Introduction

A friend of mine who lives in Amsterdam commented when he visited me last year that he had a balcony, but didn't do anything with it. So I promised when I visited in the spring I would put some colour and use into his balcony by growing a small garden on it.

Obviously a balcony 6 floors up in a capital city doesn't provide the best base from which to begin a garden, but it presents a 8m by 1.2m flat south facing space, which is an entirely blank canvas.

The idea of this page is to diary what I am doing with this balcony and perhaps encourage others to utilise whatever space they have, be it a garden, or as in this case, a 6th floor balcony in a large city, and to grow something.

My aim is to grow a mixture of food producing plants, and also decorative plants. Whilst such a small area cannot be expected to provide a substantial contribution to ones diet, it will atleast supliment it, and ultimately, its better than nothing.

The balcony garden needs to be low maintainance, and durable. Able to deal with being left to its own devices for a few weeks at a time without great harm occuring. Also, everything that is grown, needs to grow well in containers. So, with this in mind, onwards!

What's growing?

The intention is to grow the following food plant:

  • Potatoes
  • Runner beans
  • Dwarf beans
  • Sage
  • Sweet Marjoram
  • Dill
  • Onions
  • Rosemary

So far I am not certain on the decorative plants, however I have picked up some of the following, and will no doubt add more later:

  • French Marigolds
  • Violets

I would like to grow some sort of tree, but I am yet to decide exactly what tree to grow.

Diary

Diary

March 2007

19th March 2007

We went to the local garden center today and bought some containers, lots of compost, and some seeds. The seeds we got today are:

  • Thyme
  • Sage
  • Sweet Marjoram
  • Runner beans
  • Dwarf french beans
  • Dill
  • Onions
  • Rosemary
  • French Marigolds

I have planted all apart from the dill and onions in peat pots, which are now sat on the window cill. The Onions will be planted in april direct into the planter outside, and the dill in peat pots at the same time. Looks good for now.