More people should consider growing veggies on their balconies, even if you're north-facing. You guys did a fantastic job with the space -- everything looks green and fresh.
Thanks so much! It’s definitely a work in progress and we’re always learning but it has been so rewarding to grow some of our own food! Have a great day🙂
I eventually wanna try as well. My mom would keep trying but eventually all got ruined by bugs/pests again and again. She tried treating the ill/infected plants but nothing helped. We live quite high up ,so I guess we don't have anything that eats them.
Gardening is addictive... I started the same, with a few tomato plants on a balcony and a few years later I'm trying to manage an entire garden... with mixed results 🤣🙈
gardening does become an obsession very quickly. You guys make it look irresistible. BTW, the marigolds are said to be really great for repelling mosquitoes so that’s an extra plus. deadhead them and harvest your seeds, you’ll never need to BUY another marigold. 😊
@@ExploringAlternatives Marigolds are also a good companion plant with tomatoes to keep the pests away. - Cathy (&, accidently, Steve), Ottawa/Bytown/Pimisi
Gardening is a nasty bug to get. Welcome to the dirty hands club 😁. It is always so nice to see tiny balcony gardens, you guys always get very impressive with the use of space. Keep on growing and attracting pollinators 🧡
I need so much more from this example. The way it was shot, the voiceover, the shots! Not only was it educational it was also therapeutic. If you wouldn’t mind I’d love to see how you explain starting various seeds and setting up your planters.
I garden and also enjoy watching content about gardening, I find it very relaxing and comfortable. Just seeing the green color of trees makes me feel peace in my heart. Wishing you all happiness and joy
Thanks for watching :) We also find gardening videos very calming and relaxing. In this balcony garden tour we did try to edit it with longer transitions just with sound and music and we really tried to slow down the pace. Thanks for your comment, so happy that you enjoyed it :)
Faboulous such a good example of human possibilities when you are creative and open to creative and intelligent way of living!!!! Good knowledge of plants and what they can provide even if the space is limited. Obviously talking of limits : they are none for this couple- the filming is so inviting, but keep in mind détermination is the secret!!!! Greatest and useful lesson! Thanks!😊
That was an enjoyable look at your wonderful new passion - I commend you both for all the work you've put into your gardening, learning along the way. You showed some delicious results, too!
Hey Jen! Hope you're both doing good and enjoying the summer in Squamish! Thanks for your comment, we really loved growing our own food and learning new things along the way. All the best :)
I had a triangular balcony if barely 1m² that I gardened on. Lots of things failed bc of the limited space like cucumbers and squash. Some things only grew very tiny bc they couldn't grow deep enough like carrots and potatoes. Overall though I had so much fun and learned so much. Come next year I'll have a bigger balcony so I'm going to look forward to what I can plant and harvest ^^
The plants are surprisingly tough! Although we have had trouble falling asleep some nights listening to the wind and wondering what we were going to wake up to. Thanks for watching :) :)
Last year was our first garden, we rented and only had a concrete slab. So we lined milk crates with garden fabric and grew everything from herbs, to peppers to tomatoes in them. This year we have a “real” garden with raised beds and in ground beds. Sometimes you use what you have. 👍🏻
Enjoyed seeing your garden.Having mobility issues in my later life, i can only manage by growing in pots in a small area.Love sitting out there with my cuppa.Have all my small bids come in for a bath and check out my veges for some insects. Keep enjoying growing your own, havebeen doing so for 50 plus years.Lots of frustrations but would never stop
@@ExploringAlternatives I had some medicinal weeds ("wild lettuce"/ "opium lettuce") - that I had initially welcomed - take over EVERY ONE of my planters, and their roots have clobbered all else. Yup, it can be VERY discouraging. Cheers & Best Wishes!
All my respect. I run a Gardening Group on Facebook, and I love to see videos like this. They are very inspiring I would for sure share this excellent video on my group. Thank you so much for sharing.
Your garden is beautiful. Well done. We've kept a balcony veg, herb and flower patch for the past 25 years or so (zone 5a, Ontario). I love it, there is nothing like stepping onto the balcony and picking dinner; ultimate luxury and golden hour is not to be underestimated. This is the first year I've kept a compost bin and used natural feeds like compost teas for feed; results have been amazing. Presently I'm looking for seeds for some Milkweed to feed the Monarchs Butterflies that come through town every August. I'm also looking at setting up the smallest possible self-sustaining water feature for the dragonflies that occasionally drop by. Seventh floor us is lucky enough to be on the bee and bumble daily pathway. I want to provide a small home for the local insect population that's seeing such pressure right now. - Cathy (&, accidently, Steve), Ottawa/Bytown/Pimisi
Hi Cathy & Steve, your balcony garden sounds amazing and it's so impressive that you've been doing it for 25 years. Love that you've been experimenting with composting and compost teas, and providing habitat for the wee pollinators :) We saw some Milkweed seeds on the West Coast Seeds site if that's helpful (one of them is container friendly!). Thanks for watching and happy planting
@@ExploringAlternatives Thank you so much. It's been a labour of love, with plenty of failures along the way. Have you hears about Ollas? It's Spanish for a clay pot. Take your terracotta pot, sink it into the soil to just at the rim, plug the hole with compost and keep the vessel full of water. Eventually the roots grow towards the Olla as a water source (to the point where I had a tomato plant send it's tap root directly up the drain hole). Ollas have made gardening possible - otherwise the wind and the reflecting bake of white bricks just cooks everything. I've found three ornamental Milkweed varieties from Vessy's. I also found an Indigenous Women-owned seed business called Cultural Seeds. Maybe you could hit them up for a story?
