Starting a Balcony Garden

It is only the beginning of summer here; the temperatures can soar as high as 48 degrees Celsius (that’s about 118 degrees Fahrenheit). The summer months are long and the air starts cooling off only by the month of October. Then why would I start a garden now?

There are certain factors that I considered before this was going to be put to action.

Sunless Balcony: Over the summer months, only 10% of the balcony gets sun for about a couple of hours in a day. Having said that, the entire balcony is bright. It is just that it does not get full sun, like it does in the winter months.

Starting small: This is not an option for me. This is the only way I can have a balcony garden. I had a Sansevieria Cylindrica / cylindrica Snake plant, which really needed to be re-potted. And, there is no space inside for me to keep more pots or keep larger plants. So, I re-potted the cylindrica snake plant to a slightly larger pot and now it sits in the balcony. I did keep a couple of stalks in the existing small pot and that will stay in the window sill until it is time to be re-potted again.

The second pot is an upcycled wooden box, really small wooden box and that is now home to spring onions that I am growing from root cuttings that were bought from the regular grocery store. This pot shares its home with Mexican oregano.

A little story time regarding this Mexican Oregano

I got a stock of the oregano and it was sitting in water for over a year. It lost all its gorgeous leaves and faced weeks of neglect and still, this little plant continued to keep rooting. I was out for about 45 days, and still it survived. So, it is only right that the plant gets some soil and a very important place in the garden.

Back to the plants I want to grow next

Though I have so many plants that I want to plant, next on the list is Mint. And one other plant that is very high on the list is Mango ginger. I absolutely love eating pickled mango ginger. And I got some mango ginger rhizomes from when I was back in India and now that I can see the nodes are sprouting, maybe over the next few days, I will get it in a pot. I would also like to add to the indoor space another teeny tiny plant or a succulent.

Plants bring a lot of cheer to any space. And I would love to eventually grow what we eat. But until then, I am willing to learn what the balcony garden is going to teach me.

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Note: All Images are my own unless stated otherwise.