Growing veg on windowsill?

[Alli_Cat]

Hello. I'm new on here and also quite new to growing and gardening so please forgive me if I'm asking the wrong things or the answers are already here somewhere.
I have a shared communal garden I can use pretty much however I want but it's quite cold and shaded and I'm very limited in what I can do with it as most of it is paved.
The front of my house has no garden but is very sunny so I'd like to try and grow something there. The windowsills are big enough for growbags but the windows are only about 1.5 meters high so possibly not big enough for tomatoes. Could anyone give me any ideas or tips on the best veg to grow there? I've been given two growbags and trays so I'd like to use them if possible!
Many thanks in advance.

[Vince G]

Hello and welcome Alli_Cat.

Sounds like a tricky site you've got there - are there no spots in the back yard that get a decent amount of sun where you could maybe put one of those mini plastic zip up green houses that could accommodate a tomato plant or two? Could stick a couple of courgette plants in a growbag out there once the ambient temperature is higher, but you don't have your location on your profile so it's difficult to advise about that.

If you're talking about growing things on your front windowsill indoors, you can get dwarf varieties of things like chillies that are designed for patio pots, so they might be a good bet. Don't quite understand where you'd be putting growbags - are you talking about an indoor or outdoor windowsill? If outdoors, again I wouldn't do anything too tall as you don't want to risk them getting blown off in the wind, or anything too bushy as you're going to block light from getting in your front room. Salady things might work well, in fact they'd have the advantage of being a couple of feet up in the air away from slugs and snails, maybe spring onions, radish, short rooted round carrots, couple of strawb plants. Have to keep it well watered though. Window boxes are also good for woody herbs like sage, rosemary and thyme. Few ideas there that might work. Sure there will be some other people along soon who have similar conditions and can advise better than me.

[Snoop Puss]

Hello and welcome, Alli_Cat.

If you're growing things on your windowsills, you might not want them too tall as they'll cut the light. And rather than tomatoes or another crop that takes quite a while before you can start picking a crop, if I were in your position, I'd probably grow cut and come again lettuce. Expensive in the shops bought in bags and nowhere near as sweet as freshly picked. And you can keep resowing to get a (relatively) continual supply.

Would you have space for something like a strawberry or a herb pot by a door or other spot? Or a chimney pot with a Tumbling Tom tomato plant in a pot in the top, or even a climbing courgette plant?

Looking forward to hearing what you decide on. Best wishes, whatever you decide to grow.

[rary]

Welcome to the Vine Alli-Cat, with a window that high you can grow tomatoes there, you can let them come up to the fourth truss then stop them, a truss is what you call the tomato flower heads, if you are not sure what is meant by a truss just ask, , anyway , grow bags can accommodate three tomato plants quit comfortably, if you have room for more than one bag there are other vegesch as courgettes that can be grown in a grow bag, as for the front of your house which as you say gets plenty of sunshine you could grow practically anything you want by using containers, if you have room you could construct raised beds, I use some about 2ft6in. high and 2ft wide the length can be whatever you want, being at the front of your house you can incorporate pot marigolds, narsturtium pansies etc. all flowers that you can eat, as well as rainbow chard decorative kale, beetroot, lettuce and many other colourful veg, of course everything depends on what space you have,let us know what you have avaliable and all the above veg can be grown in window boxes

[smallblueplanet]

Hi, as with other veggie gardening, grow what you like to eat. Try things out, they might be okay in pots/containers. Try and buy/sow 'smaller fruit' varieties of the type of plant too.
How about dwarf french beans I think the fresh ones are sooo much better than shop bought. Or climbing beans and let them go crazy!

[Nicos]

Hi there and welcome to the Vine!

If you do grow tomatoes, don’t get any of the ‘bush’ variety!

Also if you remove the bottom few sets of leaves when it gets taller, you could grow some lettuce at their base….especially the type you can take the outer leaves from so you get a constant crop and it looks less ‘gappy’ than if you had taken a whole lettuce.

Also a few radish, chives and English marigolds( pretty , but you can add the petals to salads etc) at the base would also look nice and at the same time be rewarding to crop whilst waiting lovingly for the tomatoes to appear and finally ripen!

You’ll be watering them daily anyway with occasional feeds so the extra demand from the grow bag should be able to cope.