Deutschland – Vegetables, herbs and even fruit can be grown even in the smallest of spaces. You don’t even need a (raised) bed for this. Here you can find out how you can grow your own vegetables on the balcony.

The urban gardening trend has been spreading for several years. It’s about cultivating your own fruit and vegetables even in densely built-up settlements in the smallest of spaces.

If you want to try out for yourself how green thumbed you are, you can start now. This is the right time to start cultivating and sowing the small plants.

But don’t worry: you don’t need a vegetable or raised bed to be active yourself.

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The pleasure plants can also be cultivated in simple containers on the window sill, balcony, terrace or in the backyard.

Before you start growing vegetables, the situation must first be checked. The size of the balcony or the available area as well as the incidence of light and wind play an important role here.

The size decides how much you can plant. The location, on the other hand, limits which types of vegetables are suitable for your balcony.

So that the newly discovered happiness in gardening does not disappear, one should not underestimate the space requirements of the plants. Otherwise, the disappointment will be great in summer when you can no longer find a place under the sun yourself.

Bed planner apps such as “Alphabeet.org” or “Garden Planner for the Vegetable Bed” help you to make optimal use of even little space.

In order for vegetables to grow and thrive on the balcony, they need light, water, nutrients and pleasant temperatures. While you provide water and nutrients yourself, it is difficult to influence the light factor. Plants should therefore only be selected to suit the location. The decisive factor here is the direction in which the balcony or terrace is oriented.

It’s mostly shady here. Not exactly ideal for growing vegetables, but not impossible either. Especially when the sun shines around the corner again in the afternoon, this is enough for many plants. Sun-kissed vegetables such as Tomatoes, for example, would have problems here.

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Suitable vegetables: wild garlic, rocket, peas, spinach

The cardinal points east and west offer plants what is commonly referred to as partial shade. These are ideal conditions for most vegetables.

Suitable vegetables: Salads, Swiss chard, French and runner beans, garlic, kohlrabi

There is plenty of sun on the south-facing balcony or terrace. However, this can be too much of a good thing for some plants in midsummer. If in doubt, it is advisable to put up an awning.

Suitable vegetables: Tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, peppers, chili, cucumbers, potatoes

Tipp: Don’t just rely on the plug-in label on the plant! Because this is usually far too general. In order to avoid care mistakes, it is worth looking up the individual plant portraits in specialist books or researching them on the Internet.

When it comes to choosing planters, there are no limits to creativity. The condition: Every plant must have enough root freedom in order to grow optimally. In addition, it must be ensured that excess water can drain off at all times.

Here are some examples of which planters you can use to grow vegetables on the balcony:

• wooden and wine boxes
• balcony and window boxes
• clay pots
• sacks and plant bags
• pallets
• discarded pots and bowls
• wooden troughs and raised beds

You can also go up in planning. Neatly arranged on plant shelves or ladders, additional plants can be accommodated.

Small vegetable plants can usually be purchased at garden centers and hardware stores. Since this is currently not possible in many places, it makes sense to grow the vegetables for the balcony yourself with seeds.

Note that quality seeds definitely pay off!

Depending on the type of vegetable, sowing in the bed begins as early as March, but sometimes not until May, after the ice saints. However, if you sow your plants beforehand and prefer them indoors, you can expect an earlier harvest.

Either coconut swelling tablets or compostable pots are suitable for sowing.

Die Low-Budget-Variant washed and halved milk cartons would be yoghurt cups or even egg cartons and toilet paper rolls.

In the case of containers made of plastic, it is also important here that excess water can drain off well so that no waterlogging forms.

When sowing, make sure that the seeds are not distributed too densely and that they get into the ground according to the instructions on the packaging. After spreading, the soil is lightly pressed and moistened well with a little water.

You should then make labels, otherwise confusion can quickly arise.

From mid-May, the seedlings can be slowly transplanted and placed outside.

Here are five tips on what to consider when watering correctly:

• Water in the morning or early evening if possible
• Check daily whether your vegetables on the balcony need fresh water
• Don’t water your plants in full sun
• Distributes the water in a targeted manner and close to the ground and leaves out the foliage
• Inform yourself specifically about the water requirements of your plants

Tipp: Bark mulch and straw on the soil ensure that it dries out more slowly.

radish like it sunny and can be sown directly outdoors from March.

It is important that the radishes have enough space to form thick tubers. You can eat the sprouts themselves. With their light spice they refine every salad.

The nice thing about radishes is that they can still be sown in midsummer and guarantee a good harvest until late autumn.

However, radishes should not be left in the ground on the balcony for too long. Since they wood easily, they soon no longer taste so good.

pick lettuce is also great for growing on the balcony.

Since it likes sunny to semi-shady, it can also get along with many locations. Direct sowing can take place from April and the lettuce can be harvested from May to October.

The good thing about lettuce is that if you just harvest the outer leaves, it just keeps growing.

In order to still get enough for a garden salad, you should therefore grow several plants at the same time.

Peas are a small experience, especially for children, when they harvest the tender pods from the plant.

However, in order to thrive, peas need support to climb up. Rods, nets or special trellis are necessary.

If you prefer the peas, you should do so in compostable molds or toilet paper rolls. In this way you can ensure that the roots are not damaged when planting out.

If the pea plant thrives vigorously, fresh pods can be harvested every week during peak season.

tomatoes are admittedly not the easiest type of vegetable for the balcony.

Nevertheless, the selection of tomato varieties is now so large that it is definitely worth trying.

Tomatoes are great for growing indoors, but they do need a lot of space at times.

In addition to sufficient root freedom, tomatoes also need a lot of water. It is absolutely important that the tomatoes are protected from above. Otherwise, if water gets on the leaves, a fungal disease will quickly set in.

Since tomatoes have a high nutrient requirement, they should be fertilized weekly.

outdoor cucumbers are particularly suitable for south-facing balconies because they tolerate a lot of light and heat. However, like tomatoes, they also have a high water and nutrient requirement and like it sheltered from the wind.

Cucumbers are also best grown indoors and planted out later. As the plant climbs, the shoots are tied to supports so that they don’t take up too much space in width.

The outdoor cucumbers are then harvested in midsummer to late autumn.

There are currently many different varieties of cucumbers to try out.

Planting vegetables on the balcony is easier than you might think. However, the work that you put into caring for the plants more than pays off at the latest by the time they are harvested. Especially for children at a young ageplanting your own vegetables is a small experience.