balcony: chayote, greens, wooden pallets

[jdlondon]

Hi there,

Newbie in Central London with a decent but not big balcony on the 4th floor. I'm hoping to grow oriental greens and mustard greens and other leafy stuff soon, and any advice on that would be welcome. Like vertical growing, using wall-hanging bags - any good? Or should I stick to containers, possibly self-watering ones, like I'm tending towards? Or anyone point me towards free wooden pallets that apparently can be adapted as planters - free and cheap is always welcome.

Chayote - I read through some posts here and I was wondering how people who planted chayote got on. Any tips, warnings? Mine is sprouting on the windowsill at the moment, as per wise words from the net - although I did come across one blog that said put them in a dark, cool place to germinate.

It'll be in a movable container, alone, so I can easily move it in and out depending on the weather. Would a 30cm depth container be fine? I'll set up a pyramid trellis with bamboo too, unless you have a better suggestion?

Thanks muchly in advance!

[bearded bloke]

Hello & welcome

For pallets checkout building sites & also builders merchants in your area,if you are near an industrial estate a quick stroll should turn up more than enough,just avoid those vith obvious spillage of oil/chemicals.

Vertical pallet gardening see ...... How to Turn a Pallet into a Garden

[rustylady]

Hi JDLondon. Welcome to the Vine. You can grow quite a lot of stuff on a balcony, but obviously it will have to be in containers. Which way does your balcony face (when does it get sunshine?). Can you add your location to your profile, please? That way it will show up on your posts and saves us having to keep asking where you are.

[jdlondon]

Thanks, bearded bloke - good thing I followed that link and other links in the comments, since I never realised those pallets can be big and heavy. Must wait for access to a car before I attempt getting some. But I'm going to try and see if some building sites and places close by have some I can drag back on foot.

Hi, rustylady - sorry about the lack of info. Sorted it now - South London. Just unfamiliar with this site and also had to go off and do some shopping.

I have a balcony that faces west, gets sun all day long, but it's an inner balcony, ie under cover by the floor above, and the lower half shielded by tempered glass and metal rails, the upper part open.

My lounge window is pretty big too and faces the same way, so I've been thinking of using the sill too. Maybe get some shelving done to maximise.

I'll track down some books from the library, on top of trawling the net, but I thought it might be best to ask gardeners in my own country and area.

[Two_Sheds]

Books: this one has good reviews

I used to have a balcony like yours, west facing, fourth floor too. Very windy, and shaded after lunch. Still, we got tomatoes, chillies & salad from it

[adelight]

i wish i knew about pallet sooner, the alley to my old flat was always choka with wooden pallets from the shop below!

Chinese leaves grow quite well in shady areas so your balcony sounds like it will be okay. 99p stores still have gardening bits in stock, including trough shaped plastic planters that might be used to you if you want something cheap. Chilis may work well too, I've managed to grow these with great success in very shady windows! They started in a west facing window but just as they began to flower I had to move them to a spot getting only 1-2 hours of sunlight a day and they've still done well.

[jdlondon]

Two Sheds - That book looks perfect, thanks. And if my balcony can look half as good as that pic, I'll be happy. Also, I need a real garden so I can imitate your bottle border idea. That looks wonderful.

adelight - I was just in the 99p the other day and happily found the garden section. They even had wall-hangers which are seriously expensive elsewhere. A friend's giving me a chilli plant, she has tons of them, so here's hoping it survives with me too.

[BroadRipple]

hello fellow London grower - beans can be good in pots too. My chillis have tanked, but a friend who also grows on a Lahndon balcony has luck with hers. WIth pots, the bigger/deeper the better tp save on watering. And don't forget HERBS, because they make a huge difference to your food with relatively little work.
Good luck and keep posting.

[BroadRipple]

P.S. I like the one by Michael Guerra about container gardening, Jekka for herbs, and Deborah Schneebeli-Morrell's brilliant ORGANIC CROPS IN POTS which is inspiring too.

[jdlondon]

Hey, BroadRipple - Thanks for the book recs. I actually thought I'd done some organic gardening myself when I'd saved my mint plant with a mix of fairy liquid and water, but apparently not. Feeling guilty, I asked my mum who told me to use chilli powder next time. So yes, an organic path book is very welcome.

I'll be trying for some coriander, rosemary, thyme and sage too, which I'm hoping can live on my window sill, although my parents seem to have plenty of these outside with little doing.

Thanks for the container depth talk - absolute common sense, but it totally escaped me. Too bogged down with details and the nerves of a new undertaking, I guess. That's my excuse!

[Two_Sheds]

It's very hard to grow stuff on windowsill, indoors (too dark and pests accumulate quickly). Overwinter them, sure, but then get them back outside again as soon as the weather allows

[jdlondon]

It's very hard to grow stuff on windowsill, indoors (too dark and pests accumulate quickly). Overwinter them, sure, but then get them back outside again as soon as the weather allows

There goes the glass shelving idea on my windows. Thanks, will do as advised.

Also, found a sprouting chayote in Chinatown, and it's day two on my windowsill, just resting on a piece of kitchen towel, and it looks perkier already. I put the other one which only had roots in my dark pantry, just to see what happens.

[BroadRipple]

Don't tell anyone but I think 'organic' is slightly open to debate...if we're willing to use washing-up-liquidified plates, then I don't think putting it on plants is a major sin.
Have found coriander impossible but rosemary, thyme etc brilliant, and I have LOADS of mint. and you should definitely try cherry tomatoes, they are fantastic and you feel SO proud.
what's Chayote for?

[jdlondon]

I assumed washing up liquid was pretty harmless so I was quite surprised when I got my knuckles rapped.

My second seed batch order includes tomatoes, but green ones - tomatillos, I think they call it. Basically, I'm trying out veg I want to have but can't easily get here, like mustard greens.

And chayote. It's a squash, very popular in Asian cooking and Hawaii and Latin America. I know it from asian, where they used it in a soup similar to tom yum Thai soup. It can be made thick to have it with rice, a curry, so good in stews for normal Western cooking. It has a crisp, fresh taste to it that I really like. Roots and shoots can be eaten too, though I haven't tried them.

Chayote - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I've seen it in Tesco sometimes, not just asian shops, usually close to where they have the fresh herbs.

[Two_Sheds]

Chayote is really ambitious. Wouldn't you be content to grow something like salad leaves? (much more achievable on a UK balcony)