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The Edible Balcony: Growing Fresh Produce in Small Spaces - Softcover

Mitchell, Alex; Cuttle, Sarah

 
9781609614102: The Edible Balcony: Growing Fresh Produce in Small Spaces
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1609614100 ISBN 13: 9781609614102
Verlag: Rodale Books, 2012

Inhaltsangabe

You don't need a sprawling backyard or spacious raised beds to grow delicious fruits, vegetables, and herbs of your own. In The Edible Balcony, longtime urban gardener Alex Mitchell shows how to transform whatever space you have, from a balcony or rooftop to a fire escape or window box, into a profusion of fresh, seasonal produce.

While raising your own produce is eco-friendly in itself, you'll learn how to plant, grow, and water as sustainably as possible to ensure your edible Eden remains green and productive all year long. Plus, with a collection of innovative, step-by-step projects for designing colorful pots and plant supports with recycled containers and other household paraphernalia, you'll double your eco-friendliness, avoid hours of shopping, and be able to infuse your space with your own personal flair and style. Who knew saving time, money, and the environment could be so much fun?

A collection of practical advice, fabulous container projects, and stunning examples of how gardeners around the world are successfully transforming urban spaces into abundant fruit and vegetable plots, The Edible Balcony is your guide to creating attractive, responsible, and thoroughly rewarding small space gardens—and perhaps never having to settle for grocery store produce again.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Alex Mitchell is a writer and gardener who has grown her own fruits, vegetables, and herbs for ten years. She is a former gardening columnist for the Sunday Telegraph and the author of The Girl's Guide to Growing Your Own, a book for women with busy lives who want to have fun growing produce no matter how small their space. She lives in London.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

The Easy Edible Balcony

Many of us dream of growing our own greens, herbs, and tomatoes to eat at home, but worry that we can't spare the time and energy to do it properly. Visions of returning to brown, dry plants after a weekend away instantly come to mind, or fruit and vegetables that never ripen. But if you choose the right crops and follow a few simple growing tips your edible balcony can flourish without making many demands on you at all, even if you are a total beginner. It doesn't take long to set it all up, either; over a weekend you could transform your balcony to an emerging wonderland of shoots and fruits.

Plants not seeds

If you don't have the time or the space to raise plants from seed, buy seedlings from garden stores or online suppliers and set up your entire edible balcony over a weekend. Plants ordered from catalogs or Web sites will arrive via the post and can simply be transferred to the potting mix as soon as they arrive. You may not be able to choose from quite the number of varieties available as from seed, but the range is expanding all the time.

Large containers need less frequent watering than smaller pots.

Crocks away

When planting in containers it's traditional to add a layer of "crocks"-- pieces of broken terracotta pots--to the bottom to aid drainage. These are not always easy to source, so you can use chunks of polysytrene packaging instead--the trays that seedlings come in from garden stores are ideal. This material has the added benefit of being really light, too, which is perfect for gardening on balconies.

Easy peasy: tips for hassle-free balcony gardening

Big is best

When choosing containers, make life simple for yourself by not filling your balcony space with numerous tiny pots, as these will dry out the minute you turn your back. Instead, use large, lightweight containers, such as those made of plastic and galvanized metal. Troughs are ideal since they seem to hold their moisture better than round pots and fit snugly around the edge of a balcony, nicely positioned for, say, beans and peas planted in them to grow their way up the railings. Any "patio" planters marketed as being good for growing fruit and vegetables are great for the "no-time" gardener. Light and easy to set up, they can come in bright colors or with attractive woven willow panels to make them look attractive. Plastic bucket trugs are also perfect; they are readily available, cheap, light, and brightly colored, so they will cheer up the dullest of spaces. Do keep in mind that although the container may be light, wet potting mix is not, so check with a structural engineer if you're at all worried about your balcony supporting the weight.

Self-watering pots

There's no getting away from it: containers dry out more quickly than garden soil does, and if you're several stories up, the wind won't help this desiccation, but there are ways to take the hassle out of watering. Consider planters with a built-in reservoir--easily available in the stores or simple to make yourself (See Make a Simple, Self-Watering Container for Free, p. 71 )--which can keep even thirsty plants such as zucchini and tomatoes content for several days between waterings.