We have not heard of Ollas! It sounds like a really effective growing system - will check it out :) :) Glad you found some other milkweed varieties and thank you for putting Cultural Seeds on our radar. It sounds like they're doing really wonderful and important work! We usually feature individual stories rather than businesses but we will take a peek at their website for sure!!
@@ExploringAlternatives If I'm understanding the web site properly, Cultural Seeds is using the proceeds from sales to build Healing Lodges. I've never been so anxious to put in an order for seeds - the genetics go back a minimum of a few hundred, if not thousands, of years. I'm going to be using them at seed sharing events...
Hi, your experience is similar to mine, my balcony is very small: 3 square meters (32 square feet). It gives me a lot of satisfaction. In these days I removed the summer vegetables and planted black cabbage, kale, pak choi and various lettuces. I think I will add brussels sprouts and broccoli. Of course I also have aromatic plants and edible flowers. For me the biggest problem is giving the right amount of water without it coming out from under the pot. In Italy balconies do not have a drain, and so if there is too much water it ends up on the balcony of the neighbors on the lower floor.
Beautiful balcony garden! Your use of space is wonderful! Thyme and hyssop are very good to keep the white fly away from your cabbage and kale. Potatoes could also do very well on your balcony, but you would need a slightly large container for them than what you have. I didn't see drainage holes in the rectangular planter you lifted. I'm often surprised to see planters without holes sold in stores. Do these planters not get waterlogged after a heavy rain or do they have some other drainage system? You are right to choose plastic pots, not only because they are light, but they will be less prone to dry in dry weather, and if you store them on your balcony with the soil inside, they won't break like clay would.
Love that slatted table you made. You could make such things as a side hassle if they don’t take too much time; I’m sure there’d be many who love them too. Well done guys. 😊
Wow - great job you guys! You really have a lot growing in that small space and I'm totally inspired! It's great that you are showing this to demonstrate just what is possible for those living in apartments with balconies!
We definitely got a bit carried away this year haha (it started off about 1/3 of the size it is now) but it is surprising how much food we're harvesting every day! We always dreamed of having a homestead so it's nice to get a little bit of that feeling on a balcony. Thanks for watching :) :)
I ❤ it! I live in the hood in Southern California. When I say hood I mean we had a drive-by on our street last week and a murder at the end of our street. I live in a condo. Once you step into my 12 x 6ft magical food jungle you forget the outside world entirely. Until a ghetto bird flys overhead announcing to stay in ur home while they complete their search or till u hear shots. I give tours to everyone and several of my neighbors have been inspired to grow food too! Come see my garden😊
I loved that you mentioned the elements. Ive been sàving séeds from my balcony plants because i have realised that they are becoming better used to my environment. Happy gardening.
Maybe you're already doing this, but seed saving is another incredibly satisfying part of gardening! Cucumbers are a fun one, because first you get to watch little pickling cukes become chonky orange squashes. Which sometimes happens by accident anyways when one of those sneaky devils gets past you on harvesting days... :) Beautiful set up and great use of space! 👍
This was very inspiring. I'm in my first year of gardening mostly flowers but have herbs, sweet & hot peppers and strawberries. I was not expecting anything to grow but now I have a jungle of beauty. I love the intentional sized planters you have and I've taken note. As well as, growing with intention for next season and expanding on an edible garden. Thank you for a great video. Your garden is gorgeous! 💖
Thank you so much for watching! Your flower and herb jungle sounds really lovely! We do love the bigger planters (it took us awhile to figure out we needed more soil depth). If we didn't have good drainage on our balcony we would have probably chosen self-watering containers. But these work great for us. Happy planting and take care :) :)
Good effort 👍 If you get some racks and some hydro food towers that you can still feed organic you could squeeze in a bit more. A 600mm2 grow tent inside with a rack I can start two trays of plants, 3 medium sized trays of microgreen, a lot of soft herbs and all my salad mix I can eat. A bit of a plastic roof for autumn could extend your season months if not all year round. Or a mini transparent greenhouse.
Great suggestions! We have been curious about trying a growing tower to maximize space. We're mainly worried about the wind but will definitely look into it! Thanks so much for watching :)
@@ExploringAlternatives If the base is full of water. put a screw in the riser to stop it falling off or a rope over the top. We some times get 120km/hour wind gusts and we manage here
It's true! We do our best to avoid problems like adding too much weight and too much moisture, etc. to the balcony which could cause problems. Thanks so much for watching :)
Cabbage moths are also pollinators but their larvae stage is when they attack brassica. Consider using a row cover to protect brassica until they are big enough to fight off the larvae!
