10 things I’m doing wrong on my first attempt at a balcony edible garden

Half into the season, I’ve distilled a first set of recommendations for you and my future self based on everything I’ve doing wrong.

1) Killing my corn salad

I should have researched how to harvest corn salad before I did it.

I went just for what would look closest to the corn salad you get at the supermarket, so I cut the plants right at the ground level. It turned out that then they couldn’t regrow! After some reading online (that I should have done earlier) I found that it works best if you leave some leaves in each plant so that it has a source of energy to regrow.

Here are shots before and after I attacked my pots:

My salads were growing very well… while they lasted…

2) Reading and researching *after* I had started the project!

As you saw above, I did some research about how to harvest corn salad but… I did the research after having harvested! 🤦 (and the wrong way).

Disapproved! 😡🤬👎😥😥 D-!

Moreover, I started reading blogs and watching videos about edible balcony gardens only after I had done most of the work, set all plants, etc.

I guess this was because I got overexcited when I saw my plants thriving, and then wanted to know how other people’s gardens looked.

Whatever, it wasn’t the smartest move!

3) Traveling during the hottest week of the summer

OK this one wasn’t too much on me to blame. We were assigned holiday slots long ago, and we always knew they were going to be bad times for the garden. And hell they were: we left for 10 days that spanned the hottest week of this summer so far, with a heat wave that reached maximum temperatures between 30 and 35 C for several consecutive days and without any rain.

Notice that although 30–35 doesn’t sound like that much, locally in my balcony the temperatures were exceeding 35 degrees everyday. Moreover, heat is especially bad for balcony gardens, because plants are in pots (and in my case small pots, see point 5 below) and because wind, even if mild, combines fatally with heat as a strong drying agent.

Luckily, I had arranged with two friends to pass by the house to water my plants every two days. I would have preferred them to pass every single day, but it was too much to ask. Anyways, only the salad plants, the pseudoacacia, and some strawberry plants suffered. I lost 4 strawberry plants irreversibly, all the corn salad, and 2 lettuce plants that I was foraging.

The red lettuces I had transplanted when they were young suffered a bit too, but they made it.

And leaving edibles aside, the heat wave and my absence almost killed my acacia, which looked totally dead-dry still two weeks after we had returned from our holidays… until it just shoot new leaves! What a tree, it’s so full of energy to live! These tiny leaves grew out of buds in literally less than a week, as soon as temperatures dropped and I was back to water the plant abundantly:

4) Planting in small pots

To prevent or at least alleviate the problems associated to heat waves, wind, and lack of watering, planting in big pots is essential. And I have almost all my plants in rather small pots, which is very bad for a balcony.

One of my friends who came over to water my plants said it clearly: next time use large containers for your plants, to better retain water. And she knows, so I will try to follow her advice!

5) Planting tomatoes a bit too late

When I decided I wanted to plant tomatoes from seeds, I waited until the temperatures were warm enough. But that was a mistake, because I ended up planting them by mid May, which was kind of late. These plants I grew from seeds started shooting flowers by the time my purchased plants were already ripening fruits.

I hope the seed-planted plants will have enough summertime to grow fruits too. If that happens, I’ll surely let you know. If it doesn’t, then there’s a good chance I’ll feel bda about it and won’t blog it!

I should have planted my tomato seeds around a month earlier, now I know. With some protection against the cold or maybe inside the house, of course. I now know this for next summer.

6) Not separating plants enough

When I planted my tomato seeds, it took them some time to grow but eventually they all grew very well. I guess by eye that the germination rate was easily over 90%!

The ideal course of action would have been to sacrifice all those plants that didn’t fit in the small space available for them in the pots. But this would have meant killing most of my plants. Something I just cannot do.

That’s why my balcony was suddenly invaded by tomato plants, growing into all of a “tomato jungle”!

7) Not planting peppers and eggplants

These are essential ingredients for our kitchen, yet we don’t eat so much of them so with perhaps 2 or 3 plants we would have had the right amounts for a summer.

Contrary to tomatoes, which we eat lots so growing them in the balcony is really just for the fun.

So, peppers and eggplants added for next year’s wishlist!

8) Not taking the time to think about how to arrange the different plants

The balcony is very hot in the summer afternoons, receiving almost 8 hours of direct sunlight from 13–14 hs until the end of the day. This, plus the indirect light it receives in the morning.

That’s perfect for most plants, such as tomatoes, cucurbits, peppers, strawberries and aromatics. But it’s way too much for salad plants, especially when they are young and the first weeks after they are transplanted.

Because I didn’t plan how to arrange my plants, my corn salad and lettuces ended up too exposed to the sun. I could see them suffering, so I had to move them down to the shade of the balcony’s fence every afternoon and then move them back to their place. By the time I went for summer holidays I had done this so many times, that I anticipated the heat wave and left my plants right under the shade for the whole time I was off. Good move, because as you saw above the heat wave was harsh, and would have been devastating without the few precautions I took.

For next time, I know I have to arrange and combine plants in a smarter way. For example, I have to give tomatoes the most exposed places, and perhaps even put salad plants right next to them under their shade, certainly not at all exposed to full sun.

9) Not cultivating an edible garden earlier

Ever since we moved into this flat, I exploited its beautiful balcony to grow plants and create a private green space where to enjoy flowers and have meals in nature without leaving our home. Among my plants, I always had aromatics and a few strawberry plants, but never any substantial edibles. Perhaps I thought it was impossible.

And well yes, it was hard, and the production very limited. But hell it was spiritually rewarding!

10. Not reading this article by a fellow writer and gardener

If you are looking for more GARDEN-DONT-DO information, check out this story by Geoffrey B Ives which treats the topic with unique humor (and still giving you actual relevant information):

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