Timers of the essence

If you have easy access to a water supply, a simple automatic watering system is a great help. The most basic version is probably a timer fitted to your outside tap which is connected to a plastic tube with drippers coming off it at intervals of your choosing. This means you can direct these little drippers into your pots. Simply set the timer to come on for five or ten minutes twice a day and your plants won't need you nearly as much.

Mulch it

Another way to cut down on watering is to mulch the surface of the potting mix when you first prepare a container. This simply means spreading on a thin layer of well-rotted manure, garden potting mix, shingle, pebbles, or bark chippings so water cannot evaporate as quickly from the potting mix. You can use shredded paper, sheets of newspaper, plastic, or grass clippings too, but shingle is ideal on a balcony or roof since it looks attractive and won't blow away. To get the very best start, water the potting mix well before you first sprinkle the shingle on.

Crystal clear

Another handy watering tip, when planting in smaller containers such as hanging baskets, is to mix in a handful of water-retaining gel or crystals. These swell up, absorbing the water, and then slowly release it into the potting mix.

10 best easy crops

If you're short on time and expertise, the delicious crops--or groups of crops--listed here are a great place to start. The plants are relatively low-maintenance and their produce truly does taste better than the stuff you can buy in the stores. You can sow these from seed, but for a really easy life buy plug plants from garden stores or online suppliers, plant them straight out into their final growing positions, and leave them to flourish.

Tomatoes

However little time you think you have, you have time to grow tomatoes and no summer would be complete without the scent of tomato plants on the air. Grow a pot of basil near them and you can wrap a leaf around a juicy cherry 'Sungold,' then pop the whole package into your mouth, or impress your friends with purply 'Black Krim' or stripy 'Tigerella.'

From tiny, sweet cherry tomatoes to big, Italian beefsteak varieties, tomatoes come in all shapes and colors. Buy plants in early summer and plant them straight out. Alternatively, grow them from seed in mid-spring, sowing them about 1 in. deep in 3 in. pots on a sunny windowsill, turning the seedlings regularly so they don't grow crooked towards the light. Once all risk of frost has passed, plant them outside in a sunny, sheltered spot away from winds (these plants need the heat to ripen well) and feed them every two weeks from flowering onwards with a high-potash feed such as organic liquid seaweed or an organic tomato feed.

Easy tip

When planting tomatoes in a grow bag, don't cut out the whole panel as the instructions tell you to. Instead, cut three crosses in the plastic and then fold the flaps under to make holes to plant in. This means less water can evaporate from the potting mix, helping to cut down on watering.

3 easy ways...

There are three types of tomato available (with many varieties of each) and each type is suited to slightly different growing methods. The type you choose depends on what container you want to grow your plants in.

Bushes need no support and grow only 1 ft. or so high so are best suited to a large window box or pot. A 1 ft.-diameter pot will take one bush, while a large window box should fit two. The advantage is that there's no tying in to supports or pinching out of sideshoots; the disadvantage is that all the tomatoes ripen at once. For bush varieties consider 'Red Alert,' 'Maskotka,' 'Garden Pearl,' or 'Principe Borghese,' which is a mini plum.

Tumbling forms trail over the edge of containers, so are perhaps best in hanging baskets. Good varieties include the prolific 'Matt's Wild Cherry' and 'Tumbling Tom.'

Vining tomatoes grow tall, need supports and are best grown in a large pot or growing bag. The tomatoes ripen in stages all summer and right into autumn, so you can get a continuous harvest out of a small space. Good vining varieties include the sweet, orange cherry tomato 'Sungold,' classic red cherry 'Gardener's Delight,' 'Ferline,' and purply 'Black Krim.'

A 1 ft.-diameter pot will take up to four vining tomatoes grown up a teepee of bamboo canes. Grow bags are an easy option--and if you can find a double- depth bag, so much the better.

Either buy metal supports or position your bag at the foot of your balcony railings or trellis and tie the plants in as they grow. Pinch out any suckers...

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Verlag
Rodale Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2012
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1609614100
ISBN 13 
9781609614102
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
160
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