Beautiful little garden. 💜 A little advice, stack vertically and you can increase your container garden. I have a small space and use a lot of the same pots as you. You can buy or build the stair step type container holders to place 3/5 of those containers going up. I can't wait to see what y'all do next. 💜 Happy growing 💜
You can do cut and come again with a lot of greens like the lettuce you pulled out. Things really impressive and yes those cabbage worms and aphids are the worst!
Congratulations! This is a gorgeous and very tasty-looking accomplishment. Just one question: do the containers you use all have draining holes in the bottom? If not - or even if they do - do you find that the soil can get water-logged? The cedar stools and platform you made are really elegant; congrats! Thank you for sharing your beautiful work.
Thank you so much for your lovely comment! To answer your question, our pots have some drainage holes but we’re going to add more next year. The amount of water they get during a heavy rain definitely leaves them waterlogged. With our balcony not having a roof over it, we get more sunshine but more rain so it’s definitely a trade off. Thanks for watching :) :)
Great video! Growing marigolds in or around your vegtables that pests like aphid really deters them. They have dwarf marigolds also. For cabbage, brussel sprouts, cauliflower they have light weight netting that keeps the butterfly moths from laying eggs.
Thank you! The pots have worked great for us but we quickly realized that it's very important to make sure they have good drainage and also that some plants need a particular pot depth to grow. Thanks for checking out the video, happy you enjoyed the garden tour :)
Thanks for watching! We bought a small system from Amazon. It has 15 watering stakes and a programmable pump, and it's sold by Moistenland. It is a lot of work to put it together (it arrives with all the individual parts and you have to measure and cut all the tubing and assemble it yourself). When we go away, we put water in one of the grey storage bins, and the pump pulls water from there when we're away. It works really well so we bought a second one after making the garden bigger so that we can keep the whole thing watered. Love it (but again, very annoying to set up!). Hope that helps!
You might consider City Picker boxes, Earth Boxes or something similar. They come with casters to make it easier to roll them around. They grow a lot and they have water reservoirs.
Hi my first time on your channel your garden is beautiful I garden on my roof top it's my year growing on my roof top it is the best decision I ever made. ❤❤new subscriber here.
Risa, your rooftop garden is beautiful! Congratulations on growing sooooo much food up there! We just subscribed to your channel as well and will be following along :)
Thanks for watching, yes the garden has been surprisingly productive! I think we have to make a few more videos to show all the different foods we grew and the meals we made with it :)
@ExploringAlternatives we have had different size spaces to work with in the past too. I'm actually going to talk about that a bit in our share next week. How much abundance and beauty you have in your space is wonderful.
Hi Jo Jo, thanks for watching! The big rectangular ones we've been using are about 27" long x 12" wide x 9" deep. They're apparently made from 100% recycled plastic. Not sure if they are available in the US but here is the product name in case it's helpful: Bloem Dayton Series Rectangular Planter, 27-in. Happy planting!
Container size is something you learn as you go. Peas/tomatoes will produce in small 3 gallons, but I've had no luck with kale/cucumber/squash in those
Thanks for watching, Leslie! And great question about the weight! It's something we are being very careful of and we actually looked up the local building code to find out what the "live load" is for an exterior balcony in our area to make sure we keep it safe. For us, the weight limit seems to be 100 pounds per square foot for a newer building. We even went a step further and bought a scale to weigh our containers after watering them to make sure they were within a safe weight limit and we are happy to report that they are nowhere near the limit :) As an example, the bigger rectangular planter boxes are about 2 square feet in size and they weigh ~30 pounds after watering, which could probably go up to 40 pounds after a very heavy downpour. So at their max weight, they add a live load of 20 pounds per square foot, which is only 20% of the live load capacity. We would not want to go any higher than that. The weight is a big reason why we chose to use plastic pots instead of building big wooden raised beds (to reduce the material weight and the amount of soil needed). Hope that helps and thanks again for watching :) :)
Well, you have more than two million subscribers, so who am I to give you recommendations… But you are absolutely right about the cabbage butterflies. They also lay eggs and will come back every year and they are really a problem. That being said, While Clay pots are heavier, they breathe and they are much better for the plant root system. Also, it looks like you might have a little too much water on some of those plants with the yellow leaves.😊
Yes! Those beautiful cabbage moths have turned out to be a real pest haha! As for the yellow leaves - you're totally right. The plants are definitely overwatered! We had several back-to-back torrential downpours where we live that saturated the soil for days and days. We are going to try to improve soil drainage for next year to avoid this problem. Thanks so much for watching :) :)
Thanks for watching! You are so right about the weight! It's something we are being very careful of and we actually looked up the local building code to find out what the "live load" is for an exterior balcony in our area. For us, it seems to be 100 pounds per square foot for a newer building. We even went a step further and bought a scale to weigh our containers after watering them to make sure they were within a safe weight limit and we are happy to report that they are nowhere near the limit :) As an example, the bigger rectangular planter boxes are about 2 square feet in size and they weigh ~30 pounds after watering, which could probably go up to 40 pounds after a very heavy downpour. So at their max weight, they add a live load of 20 pounds per square foot, which is only 20% of the live load capacity and we would not want to go any higher than that. The weight is a big reason why we chose to use plastic pots instead of building big wooden raised beds (to reduce the material weight and the amount of soil needed). Thanks for letting us share these nerdy behind the scenes calculations with you! And thanks again for watching :) :)
good call!...it looks like a pretty new and well-engineered building they are in, and they don't appear to have more than a few hundred pounds of stuff, but i'd DEFINITELY want to know what the balcony is rated for, and keep track of everything i was putting out there, staying well-within the limits. a big rain storm can easily put down enough weight to cause BIG problems, if the storage is sufficient and loads are positioned unluckily.
