Some More Advices For Growing Vegetables on Your Balcony!

We will not give details here for growing such or such vegetable as such advices are easily found enough -- on the Internet, plants' labels or package but we will refer to, in a general way, how the growth of a vegetable may be followed in balcony or terrace gardening

• Terra cotta pots are featuring a drain hole at their bottom. That is for allowing the soil to breathe through possibly draining a watering surplus. To avoid that the pot's soil also drains with through, the hole has to be obstructed more or less. Either you will use a appropriately shaped stone, with a size larger enough compared to the hole, and put it upon. The rock's unevenness will avoid blocking draining. Coarse gravel or broken crockery may also be used. If not, you will use commercial products, like clay marbles for example (with their size appropriated to the hole's size), having a layer of those layered at the container's bottom. In terms of clay marbles or any material featuring pieces, take care of putting a geotextile veil. That will avoid soil to penetrate and cement the draining layer. Containers other than terra cotta pots like referred to above may allow not draining (mostly because no saucers are available to those) as that is not a annoyance, the dimensions of the containers adapting to a close bottom. Just possibly put a layer of clay marbles at the bottom too however (and same remark than above)
• Be patient! A vegetable growth -- like that of plants, generally -- performs relatively slowly, with high and low. It is possible, on a other hand, that everything does not perform as well as planned during your first gardening season. Make the most of it to store experience for the year to come, which, on a other hand, will also be the case each year, generally!
• Do not hesitate to make varied gardening tests in terms of vegetables types or of growth techniques altogether, or even of the pot's size to use! That will increase your expertise
• Most vegetables grow well together and can be mixed in a same container as they also endure to be planted along with flowers
• When the first shoots will emerge, pick the wealthier ones once them well emerged, letting one -- or more -- whence that will grow into a vegetable. Just modulate that function of the kind of vegetable and the weather for a given year. When the weather is not that prone, it's better to wait for some time that more shoots grow until growth is acquired. One picks at that time only. That will guarantee to get the wished number of plants
• A opinion about seeds is that it's always useful to soak them 24 hours before planting (place it in a glass with water; dry before planting). That technique is usually used for parsley seeds which have the particularity of being very hard
• A alternate to seedlings cultivation is of course to buy already grown seedlings at your garden center. When transplanting, just take care that they do not suffer from cold nor heat as tweaked plastic chassis may also be used with them. For some species, like thyme or strawberry plants, it looks like there is no gain to start at the seed level. Several seedlings may be transplanted into a same pot as long as the diameter of it is appropriate. Just try, for example, 6 seedlings of strawberry plants in a same container, providing for a fine bush!

  Remontant forest strawbeery plants are a species which is better bought from a garden outlet like a seedling!

• Perform regular watering and adjust it to the plant's needs and soil's condition. Do not, for example, water after a rainy weather, or do not hesitate to water often plants which needs much water, like cucumbers. Too few water is better than too much! A French gardening saying for example, states that 'Better less than too much!'. Overwatering may bring rot to your vegetables' roots, not to mention that too wet at the base of your plants may attract insects at the time of their reproduction, which will come and lay their eggs there and so endanger your plantings. Using a head on the watering can on the other hand, also avoids compacting the soil as turning the head upwards will make watering rain even thinner
• Some species are needing a stick to support their growth like tomatoes, cucumbers, or beans, etc. Fine looking ones are easily found at garden centers. A trellis fencing, a wooden one, for example, is also a good idea and placed against a wall, allowing for such vegetables which can grow vertically
• Do not hesitate to refine the locations for your containers as on a averagely-sized balcony, the container's location may do all the difference. That might prove truer still on a terrace due to a larger size. More or less of Sun, for example but not that only! I personally noted a difference of growth at two locations distant from each other by 10 inches only. You of course will take care of avoiding a continuous ballet of your pots and, with the seasons passing, you will gain experience. Experience, generally, will tell you, for the balcony you work with, where to set such or such vegetable in terms of whose prefer less, or more Sun. A other remark too, that on a given fitting location a plant may grow preferentially on one side, generally to get more sunshine. In that case, it may be useful to rotate the pot on itself to reach a balanced growth! Do that however before the fruit shoots or even flowers have appeared as that could endanger the plant's ecosystem. In that same order of idea, some vegetables even germinate differently from one side of a pot to the other. It is enough in that case, to just rotate the pot of half a rotation!
• I personally do not use any soil cover, those materials used upon a container's soil to keep humidity under. It's mostly a aesthetical view :) Generally speaking, mulching has to be about 1.20-inch thick. Once that layer installed, it is almost impossible to harrow. Your vegetables thus will gain in water supply indeed but will lose in aeration of the soil!
• Air the soil around your vegetables according to the situation
• Remove leaves suffering from rot or dried ones, or suffering from a whatever cause. That will avoid contagion, or allow sap to better irrigate the plant

