Harriet Cooper
A balcony, a courtyard behind a terrace, a narrow passage beside the kitchen wall — these are real growing spaces. They simply ask for a slightly different approach to pots, compost and watering. Get those three things right and you will be cutting chives for supper and picking your own salad leaves well before midsummer.
Start by Reading Your Space
Before you buy a single pot, spend a week watching how light and wind move through the area. This tells you far more than any label in a garden centre.
- Sunlight: most herbs, salads and fruiting crops want six hours of direct sun or more. A south-facing balcony is a gift. A north-facing one is not hopeless — lean towards mint, parsley, chives and leaf crops rather than tomatoes or chillies.
- Wind: even a gentle breeze becomes a gale around a corner. Tall plants topple and compost dries out fast. A rigid screen, a trellis or simply grouping pots together makes a remarkable difference.
- Walls and paving: brick and stone store warmth and release it at night, which suits tomatoes and basil but can scorch leaves in a hot spell. A pale wall bounces useful light into a shaded corner.
Pots That Earn Their Place
Size matters more than style. A generous pot holds more compost, dries out more slowly and gives roots room to work, so one 40cm-wide container will usually outperform three small ones.
- Depth: salads, herbs and strawberries are content in 20–25cm of compost. Tomatoes, courgettes, beans and carrots need 30cm or more.
- Drainage: every pot needs holes at the base. Roots sitting in soggy compost rot quietly and quickly. Raise pots on feet or stones so water can escape freely.
- Material: terracotta breathes and looks lovely but dries out fastest. Glazed ceramic and plastic hold moisture longer. Wooden troughs and half-barrels insulate roots well and suit a courtyard.
- Weight: on a balcony, check what the structure can take. Plastic, fabric and fibreglass are far lighter than stone or terracotta once wet.
Compost, Drainage and Feeding
Use a good peat-free multipurpose compost as your base. It holds water well and carries enough nutrients for the first few weeks. Mix in a handful of grit or perlite per pot to keep it open, and add a slow-release fertiliser at planting time.
Containers are a closed system, so nutrients run out. From about six weeks in, feed weekly with a liquid tomato feed once plants are flowering or cropping. Leafy crops prefer a nitrogen-rich feed; tomatoes, peppers and aubergines do best on a high-potash one. Never let pots stand in a saucer of stagnant water — empty it after heavy rain.
What to Grow in Small Spaces
Choose compact, high-value crops you will actually eat.
- Herbs: basil, parsley, chives, thyme and rosemary. Keep mint in its own pot or it will take over.
- Salad: cut-and-come-again lettuce, rocket, spinach and mizuna. Sow a pinch every fortnight for a steady supply rather than a glut.
- Fruiting crops: bush tomatoes, chillies, dwarf French beans and strawberries. One or two well-grown plants beat a crowded row.
- Edible flowers: nasturtiums and calendula, which also bring in bees.
Succession sowing is the small-space gardener's best trick. As one pot finishes, refresh the compost and sow again.
Watering: The Habit That Makes It Work
Containers dry out far faster than borders, and more plants are lost to inconsistent watering than to any pest. A simple routine saves a great deal of heartache.
- Water in the early morning so plants have moisture through the heat of the day. Evening watering is second best, but leaves left wet overnight invite mildew.
- Water thoroughly until it runs out of the base, then wait. Little and often only wets the top inch.
- Check daily in summer by pushing a finger 2cm into the compost. Dry, water; damp, leave it.
- Mulch the surface with gravel or bark to slow evaporation, and group pots together to create shade and humidity.
Self-watering containers and simple drip kits are worth the money if you travel, but the finger test remains the most reliable tool you own.
Making It Feel Like a Garden
A courtyard of neat pots can look like a nursery; a little thought turns it into somewhere you want to sit. Vary heights using crates, an upturned pot or a simple shelf. Let one or two things trail over an edge. Add a small table and chair, and plant something purely for scent — lavender, night-scented stock or a daphne near the door. A shallow dish of water for birds will bring more life than you expect.
Be realistic, too. Two or three well-tended pots will give you more pleasure, and more food, than a dozen neglected ones. Start small, learn what your particular corner does with light and water, and add to it next spring.