@@ExploringAlternatives In Montreal squirrels even chew the compost plastic container in order to get to the corncobs or peanut shells There is no way to keep them away from the food, except what they don't eat like swiss chard. 🙁 They get to the sunflower seed just when they are riped ...
I did not see any grow bags. I did fairly well with those, with my tomatoes and I could fold them up at the end of the growing season, to store them. They did not tip over like the pots did, perhaps because of the shape they have- a wider base.
Thanks for watching! You can check out our Growing Food playlist here:
th-cam.com/play/PLslKBpzJILetVBaBDIJg5_D3g-QZLYYgx.html
@@ExploringAlternatives Will definitely Do watch them.
fresh vegetables are great
I am from indonesia i like videos you
Like
You can add deckers to give your veggies a strong standing deckers to support
More people should consider growing veggies on their balconies, even if you're north-facing. You guys did a fantastic job with the space -- everything looks green and fresh.
Thanks so much! It’s definitely a work in progress and we’re always learning but it has been so rewarding to grow some of our own food! Have a great day🙂
I eventually wanna try as well.
My mom would keep trying but eventually all got ruined by bugs/pests again and again.
She tried treating the ill/infected plants but nothing helped.
We live quite high up ,so I guess we don't have anything that eats them.
I definitely grow on my balcony, I just cut Swiss chard,collards, kale and green onions cold weather crops
Gardening is addictive... I started the same, with a few tomato plants on a balcony and a few years later I'm trying to manage an entire garden... with mixed results 🤣🙈
gardening does become an obsession very quickly. You guys make it look irresistible. BTW, the marigolds are said to be really great for repelling mosquitoes so that’s an extra plus. deadhead them and harvest your seeds, you’ll never need to BUY another marigold. 😊
Oh I didn’t know that marigolds repelled mosquitos! Good to know! Thank you for watching ☺️
@@ExploringAlternatives Marigolds are also a good companion plant with tomatoes to keep the pests away.
- Cathy (&, accidently, Steve), Ottawa/Bytown/Pimisi
@@stevezytveld6585 sounds there will be many more marigolds in our garden next year then!! ;)
Gardening is a nasty bug to get. Welcome to the dirty hands club 😁. It is always so nice to see tiny balcony gardens, you guys always get very impressive with the use of space. Keep on growing and attracting pollinators 🧡
Haha thank you for the welcome! Didn't know there was a club but our hands are definitely dirty lol Thanks for watching :) :)
I need so much more from this example. The way it was shot, the voiceover, the shots! Not only was it educational it was also therapeutic. If you wouldn’t mind I’d love to see how you explain starting various seeds and setting up your planters.
I love love what you’ve done with so little space. Very inspiring👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼Thanks👍🏼👍🏼
Happy you liked our veggie garden tour, thanks for your comment :)
More knowledge, more power. This is where it's at. Everyone can grow food, they just need more education. Thanks so much for sharing❤
The deeper the pots the better the quality of the plants 🪴
You both have created such a beautiful little garden. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Happy you enjoyed the garden tour, thanks for your comment :)
I garden and also enjoy watching content about gardening, I find it very relaxing and comfortable. Just seeing the green color of trees makes me feel peace in my heart. Wishing you all happiness and joy
Thanks for watching :) We also find gardening videos very calming and relaxing. In this balcony garden tour we did try to edit it with longer transitions just with sound and music and we really tried to slow down the pace. Thanks for your comment, so happy that you enjoyed it :)
You really have a nice variety of veggies growing. Nice.
Trying to keep things interesting out there! Thanks for watching :) :)
Love the use of the space and who doesn’t like growing your own food!!
Danielle and Matt such a beautiful balcony garden. Thank you so much for sharing your garden with us.❤❤
Thank you so much, Cathy!
Faboulous such a good example of human possibilities when you are creative and open to creative and intelligent way of living!!!! Good knowledge of plants and what they can provide even if the space is limited.
Obviously talking of limits : they are none for
this couple- the filming is so inviting, but keep in mind détermination is the secret!!!!
Greatest and useful lesson! Thanks!😊
That's a huge balcony!
Really cool video. Kudos to the gardeners. ❤
It's always worth doing as much as we can with what we have. This is a fine example of that!