->Keeping the Same Vegetables From one Year to The Next?
In a open air soil like in a garden, some vegetables (strawberries are of the kind) can be kept from one year to the next. They will endure the cold of winter. On a balcony, the question is more delicate as containers' substrate is less alive than full earth, which makes a difference. On the other hand, at the middle latitudes, it's the cold of January and February which decide whether a plant survives or dies. In terms of winter protections it's again your experience which will help. Strawberries, for example, support easily great colds as other plants will probably require their pots to be sheltered from northern winds, or even be protected using appropriate protections. From there, you will have to rely upon experience: either your vegetables will restart on its own -- generally however, you will have to be patient and wait towards late April for that -- or only a part of the plants will; in that case, you will have to redo the other part either using plants bought in a gardening store, or using seeds

• As far as leaving you balcony garden during holidays is concerned, should those be under one week, move all your containers to the most shadowy part of the balcony, cover the soil to keep humidity (there I can bear that, as I won't be there to see my plants with that cover :) ) and place into the saucers, under the pots, a piece of material retaining water like a piece of old carpet. When absent for a week or so, one technique is to move all your container, in a sufficiently lightened room, into 4 inches of water in a sink or a bathtub. Longer holidays do not allow for any answer. The best then is to sow species the productive peak occurs before you leave and others which you will time enough in the seasong to sow when back home

->How to Handle a Heat Wave?
In contrast to cold periods, gardeners may experience heat waves during summer. By heat wave here, we understand a period of high temperatures and drought -- even if a period of heat sometimes wave may present, in whole or in part, a strong humidity. Such periods of high heat may last up to a week or even 10 days. It is prevention which seems to be the best way to protect one's balcony against a heat wave
. first, your vegetables will have to have been properly organized in case the balcony, for example, has a asymmetry in terms of Sun. Vegetables supporting the Sun will have to be in the Sun zone as vegetables that support better the shadow will be in the corresponding area
. then, in the case of a heat wave announced by the weather service, it will be necessary to prepare one's crops around 3 days before the start of the heat wave. Plantings will be harrowed, they will be watered completely, and fertilized (when used). All these actions will already allow the vegetables to better get through the heat wave
. from there it will be enough to manage the garden during the heat wave itself, which of course mainly concerns watering: plants requiring it will even have to be watered at the time of the day's hottest heat; vegetables that support it, will be sprayed on their foliage before, every day, the high heat. Beware! Many vegetables can not bear to be sprayed because that causes diseases like, for example, oidium; cucumbers are in that cas)
. it is better to wait until the end of the heat wave to procede with a complete maintenance. The heat wave will likely have done a pruning job. A rapid harrowing and maintenance may however be performed during a ongoing heatwave, function of circumstances, or even some emergency maintenance. The same for some fertilizing (but with well diminished doses
After the heat wave -- one or two days after the end of it -- it will be necessary to ensure the complete maintenance of the plantations: remove everything that has dried (or that will have moulded); harrow; normal watering; fertilizer

• Think too about safety in terms, for example, of windowboxes or of the total weight your balcony can bear pro square yard, or also in terms of the regulations of your condo
• It is of use too, by the season's end, to remember what was grown in such or such container so to be able to change of species per pot the next one. Even if, on a other hand, it is advised too to renew one third of your soils each year, it is also best to practice that kind of fallow
• It does not look like it is beneficial to try to harvest one's own seeds from your cultivation on a balcony. You should have to let one or more plants to reach to the seeding stage, or to condition, for example, cucumbers' or tomatoes' pips
• One often evoked advantage of balcony gardening, compared to a open soil garden, is that cultures on the balcony are more often the object of the gardener's attention. At each time one exits on one's balcony indeed, one can give a glance at plantations, remove a dead leaf, etc., which is not possible for the garden, which is farther from the dwelling
• Like a conclusion, let's note that, with the experience, one may eventually end to prefer growing such or such vegetables, like the ones the yield of which is important, those one like to eat, or those which enjoy one's balcony, etc.

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