Last Updated on October 31, 2022 by John Power
Do you dream of a vegetable garden but don’t have a garden? Don’t let that stop you: this is where the vegetable garden comes to your apartment.
Table of Contents
The ideal Indoor vegetable garden for your apartment.
Sunlight for your plants
Your biggest challenge will be in first place to find a suitable place to house your vegetable garden in your apartment. How? Choose a place with a lot of sunlight. After that, everything is possible: on your terrace, on the balcony, and even inside! That’s great!
The absolute secret of the kitchen garden in your apartment: water
The secret to growing indoors or on your patio lies in water management. You need well-drained soil, which must be kept moist. So make sure you have enough water. If you opt for a vegetable garden on your balcony, know that rain is not enough. It is therefore important that you know which systems exist for watering:
- Systems where water hoses are connected to the water tap
- Independent drip systems
Either you choose the good old watering can. Don’t forget that watering is a great activity for children. With water, they are quickly sweet for a while.
Some tips to get you started:
- Put some pebbles on the bottom of your vegetable garden container or flower pot. This drains the soil and forms a water reserve for the plants.
- Cover the soil with straw or organic matter to prevent the soil from drying out.
Temperature fluctuations: better avoid!
In order to let a vegetable garden thrive in your apartment in peace, it is better to avoid large temperature fluctuations.
Often you cannot choose the orientation of your balcony. However, know that this will affect what you can grow. It is difficult to grow tomatoes on a balcony that faces north. But cabbage, spinach, lettuce … are vegetables that will do very well.
Make sure that you comply with urban planning rules and/or the rules for co-ownership. And if you have ambitious plans for your kitchen garden on your balcony, you should of course pay attention to the weight of your cultivation installation. Pots and containers can become quite heavy when they are filled with topsoil and full of water.
What do you grow in your kitchen garden in your apartment?
1-Vegetables and culinary herbs
Red garlic, lettuce, kitchen herbs (parsley, basil, coriander, thyme, rosemary, …), cherry tomatoes, spicy peppers, peppers, and kohlrabi are particularly suitable for a kitchen garden on your balcony.
Scoops:
- Mint and melissa are true conquerors.
- Basil likes to grow in the company of tomatoes.
- Coriander likes shelter.
- Some culinary herbs are rock plants (thyme, rosemary, marjoram, savory, …). Therefore, mix some gravel into the top soil to prepare a well-drained growing soil
2-Small trees
If you like to spoil yourself, you can also plant trees such as lemon trees, finger lime, orange trees, tangerine trees, peach tree, kumquat, currant bushes, raspberry bushes, blueberry bushes, plum trees, apple trees, pear trees, cherry trees. If you just love that, there are varieties that are suitable for growing in our regions in a pot. Some trees do need to be indoors in winter.
3-Climbers
If you have more room, you can also grow pickles, cucumbers, kiwis, kiwaize (mini kiwis) or even grapes. These climbing plants can survive perfectly in pots on your balcony. Still, you have to make sure to give them enough nutrients and make sure they get enough water. Not too much, but not too little either. They are plants that you can prune fairly easily. So it is definitely worth a try. What a satisfaction to pick fruit straight from the source!
Due to the need for nutrients for your kitchen garden on your balcony, you may want to consider creating a compost pile in your apartment.
A classic … the compost bin
Classic, elegant, and very trendy: the wooden compost bin (whether or not off the ground). The aesthetics are certainly nice, but this container is not hermetic. That is why you cannot use it on a terrace. On a balcony, you have to consider the final weight of the installation, which can be more than 100 kg.
The PVC vegetable garden raised from the ground, easily found at a garden center or DIY store, is a simple and safe solution for indoors or on your balcony. A simple mix of top soil and compost is enough to fill it. This type of balcony vegetable garden often has a very handy, small water reserve, to prevent the plants from being thirsty (and to avoid having to think about it every day).
An unusual version: the top soil bag
You can also be a bit rebellious: just sow directly into the top soil bag. That works equally well, that’s for sure! Take a bag of topsoil and put it in a suitable place. Prick holes crosswise and stick your lettuce plants, rocket salad, parsley or basil in them. Be careful not to water too much if you have not made holes at the bottom. Although you can also put soil bags in your living room, this technique is more suitable for a terrace or a balcony.
Composting
A vegetable garden in your apartment is also an opportunity to make your own compost. We would like to inform novices that compost does not smell bad. You can of course only put green waste in it, so that it does not bother your neighbors. If you have kids, they will probably enjoy a worm bin more than a compost bin. Anyway, everyone has their own way … Have fun in the garden!
Gardening is my passion and growing plants indoors has always been a stress relief for me. Grow a banana tree in my apartment once (although failed to produce bananas).