So true! Thank you for watching :)
What a beautiful garden!!! Also great that you get to enjoy the lush greenery when you're sitting inside. ❤️👍🏼
Thanks so much! It does bring life to the balcony and makes it look beautiful all summer long! Have a great day :)
That was an enjoyable look at your wonderful new passion - I commend you both for all the work you've put into your gardening, learning along the way. You showed some delicious results, too!
Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed a peek in the garden :) :)
@@ExploringAlternatives 😊
Yay! Love to see you featured in your own video ☺️ Sending lots of love from Squamish
Hey Jen! Hope you're both doing good and enjoying the summer in Squamish! Thanks for your comment, we really loved growing our own food and learning new things along the way. All the best :)
I’m so proud of these people , for taking the steps to do it and being so honest about it all
Such a lovely big balcony. I have thought about doing this but would need to keep out pets and squirrels
I had a triangular balcony if barely 1m² that I gardened on. Lots of things failed bc of the limited space like cucumbers and squash. Some things only grew very tiny bc they couldn't grow deep enough like carrots and potatoes. Overall though I had so much fun and learned so much. Come next year I'll have a bigger balcony so I'm going to look forward to what I can plant and harvest ^^
It’s amazing how you manage to grow stuff despite the high winds. Excellent job!
The plants are surprisingly tough! Although we have had trouble falling asleep some nights listening to the wind and wondering what we were going to wake up to. Thanks for watching :) :)
Last year was our first garden, we rented and only had a concrete slab. So we lined milk crates with garden fabric and grew everything from herbs, to peppers to tomatoes in them. This year we have a “real” garden with raised beds and in ground beds. Sometimes you use what you have. 👍🏻
Enjoyed seeing your garden.Having mobility issues in my later life, i can only manage by growing in pots in a small area.Love sitting out there with my cuppa.Have all my small bids come in for a bath and check out my veges for some insects. Keep enjoying growing your own, havebeen doing so for 50 plus years.Lots of frustrations but would never stop
Enjoy Danielle! Once you are bitten by the gardening bug, it is hard not to get obsessed!
So true! Growing our own food is soooo rewarding! Thanks for checking our the video and have a great day :)
Congrats! It IS a CONSTANT learning curve, isn't it? TFS!
It truly is! We were discouraged at first, but then it became a challenge to figure things out. Thank you for watching :)
@@ExploringAlternatives I had some medicinal weeds ("wild lettuce"/ "opium lettuce") - that I had initially welcomed - take over EVERY ONE of my planters, and their roots have clobbered all else. Yup, it can be VERY discouraging. Cheers & Best Wishes!
All my respect. I run a Gardening Group on Facebook, and I love to see videos like this. They are very inspiring I would for sure share this excellent video on my group. Thank you so much for sharing.
Thank you so much for watching! And we appreciate you sharing the video as well
Your garden is beautiful. Well done. We've kept a balcony veg, herb and flower patch for the past 25 years or so (zone 5a, Ontario). I love it, there is nothing like stepping onto the balcony and picking dinner; ultimate luxury and golden hour is not to be underestimated. This is the first year I've kept a compost bin and used natural feeds like compost teas for feed; results have been amazing.
Presently I'm looking for seeds for some Milkweed to feed the Monarchs Butterflies that come through town every August. I'm also looking at setting up the smallest possible self-sustaining water feature for the dragonflies that occasionally drop by. Seventh floor us is lucky enough to be on the bee and bumble daily pathway. I want to provide a small home for the local insect population that's seeing such pressure right now.
- Cathy (&, accidently, Steve), Ottawa/Bytown/Pimisi
Hi Cathy & Steve, your balcony garden sounds amazing and it's so impressive that you've been doing it for 25 years. Love that you've been experimenting with composting and compost teas, and providing habitat for the wee pollinators :)
We saw some Milkweed seeds on the West Coast Seeds site if that's helpful (one of them is container friendly!).
Thanks for watching and happy planting
@@ExploringAlternatives Thank you so much. It's been a labour of love, with plenty of failures along the way.
Have you hears about Ollas? It's Spanish for a clay pot. Take your terracotta pot, sink it into the soil to just at the rim, plug the hole with compost and keep the vessel full of water. Eventually the roots grow towards the Olla as a water source (to the point where I had a tomato plant send it's tap root directly up the drain hole).
Ollas have made gardening possible - otherwise the wind and the reflecting bake of white bricks just cooks everything.
I've found three ornamental Milkweed varieties from Vessy's. I also found an Indigenous Women-owned seed business called Cultural Seeds. Maybe you could hit them up for a story?
We have not heard of Ollas! It sounds like a really effective growing system - will check it out :) :)
Glad you found some other milkweed varieties and thank you for putting Cultural Seeds on our radar. It sounds like they're doing really wonderful and important work! We usually feature individual stories rather than businesses but we will take a peek at their website for sure!!
@@ExploringAlternatives If I'm understanding the web site properly, Cultural Seeds is using the proceeds from sales to build Healing Lodges. I've never been so anxious to put in an order for seeds - the genetics go back a minimum of a few hundred, if not thousands, of years. I'm going to be using them at seed sharing events...
