I've lived in an apartment setting for more than 8 years now and have longed to have a garden of my own either on my balcony or in a small space of grass/dirt at my front door. Does anyone have suggestions for growing flowers or even a few vegetables in limited space? I can see beautiful flowers and even tomato and bean plants growing on my neighbors balconies or on their patios. I have had no success in getting things to grow though. I have sunlight for a few hours of the day, but shade is mostly on my end of the building. Would love some advice!!
Have you considered vertical gardening? You can make or buy felt pouches or use some old wood and hang it up to garden in small spaces. Log In I like felt pockets by Woolly Pocket. I went to one of their seminars and it's so easy to garden this way because their pockets retain moisture. Log In
Good question. I live in an apartment and would love to have a vegetable garden. Vertical gardening is a good alternative and could solve a lot of problems.
I live in an apartment and have had a balcony garden for years. I grow all kinds of herbs tomatoes and salad stuff in containers. Vertical gardening is the way to go for small spaces. Have you considered bottle gardening? When you say few hours of sunlight do you at least get about 6 hours of sunlight? If you do that should be enough for some amount of vegetable garden. Consider installing grow lights.. there is another thread on it here that I have started a long time ago.
Study the areas that you are considering planting in and how much sun does it really get. If it is really shady, then look for plants and flowers that thrive in the shade. For example, hostas love shade and may be a flowering plant to consider. If you have a south facing window in your apartment, that may be your best place to grow some indoor herbs or other small veggie plants. If you have an outdoor area that does get a fair amount of sun, lettuces, radishes, carrots and cherry tomato plants have always seemed to be easy to grow and produce very well. These plants can make a pretty tasty salad!
I have a apartment and I dont think they would mind if I were to start a flower garden but I just dont think It looks right. Everyones apartment is dingy looking and then I go and plant flowers lol...I think it would look bad.
Wow Maddie! That's impressive. I live in Southern California. There's plenty of sunlight here. I especially like the idea of growing vegetables in the bottles because they provide some protection from the other elements in the air.....like car exhaust. Yes, I live on a busy street. I really need to move.
I agree with you on that .. growing vegetables in bottles not only protects them from the environment, but it helps recycle and reduce waste of plastic bottles. The water is recycled as it works like a drip irrigation system. The pest are few and the produce could be 100% organic. I have a tiny bottle garden currently as I have run out of space.. These bottle gardens or window garden are great for growing herbs, spinach and other greens.
Actually, I did an article on how to grow a garden without a yard. It really depends on what kind of space you have and how big it is. You can grow almost anything in a container that you can grow in the ground and you can even grow some edible plants indoors. You don't have a lot of light so you'll want to grow things that can be grown in the shade. If your balcony is enclosed for privacy, your plant choices will be different than if you have low metal railings. Different plants have different needs in terms of growing space, so you'll want to chose long narrow containers that can be attached to the balcony railing. If you have high walls, you'll want to put your plants up higher so they get the most sun. Make sure to find out what the rules are in your building before you spend any money building a balcony farm though. In front of your door there are plenty of plants from ferns to the cast iron plant or even a peace lily that you can grow. Here's a link to vegetables to grow in the shade:Log In Maddie, do you think your solar light trick would work in this situation?
This post has sealed the deal for me. I have plenty of bottles that I could use in my recycle bin. I really like the idea of recycled water via a drip irrigation system. I hope it's not complicated to set up.
I wish I had read this a few days ago. I have been germinating plants for my garden the past week and trying to keep the soil wet enough is not quite at the top of my list considering that I work long hours. I am defiantly going to try this as soon as I collect enough pop bottles, Which shouldn't be that hard considering that I drink a lot of pop. Are the pop bottles at the top just filled with water dripping down into all the bottles like a chain reaction?
Here is a video which will give you an idea of how to go about this.. Yes, you do have a water feeder bottle on top and a bottle down to catch the drip. It is not complicated at all .. I used thick wires to hold the bottles together. I just made a small drip hole in the bottle cap unlike the one shown in the video. I find that more effective. [video=youtube;ugc71yhAfV0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugc71yhAfV0&feature=share&list=PLQaTuKbHN5o6G-NC-6BnP_sMSuoVAS5kY[/video] @ Chanell, I have both the normal grow lights and the solar ones. Solar grow lights are pretty expensive.. I got mine at a garage kind of sale. I wish I could have more of those solar ones.
If everyone's apartment is dingy looking, that's all the more reason why you should plant something beautiful to cheer the place up.
If you want to make the garden for just show then artificial garden is the best concept now a days. You can make the artificial loan in your balcony. It's look amazing. I have seen it at one of my friend's home. I didn't have pic of it otherwise I share it with you.
I can kind of relate to what she is saying. At a few of the apartments I've lived in, most everyone keeps their balconies empty and clean, but there would be that one person that has like 100 plants overgrowing all over the place. It sticks out like a sore thumb more than anything.
