Do you have a green thumb, but unfortunately no garden? No problem, because even a small balcony or a loggia offer the opportunity to garden. With a vertical bed on the balcony, nothing stands in the way of the Umwarten in the small format. We explain which vegetables and herbs you can plant there and how to correct them.
Build the vertical bed correctly on the balcony
There are different variants for a vertical bed - some models are made of wood, others made of metal. However, they all have one thing in common: you can use the available space to take a maximum. Even on a very small or narrow balcony, it is possible to set up a vertical bed. However, so that the crops also thrive well, you should consider some things.
1. The vertical bed is not screwed on the wall, but is a stable, freely standing construction. This enables the air to circulate freely around vegetables and herbs. At the same time, the bed should be placed as close as possible to the apartment wall, because it provides warmth and protects against wind. The position as a quasi room divider is less favorable, because so the sunlight falls on the side and the plants on the inside cannot get enough sun rays.
2. The individual “wooden boxes” are usually not connected. So you can fill and plant every separately with substrate. The boxes are also cast individually.
3. The individual wooden boxes have a lower volume of earth and are not as deep as ordinary balcony boxes and buckets. Nevertheless, they are suitablePerfect for cropsFortunately, there are many vegetables and herbs that are flat roots. For example, most of the lettuce types such as head or lamb's lettuce, rocket, onion, radishes, radish, celery, tomatoes, cucumbers and some mini pumpkins. Many herbs and spices are also suitable for cultivation in the vertical bed.
A vertical bed on the balcony can be planted all year round
A vertical bed can, if planted correctly, provide rich harvest. And not only in summer. So you can sow different types of vegetables and herbs in spring, summer and autumn. However, it is an important prerequisite that the balcony is as sunny as possible. A west or south orientation offers the opportunity to sow even true sun worshipers like the tomatoes.
These types of balcony vegetables can be planted in the commercial garden
- Ice mountain salad - comes in the middle or upper wooden box, needs a lot of direct sunlight.
- Red bet - is placed in the middle wooden box.
- Capuchin heirs need a sunny to partially shaded place, so it can thrive in the lower or medium wooden box.
- Carrets - can be sown into the middle wooden box in March.
- Cherry tomatoes “sungold”, “blond head”
- Snack cucumber variety “corine”, mini salad cucumbers “Gambit”-cucumbers need a lot of direct sunlight, at the same time they can shade other plants with their dense leaves. The varieties that need rank aid can be planted in the medium plant box. The rest is simply planted on the edge of the lower wooden box.
- Busch beans - mainly need warmth and wind protection. They also grow without a rank aid, so they are perfect for the lower wooden box.
- Rucola is a real sun worshiper and will feel comfortable in the upper wooden box.
- In the upper wooden box you canalso a mixed cultureCreate from various herbs such as Oregano or Dill. Almost all herbs thrive best in full sun, so they have a great choice.
Plant the mixed culture in the vertical bed on the balcony
You don't necessarily have to sow a vegetable type in every wooden box, but also grow a mixed culture. An important prerequisite for this is that all types of vegetables, herbs and spices have similar demands on the location, water and substrate. There are also some species that cannot be composed. For example, cucumbers and tomatoes thrive best if they are planted from each other at a distance of at least 40 cm.
As for watering: water evaporates the fastest in metal boxes. So if you have chosen a vertical bed with metal boxes, you should pour your plants more often in summer. Wood, on the other hand, saves heat and isolated better in winter. So when it comes to boxes with a small volume of earth, the natural material may be better.
ManyVegetable speciesare also heavy consumers - this means that they need a lot of nutrients to grow healthy and wear a lot of fruits. The special earth that can be found in the garden centers is humus rich. However, the nutrients are rinsed off the ground with every watering. It is best to add compost to the substrate and then fertilize the vegetables regularly during the growth phase.
If you want to harvest the vegetables several times a year, you can already prefer the plants so that you can already go to the vertical bed after the ice saints.