I loved seeing your garden! It’s so neat and productive. Great video!
Thanks so much Asia! Hope you're doing great and enjoying your garden this summer! All the best :) :)
I really enjoy your videos. It's almost meditative and so relaxing. Great garden.
Thank you so much! We tried to share what it feels like when we're in the garden. Glad to hear it worked :)
Very inspiring.
So much with so little.
Just lovely
Thanks so much!!
Hi, your experience is similar to mine, my balcony is very small: 3 square meters (32 square feet). It gives me a lot of satisfaction. In these days I removed the summer vegetables and planted black cabbage, kale, pak choi and various lettuces. I think I will add brussels sprouts and broccoli. Of course I also have aromatic plants and edible flowers. For me the biggest problem is giving the right amount of water without it coming out from under the pot. In Italy balconies do not have a drain, and so if there is too much water it ends up on the balcony of the neighbors on the lower floor.
Beautiful balcony garden! Your use of space is wonderful! Thyme and hyssop are very good to keep the white fly away from your cabbage and kale. Potatoes could also do very well on your balcony, but you would need a slightly large container for them than what you have. I didn't see drainage holes in the rectangular planter you lifted. I'm often surprised to see planters without holes sold in stores. Do these planters not get waterlogged after a heavy rain or do they have some other drainage system? You are right to choose plastic pots, not only because they are light, but they will be less prone to dry in dry weather, and if you store them on your balcony with the soil inside, they won't break like clay would.
Thank you so much, Stefan & Magali
@@ExploringAlternatives That's a perfect balcony for balcony gardeners - a balcony with drainage!
Ooh i love this! I really like the bench and seats.
Love that slatted table you made. You could make such things as a side hassle if they don’t take too much time; I’m sure there’d be many who love them too. Well done guys. 😊
Wow - great job you guys! You really have a lot growing in that small space and I'm totally inspired! It's great that you are showing this to demonstrate just what is possible for those living in apartments with balconies!
We definitely got a bit carried away this year haha (it started off about 1/3 of the size it is now) but it is surprising how much food we're harvesting every day! We always dreamed of having a homestead so it's nice to get a little bit of that feeling on a balcony. Thanks for watching :) :)
@@ExploringAlternatives Homestead on a balcony! LOL! May the authentic homestead show up one of these days.
I wouldn't be surprised if by next year there was greenhouse glazing above the garden - nice work
I ❤ it! I live in the hood in Southern California. When I say hood I mean we had a drive-by on our street last week and a murder at the end of our street. I live in a condo. Once you step into my 12 x 6ft magical food jungle you forget the outside world entirely. Until a ghetto bird flys overhead announcing to stay in ur home while they complete their search or till u hear shots. I give tours to everyone and several of my neighbors have been inspired to grow food too! Come see my garden😊
Congrats
You’re an inspiration!
I was fulled by the cabbage moths too lol! I love your garden.
Everything is just beautiful 😍 💚 gardening gives me happiness 😊
Thank you! I'm so happy that you enjoyed our little garden tour :)
I loved that you mentioned the elements. Ive been sàving séeds from my balcony plants because i have realised that they are becoming better used to my environment. Happy gardening.
Excellent
Good job! Thank you your video
Thanks for watching :)
Maybe you're already doing this, but seed saving is another incredibly satisfying part of gardening! Cucumbers are a fun one, because first you get to watch little pickling cukes become chonky orange squashes. Which sometimes happens by accident anyways when one of those sneaky devils gets past you on harvesting days... :) Beautiful set up and great use of space! 👍
Looks great yall !
Greetings from central Florida.
Thank you!!
This was very inspiring. I'm in my first year of gardening mostly flowers but have herbs, sweet & hot peppers and strawberries. I was not expecting anything to grow but now I have a jungle of beauty. I love the intentional sized planters you have and I've taken note. As well as, growing with intention for next season and expanding on an edible garden. Thank you for a great video. Your garden is gorgeous! 💖
Thank you so much for watching! Your flower and herb jungle sounds really lovely! We do love the bigger planters (it took us awhile to figure out we needed more soil depth). If we didn't have good drainage on our balcony we would have probably chosen self-watering containers. But these work great for us. Happy planting and take care :) :)
Good effort 👍
If you get some racks and some hydro food towers that you can still feed organic you could squeeze in a bit more.
A 600mm2 grow tent inside with a rack I can start two trays of plants, 3 medium sized trays of microgreen, a lot of soft herbs and all my salad mix I can eat.
A bit of a plastic roof for autumn could extend your season months if not all year round. Or a mini transparent greenhouse.
Great suggestions! We have been curious about trying a growing tower to maximize space. We're mainly worried about the wind but will definitely look into it! Thanks so much for watching :)
@@ExploringAlternatives If the base is full of water. put a screw in the riser to stop it falling off or a rope over the top. We some times get 120km/hour wind gusts and we manage here
Everyone can grow food, they just need more education. Thanks so much for sharing😘
Beautiful garden
Not every place allows for gardens in balconies. So to see this is great!
