Growing vegetables on your balcony: how to achieve a harvest in a small space

Growing vegetables on your balcony: which direction it faces is decisive

As you’re planning your balcony vegetable project, it’s important to check the orientation of your balcony. This determines how much sunlight it gets each day – and this in turn has a direct impact on the choice of suitable vegetables.

• South-facing balcony: If you have a south- or south-west-facing balcony that’s really sun-drenched, your options include tomatoes, peppers, chilli peppers, spring onions, courgettes and herbs such as oregano, rosemary, thyme and basil.

• East- or west-facing balcony: A semi-shaded balcony is ideal for lettuces, radishes, carrots, spinach, mushrooms and herbs like chives and parsley.

• North-facing balcony: Growing vegetables is a bit more difficult on a north-facing balcony with a lot of shade, but lettuce varieties such as butterhead and iceberg will thrive here as well as chard and beetroot.

Of course, this is not an exhaustive list of the crops suitable for growing on a balcony: if you’d rather have something for dessert, for example, you could choose to grow fruits such as strawberries or raspberries. Or if you have pets such as guinea pigs or rabbits, plant dandelions to serve your rodents a tasty snack. It’s best to look online for a little inspiration or get advice direct from the garden centre.

The perfect container for your balcony veg

Another important factor is the available space. On a large balcony, of course, you have the freedom to set up numerous pots, buckets or even a raised bed. If space is limited, hanging planters or baskets are a great alternative. 

Pots and buckets

The simplest approach is to use pots and buckets. They come in all shapes and sizes and have the advantage that they can be placed where you like and where they’ll get the best sunlight. (And if necessary they’re also easy to move.)

When buying them, make sure that the containers have drainage holes to prevent waterlogging, and use pot saucers where needed to protect the balcony floor.

Balcony boxes and hanging planters

To save space, special planters for balcony railings and hanging planters can work well. You have probably seen the former on a chalet in a mountain village, where they are usually filled with magnificent geraniums – but conveniently they are also great for growing vegetables and fruit. When buying one, the most important thing is that the planter or bracket fits your balcony railing just right: if it’s not properly mounted and falls down, it could damage something or even seriously injure people.

Hanging planters or baskets are another space-saving way to cultivate plants on your balcony. However, you’ll need to drill a hole in the wall or ceiling to attach a suitable hook. If this is not possible, a plan B is to use adhesive hooks up to a certain weight.

Another solution is trellis or plant ladders with integrated pots on the rungs, which you lean against a wall.

Raised beds

On a large balcony there is the option to set up a raised bed. As the name suggests, this is a bed that is raised off the ground, which makes working on it easier. 

Anyone who feels capable can, of course, build one themselves – otherwise, there is also a wide range of options available at the garden centre. Depending on the dimensions of the raised bed, the first thing is to find out the load-bearing capacity of your balcony. Above a certain size, a raised bed filled with (moist) soil becomes really heavy: what happens if your balcony can’t handle the weight doesn’t bear thinking about.

Once you’ve checked the specs (or your raised bed is not too big) and decided on the location, how you fill it plays a fundamental role in generating a good harvest. You should make sure there is no waterlogging so the roots don’t rot. For this you need either holes in the bottom or a “drainage layer” that looks like this:

• Bottom layer (drainage, approx. 5–10 cm): Expanded clay pebbles, gravel or pottery fragments to allow water to drain.

• Middle layer (compost & garden soil, approx. 20–30 cm): Provides nutrients.

• Top layer (potting soil, approx. 20–30 cm): High-quality topsoil or organic peat-free compost.

Tip: Alternatively, you can use a mixture of soil, sand & pearlite to reduce weight – but if you’re not familiar with this, it’s best to get advice from the garden centre so you end up with the best solution for your specific project.

Get creative

Gardening on your balcony is not just about the pragmatic goal of enabling you to harvest your own vegetables at the end, but also offers a great opportunity to give your balcony an interesting design. Give free rein to your creativity and think about how to make your balcony pack a punch. 

Clothes rail

Why not repurpose a suitable coat stand or clothes rail with shoe rack, for example? You simply put balcony planters on the bottom instead of shoes, and hanging baskets go on the clothes rail above. See this simplified illustration for what it might look like:

Tiered vegetable beds

Or you could build your own tiered vegetable beds using bricks and balcony planters (side and front view):

As you can see, you can really exercise your ingenuity here and design a balcony that appeals to you (and there are countless other ideas on the internet for further inspiration).

The right soil and fertiliser

You need nutrient-rich soil for healthy growth: high-quality organic topsoil is ideal. To provide your plants with additional nutrients, you can use compost, organic fertiliser or homemade liquid plant manure.

Once you know what you want to grow in your garden, it’s best to ask at a garden centre about the right soil and fertiliser for it.

Watering your balcony vegetables

Once your vegetables have been planted, they must of course be cared for and nurtured in order to thrive. Getting the watering right is key here – each variety has its own specific requirements: rosemary and thyme, for example, require significantly less water than tomatoes or cucumbers. It’s a good idea to check the recommended amount of water and watering frequency for your vegetables online. Write this down on a piece of paper and hang it on your fridge so that you are constantly reminded.

It is important that you pour the water directly on the ground and not on the leaves, as this can burn the leaves as a result of the sunlight and subsequent evaporation. For the same reason, it’s best to do it in the morning or evening, and definitely not in the midday heat.

Keeping pests away

There are several ways to protect your balcony vegetables from pests. The simplest method is to use nets to prevent unwanted guests from feasting on your plants. The disadvantage of this is, of course, aesthetic: it just doesn’t look as nice.

Another possibility is to work with mixed cropping. By planting onions, garlic, lavender or rosemary between your traditional vegetables, you will achieve a certain deterrent effect on many pests.

Otherwise, you can get help with this at the garden centre, too: describe what you’re growing and ask which pest repellents are recommended for this.

Overwintering

As soon as it gets colder outside, you need to make sure your vegetables get through the winter. Here, too, it is important to know the right approach for each specific variety: some can withstand frost (so-called “hardy vegetables”) and even continue to grow, while others should be brought indoors and still others need to be sown afresh next spring.

• Hardy varieties that can stay outside include lamb’s lettuce, spinach, carrots, winter onions, garlic and Brussels sprouts.

• Plants you should bring into your apartment include strawberries, basil, chilli and peppers. If these are planted in a raised bed, for example, you can relocate them in pots indoors, where they can overwinter (and even continue to bear fruit in some cases).

• Vegetables such as tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, lettuce and beans do not survive the winter and have to be re-sown.

You’ll find plenty of information and instructions on how to successfully overwinter your chosen vegetables on the internet.

Conclusion

Urban gardening is a very popular hobby for good reason: it reduces stress and encourages creativity, brightens up your home and rewards you with the feeling of success that comes from being able to harvest your own vegetables. The only important things are to choose the right varieties for your balcony, learn about how to look after them, and make sure they won’t disturb any neighbours or passers-by – then your green fingers will have a wonderful place to play and develop.