off our vacation and go back to gardening.

Feel free to visit this week. Today we have it set to 65f and falling to 24f tonight, tomorrow is 27f and 14f at night, Friday 19f and 13f overnight...we do things in a wickedly wild way here, If you aren't sick yet we will change the temperature inside and out until you are. If you have asthma though it would be best to stay there. Your lungs don't adapt real well to the extreme swings in the thermometer here. Otherwise we keep it so strange that everyone is cooped up inside together so we can share whatever lovely germs others have to pass around. Totally awesome,not!

 

Hi Zombie. I prefer to use the shredded type of mulch... in pots and on the ground.
Looks like a great set-up and can't wait to see all the goodies you'll be harvesting.

 

Zombie--I think mulch is a great idea. You want to keep the plants from getting stressed. I did not know they (the seed companies) had developed corn seed to plant in containers. Why not try it? What do you have to lose?

 

Nothing i suppose. Even if they don't' give me too many ears... i've always loved the look of corn. Makes me forget that I live in a concrete jungle. So at the very least it'll just be a neat looking plant. But according to the website, this strain does well in containers. My seeds should arrive in a few days. Also excited about the other stuff that's coming in the same shipment:
- Cucumber, Spacemaster
- Squash, Summer Green Tiger
- Eggplant, Early Midnight Hybrid
- Eggplant, Fairy Tale

 

Sounds good Zombie. Spring for us in New England is still a l-o-n-g ways away so I am envious of your planting!

 

That is a great set up!!!

 

Twice I have grown corn in LARGE containers; got nice production BUT by season's end? Root systems completely FILLED the containers to point where you'd never know soil had been in there at one time: DO NOT recommend trying it (plus corn needs a tremendous amount of WATER and fertilizer). Just LOVE your patio setup; however, with the heat you get, you MAY find your leafy veggies "bolting" (going to seed), getting bitter tasting rather fast as those are cool weather plants..please don't be disappointed if they do. DO keep up the GOOD work, ENJOY!

 

So I was a bit worried about the greens shooting for seed so I decided to move the whole greens cage to the other side of the balcony. This way, they'll only get sun until around noon and won't be exposed to harsh afternoon sun. I also added a thick layer of mulch on all the plants that are tall enough. The eggplant and little tomato are new transplants so I will wait a bit before covering their potting mix with mulch too. Hoping this mulch will limit the amount of watering i'll need to do once temperatures hit the 100's.

A Panorama of the whole balcony



Greens Cage Moved



Green Beans. Supposedly don't need trellising. We shall see.



New Brandy Wine Transplant. I'm supposed to NOT pinch the suckers on this right?



One of the Bell Peppers



Arugula



Early Girl has almost doubled in size. I've been pinching the suckers.



Chard



Celery



Been Feeding with Worm Castings + these two:

 

Wow! Your garden looks great! Thanks for the photos. I am afraid I can't answer any of your questions, but I am sure others on Stew will be able to. Good luck!