It's true! We do our best to avoid problems like adding too much weight and too much moisture, etc. to the balcony which could cause problems. Thanks so much for watching :)
@@ExploringAlternatives would so love to be able to do this in my balcony. Thanks again for sharing!
I really liked this video!
Thank you! :)
Ahahahah thinking the cabbage moths look sweet and aesthetic dipping and fluttering about and then learning what they are is SO REAL. Same here.
Cabbage moths are also pollinators but their larvae stage is when they attack brassica. Consider using a row cover to protect brassica until they are big enough to fight off the larvae!
Beautiful little garden. 💜 A little advice, stack vertically and you can increase your container garden. I have a small space and use a lot of the same pots as you. You can buy or build the stair step type container holders to place 3/5 of those containers going up. I can't wait to see what y'all do next. 💜 Happy growing 💜
مسيرة موفقةحفظك الاه ورعاك 💚💚💚💚💚💚☕️☕️☕️🫶🏻🫶🏻🌹🌹🌹👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
Small place,, but big hearted work,,
Seems greenery, own producing veggies, really super video.. Very interesting works u done,, keep going.. 🤝👍
The flowers are a great addition. Research plant pairings
Very very pretty ❤❤❤
Thank you :)
You can do cut and come again with a lot of greens like the lettuce you pulled out. Things really impressive and yes those cabbage worms and aphids are the worst!
Congratulations! This is a gorgeous and very tasty-looking accomplishment. Just one question: do the containers you use all have draining holes in the bottom? If not - or even if they do - do you find that the soil can get water-logged? The cedar stools and platform you made are really elegant; congrats! Thank you for sharing your beautiful work.
Thank you so much for your lovely comment! To answer your question, our pots have some drainage holes but we’re going to add more next year. The amount of water they get during a heavy rain definitely leaves them waterlogged. With our balcony not having a roof over it, we get more sunshine but more rain so it’s definitely a trade off. Thanks for watching :) :)
Great video! I do ONLY containers also! Thanks for sharing!🙏🏿🎉
Great video! Growing marigolds in or around your vegtables that pests like aphid really deters them. They have dwarf marigolds also. For cabbage, brussel sprouts, cauliflower they have light weight netting that keeps the butterfly moths from laying eggs.
Thanks for watching! If the cabbage moth problem continues, we'll look into the light weight netting you mentioned :) :)
Amazing video. Those pots works really well ❣
Thank you! The pots have worked great for us but we quickly realized that it's very important to make sure they have good drainage and also that some plants need a particular pot depth to grow. Thanks for checking out the video, happy you enjoyed the garden tour :)
Wow, how cool is gardening in your yard planted with various very fertile vegetables. Greetings to meet your hobby, sis
This is why I always say you can grow food anywhere
I would love to learn more about your small scale irrigation system. Thank you.
Thanks for watching! We bought a small system from Amazon. It has 15 watering stakes and a programmable pump, and it's sold by Moistenland. It is a lot of work to put it together (it arrives with all the individual parts and you have to measure and cut all the tubing and assemble it yourself). When we go away, we put water in one of the grey storage bins, and the pump pulls water from there when we're away. It works really well so we bought a second one after making the garden bigger so that we can keep the whole thing watered. Love it (but again, very annoying to set up!). Hope that helps!
I love❤your garden.
Thanks so much! Happy you enjoyed the garden your :)
This is what my balcony looked like when i was in an apartment ❤❤❤
You might consider City Picker boxes, Earth Boxes or something similar. They come with casters to make it easier to roll them around. They grow a lot and they have water reservoirs.
Oh thank you for the suggestions! We’ll look into those container options :)
Tomatoes do fine in those wide but deep wooden barrel-like pots. The width gives more stability against wind
Marigolds also are veg companion plants, ie to helpbstop pests for uour crops
Hi my first time on your channel your garden is beautiful I garden on my roof top it's my year growing on my roof top it is the best decision I ever made. ❤❤new subscriber here.
Risa, your rooftop garden is beautiful! Congratulations on growing sooooo much food up there! We just subscribed to your channel as well and will be following along :)
@ExploringAlternatives thank you so much appreciate it ☺️ ♥️♥️
Very productive garden ❤❤❤
Thanks for watching, yes the garden has been surprisingly productive! I think we have to make a few more videos to show all the different foods we grew and the meals we made with it :)
That is a very nice garden!
How wonderful to see a share of your garden!!!! 💚💚💚💚💚
Thanks for taking a peek, Rachel! It’s so small compared to your abundant homestead but we’re having fun! 🤗
@ExploringAlternatives we have had different size spaces to work with in the past too. I'm actually going to talk about that a bit in our share next week.
How much abundance and beauty you have in your space is wonderful.
