Welcome to my Little Blue Balcony
Hello friends, I like to introduce you to my tiny little urban vegetable garden. This little space has been my saviour during the covid lockdowns of the past year. So let me give you the details & the ups and downs of growing in such space and …
My balcony is located at the back of my apartment, it’s just under 9m2 big.
It’s facing the east, so I get a few hrs of very lovely morning sun. As you can see on the little diagram below there’s a corner that actually is always in the shade, there’s a large area that gets a little bit of sun, but under 1-2hrs so it’s still very tricky to grow much in there and there’s a triangle that gets the most sun, about 4-5hrs. That’s the sweet spot and the most valuable real estate on the balcony, the best place to grow as many vegetables as possible!
And the best place of all is actually not on the balcony itself but on the outside of the railing. Any plant in a box hanging on the outside of the railing will get a whole hour of sunlight extra!!
The most sunny parts
Like I said above, this is the most valuable veg growing real estate! I try to cram in as many vegetable pots as I can there!! Last summer I grew 6 swiss chard plants, 4 tomato plants (determinate varieties), 1 zucchini, several purple bean plants, a planter full of mixed lettuce, mizuna, radishes, carrots, pink celery, 2 planters full of red and mixed beets, 5 different varieties of kale, lemon balm and 3 varieties of basil.
And besides all those veggies I had lots of geraniums, violets and cosmos flowers…
The shady corner
I must admit, it’s a bit frustrating to have such a large part of your balcony in full shade when you want to grow as many edible plants as possible. Almost all edible plants need some sun. But that doesn’t mean this part of the balcony can’t be useful!
I have my worm composting bin hidden away in the full shade. I have my seating area and to be honest in the heat of the summer it is great to be sitting in the shade! And I am growing some ornamental plants in the shade too. I have a big palm tree, it probably would love a sunny spot more, but nevertheless it’s been doing very well in its shady corner. And I have several hostas. Hostas are shade loving plants with really beautiful foliage. They are perennials and while they do die back in the winter they seem to come back bigger and bigger every year! And it turns out hostas are edible! Apparently hosta shoots in spring are a delicatesse in Japan! I have never tried them myself though, I’d be worried that cutting of the shoots would impede the plants from growing beautiful foliage afterwards…
And there’s another edible plant you can grow in the shade, mushrooms!! Mushrooms can be tricky though cause they generally only grow at certain temperatures depending on the variety of mushrooms, hence why they usually grow here in the wild in the fall. I gave it a go last year, I bought a mushroom growing kit for king oyster mushrooms. Unfortunately it was just when the weather was getting too hot, so I only managed to grow a few mushrooms, but they were very tasty!! I would love to try to grow some more mushrooms but since those mushroom growing kits can be a bit expensive it’s important to really check the circumstances are right!
A little bit of history
I’ve been living in this rental apartment in an area called Het Zuid (The South) in Antwerp in Belgium for the last 10 years already. It’s a lovely neighbourhood in the city center close to lots of nice cafes, restaurants, shops, museums and galleries. I believe this neighbourhood was mostly built for the big World Exhibition of 1894, so there are a lot of Fin de Siècle style buildings and some really beautiful examples of Art Nouveau architecture. The street I live in originally housed several breweries and the apartment block I live in used to have a brewery (or a bottlery, cause they didn’t actually brew the beer here) on the ground floor and the apartments above were for the people who worked there. The original owner of the complex would have had a gorgeous mansion connected to the brewery but located on the beautiful Lambermontplaats. Now the mansion and the brewery blocks are owned by different people and my landlord actually lives in the renovated ground floor brewery.
And even though I’ve been living in this apartment already for 10 years, it’s only in the recent years that I’ve truly been using the balcony to it’s fullest potential. Originally it was painted a faded soft yellow, but after a big hail storm there was some water damage and once the damage was repaired I painted it in this turquoise blue. I also promised myself I would turn it into a luscious and abundant balcony garden. The first years I stuck with flowers from the market and some home grown cosmos and a palm tree. Then when the pandemic hit I needed something more to stay grounded and positive and decided to grow some vegetables, and then some more, and then some more, … It’s a never ending story really 🙂 It’s been so lovely to see those plants bloom and form their fruit. And just so fun and amazing to be able to eat food you’ve grown from seed!
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