I’ve always been an apartment-dweller so I’ve never had a backyard. Oh, but don’t cry for me Argentina! I’ve never really cared that much, that’s what parks are for. In recent years, as I’ve become more into food and understanding where it comes from, I’ve wanted my own gardening space. For years I’ve had window box herbs but nothing beyond that.
Last year I moved into an apartment with a great balcony. It’s west-facing with no obstructions AND it’s about 15-20 feet long. Ample room to start a garden.
Since we moved in around June last year I couldn’t get my act together for any type of garden other than a few herbs. I grew basil, Thai basil, thyme, rosemary and chives. Everything grew well and it was great to have a nice assortment of herbs ready to go. It PAINS me to pay $2.00 per pack of herbs at the supermarket when growing them is so inexpensive.
The other day I was on the balcony setting up the furniture when I noticed that my chives had started to sprout (see photo above). This absolutely tickled me because I didn’t realize that they would just start sprouting like that and I didn’t know they would hold up against the cold (I didn’t protect them during the winter). That’s when I started doing some research to figure out what to grow this summer.
Learning about gardening is completely overwhelming. I borrowed a bunch of books from the library about container gardening but they only told half the story. There is so much to gardening including knowing about pH levels in the soil, fertilizing, how much to water, pests etc. This year I decided to get a general understanding of gardening and focus on what could work on my balcony given the amount of sun I get.
For the most part my balcony doesn’t get full sun so I decided to pick plants that work well with partial sun. Unfortunately this ruled out tomatoes. I decided to focus on herbs, various types of lettuce and greens, beets, leeks, strawberries, and Brussels sprouts.
I rented a ZipCar and headed out to see what was on offer at the various garden centres. I started off at Home Depot and Canadian Tire but found the prices on the higher side compared to what I’d seen in Kensington and the vegetable selection was pretty uninspired. I then decided to head down to BrickWorks knowing that they would have some goodness. I picked up two varieties from strawberries, a spinach bowl, a mixed assortment of lettuce, Collard greens and dinosaur kale. The following day I decided to head down to Kensington Market to round out my garden with the following: basil, thyme, cilantro, lavender, rosemary, oregano, arugula, Swiss chard, leeks and radicchio! Yes, I went overboard. Oh, and I also bought dill seeds and beet seeds because I couldn’t find seedlings.
Here are some shots of my freshly planted pots…
(Planter 1: Rosemary, Chives, Oregano; Planter 2: Chives, Basil, Thyme)
(Planter 1: Spinach, Mixed Lettuces, Arugula; Planter 2: Kale, Collard Greens, Swiss Chard, Radicchio)
(Planter 1: Beet seeds planted; Planter 2: Leeks)
(Planter 1: Strawberries; Planter 2: Lavender)
After a week or so my plants were thriving. That’s when I realized I had made a HUGE mistake. I really should have planted them in more pots. Duh! My pots were way too cramped and had way too much going on for anything to thrive. I guess I didn’t think things through.
Here’s a look at my way too cramped plants.
So it was back to the store to get more pots. I bought my pots at Dollarama because they sell them for about $1-2, which is super cheap. They are just standard plastic pots, not to fancy but they work. The metal planters are from IKEA and I love them. I then uprooted my plants and replanted them.
Collards got their own pot.
Radicchio got their own home too.
I moved the Swiss chard and kale into a pot by themselves and I thinned out my leeks too.
The lettuce are still cramped but I’m just living with it.
I also had some nice little surprises like… Strawberry flowers! But sadly all signs pointed to the fact that I had to snip them off to make the plant stronger 
My beets started sprouting!
Oh, and because I didn’t have enough going on I bought Brussels sprouts seeds and more basil and lavender from Fiesta Farms’ garden centre. OOPS!
Stay tuned for more updates from my balcony garden throughout the summer and probably even the fall…
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Great job on the garden Tonya!! Can’t wait to see its progress. My green thumb–or lack thereof–has managed to already kill 2 plants, lol.
Oh no! You just have to give them some loving!
You should be a comedian! Fantastic job on the garden. I can’t wait to taste all the goodies. I don’t think I can do a garden…I have that spider problem ;./
Lovely! I’m such a plant-killer, I like to say I have a black thumb. I used to buy a bunch of live herbs and pot them every summer, they’d be dead in 5 weeks. I’m kind of inspired to go for another round after reading your post
Great Garden! Another reason for me to be jealous of you! I’ll trade you some tomatoes!?!?!
Done!
Your balcony garden looks great! Even though I just acquired a backyard, all my herbs are in pots, too!
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