Thanks so much, we're looking forward to seeing your new video next week! Have a great day :)
Amitabha Buddha!thanks!❤
Good , beautiful garden ❤
Beautiful ❤:)
Thanks so much, happy you enjoyed the garden tour :)
Love this
Dans cette vidéo se trouve la réponse à une question que je me posais l'autre jour. 👍
Ahah! C'est fantastique :)
Very nice video. Thank you
Thanks so much! Happy you enjoyed our balcony garden tour :)
@@ExploringAlternatives good morning. Thank you
You should grow garlic onions lettuce cabbage etc over winter
I container grow on my Patio!
I love the window boxes too.
I can't find the shorter but deeper ones?
Nicely Done 🎉.
JO JO IN VT 💞
Hi Jo Jo, thanks for watching! The big rectangular ones we've been using are about 27" long x 12" wide x 9" deep. They're apparently made from 100% recycled plastic. Not sure if they are available in the US but here is the product name in case it's helpful: Bloem Dayton Series Rectangular Planter, 27-in. Happy planting!
I wanna try making one too 😮
It's a lot of work but it's also really rewarding! Hope you get to do grow your own garden too! All the best :)
Container size is something you learn as you go. Peas/tomatoes will produce in small 3 gallons, but I've had no luck with kale/cucumber/squash in those
Im proud of you 😊
Thanks so much :)
Nothing is better than eating fresh produce right out of your own garden.
Agreed!! Thanks for watching :) :)
It is a lovely balcony garden. What is your maximum weight for your balcony and how does that limitation impact your plant selection?
Thanks for watching, Leslie! And great question about the weight! It's something we are being very careful of and we actually looked up the local building code to find out what the "live load" is for an exterior balcony in our area to make sure we keep it safe. For us, the weight limit seems to be 100 pounds per square foot for a newer building.
We even went a step further and bought a scale to weigh our containers after watering them to make sure they were within a safe weight limit and we are happy to report that they are nowhere near the limit :)
As an example, the bigger rectangular planter boxes are about 2 square feet in size and they weigh ~30 pounds after watering, which could probably go up to 40 pounds after a very heavy downpour. So at their max weight, they add a live load of 20 pounds per square foot, which is only 20% of the live load capacity. We would not want to go any higher than that.
The weight is a big reason why we chose to use plastic pots instead of building big wooden raised beds (to reduce the material weight and the amount of soil needed).
Hope that helps and thanks again for watching :) :)
Well, you have more than two million subscribers, so who am I to give you recommendations… But you are absolutely right about the cabbage butterflies. They also lay eggs and will come back every year and they are really a problem. That being said, While Clay pots are heavier, they breathe and they are much better for the plant root system. Also, it looks like you might have a little too much water on some of those plants with the yellow leaves.😊
Yes! Those beautiful cabbage moths have turned out to be a real pest haha! As for the yellow leaves - you're totally right. The plants are definitely overwatered! We had several back-to-back torrential downpours where we live that saturated the soil for days and days. We are going to try to improve soil drainage for next year to avoid this problem. Thanks so much for watching :) :)
So useful video
Glad you think so! Thank you :)
YOU ARE SO COOOOOOOL
Inspiring ❤
Thanks so much!! Happy you enjoyed our balcony garden tour :)
Nice ... Good for you on the good production ,, but careful on the size ,,most balcony's are not constructed to handle much weight ...
Thanks for watching! You are so right about the weight! It's something we are being very careful of and we actually looked up the local building code to find out what the "live load" is for an exterior balcony in our area. For us, it seems to be 100 pounds per square foot for a newer building.
We even went a step further and bought a scale to weigh our containers after watering them to make sure they were within a safe weight limit and we are happy to report that they are nowhere near the limit :)
As an example, the bigger rectangular planter boxes are about 2 square feet in size and they weigh ~30 pounds after watering, which could probably go up to 40 pounds after a very heavy downpour. So at their max weight, they add a live load of 20 pounds per square foot, which is only 20% of the live load capacity and we would not want to go any higher than that.
The weight is a big reason why we chose to use plastic pots instead of building big wooden raised beds (to reduce the material weight and the amount of soil needed).
Thanks for letting us share these nerdy behind the scenes calculations with you! And thanks again for watching :) :)
good call!...it looks like a pretty new and well-engineered building they are in, and they don't appear to have more than a few hundred pounds of stuff, but i'd DEFINITELY want to know what the balcony is rated for, and keep track of everything i was putting out there, staying well-within the limits. a big rain storm can easily put down enough weight to cause BIG problems, if the storage is sufficient and loads are positioned unluckily.
This is so luscious. Where do you live ? How do you keep the squirrels away from your food ?
Thanks for watching, Nicole! We're in Ontario, Canada. Luckily we haven't had any problems from squirrels or birds. Just bugs haha ;)
@@ExploringAlternatives In Montreal squirrels even chew the compost plastic container in order to get to the corncobs or peanut shells There is no way to keep them away from the food, except what they don't eat like swiss chard. 🙁 They get to the sunflower seed just when they are riped ...
❤
Thanks for watching :)
TONS?! Ounces, certainly! Pounds, maybe. 😮
I did not see any grow bags. I did fairly well with those, with my tomatoes and I could fold them up at the end of the growing season, to store them. They did not tip over like the pots did, perhaps because of the shape they have- a wider base.