The Balcony Experiment

Scroll to the bottom of the page for links to all posts connected with the balcony container garden.

Are rising food prices getting you down? Are you having to cut back on what you buy to stay in budget? Is the term “frugal living” coming to your mind with ever increasing frequency? More and more people are looking for frugal tips to beat the recession. Obviously one straightforward answer is to grow your own food, but not everyone is fortunate enough to have garden space, or an allotment, so I came up with “The balcony project”.

I have a fair sized piece of land where i have my garden and my livestock, but I actually live in a small flat about a mile away. At the flat I have no garden, just a balcony. So this year, in addition to what I grow in the garden, I am going to turn my balcony over to food production to see how much food we can produce over the summer.

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As I run through the project, I will keep a running tally posted of what it costs me – but bear in mind that the costs will vary depending on where in the country you are. I live in an expensive area, and you will be able to find most things more cheaply. I will also explore using recycled articles wherever possible to reduce costs. Join me and let’s see how much we can produce from that little bit of space. You may even grow enough to sell a little bit to your neighbours and make some money from it.

25/05/11 we planted the runner beans on into pots and I have spotted two potential problems. I have used both of my big pots up doing the runners, so now don’t have a big pot for sugar snap peas. Second problem the wigwams standing in a corner (the only place I can put them on the balcony) will automatically place the beans at the back of the wigwam into shade – they will either not grow or, more likely, will wrap themselves round to the front of the wigwam 🙂 Will have to wait and see I guess.

So far I have spent £4.50 on bamboo canes, but I have cheated a little in that I already had some compost left over from last year and also some quite a lot of seed. When I go for more, I will make a note of this years prices and add them in 🙂

what to grow

runner beans

runner beans update at 19 days

another runner bean update

snails eating my runner beans

Buying plants for the balcony

Getting planted – things starting to take shape

french beans for showing

Container grown radishes

Sugar snap peas

Balcony update 6th June 2011