Raised bed garden on a balcony turns the unused space into a mini-garden paradise. We offer some helpful ideas and tips on what to look for in a raised bed for a terrace or balcony, whether you build it yourself or buy one.
Gardens, especially in urban homes and apartments are hard to set up due to space constraints. So, making use of your balcony to grow veggies, herbs, and flowers is a brilliant idea. You can build raised beds yourself or buy a kit, and they make optimal use of available balcony space while also offering several advantages over conventional planter boxes.
We’ll show you how to create a raised bed garden on your balcony, what supplies you’ll need, and what planting and filling techniques work best.
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Raised bed on the Balcony: Build it yourself or Buy it?
Whether you build your own raised bed gardens or buy a ready-made kit depends entirely on your skill levels, the supplies you have access to, and the amount of time you can dedicate to setting it up. The weight and available space should be taken into consideration while selecting raised bed gardens for the balcony.
Furthermore, the position of the raised bed gardens is critical because it dictates which plants will thrive there. For self-builds, length, breadth, and height may all be customized to match the balcony perfectly. Planning and building, on the other hand, take time.
In contrast, while prefabricated raised bed gardens save time and effort, they may not completely fill the available space, resulting in a squandered opportunity for planting.
To provide a drainage layer and enough soil for future plants to take root, the bed must be at least 40 cm high. Higher beds also make work more comfortable on the back, keep moisture in the soil for longer, and allow for the growth of root or tuber vegetables.
Build Raised Bed Balcony Gardens Yourself: DIY ideas
It’s possible to build raised beds in any shape, although angular designs work best on balconies.
It is possible to grow plants on the edges as well as inside pallet-built raised bed gardens, making it a multi-functional place. A raised bed can be constructed from numerous wooden fruit crates. Overall, the design possibilities for stacking are incredibly diverse.
A wooden frame can be used to stack several elongated planter boxes to create a plant pyramid, a tiered bed, or a vertical shelf bed. Also suited for smaller balconies, lightweight elevated garden beds on stilts can be used to store gardening tools.
For climbing plants like runner beans or cucumbers (Cucumis sativus), a raised bed gardens and trellis combination is ideal and these plants can act as a privacy screen for your balcony. Small flower pots or hanging baskets are other options.
Buy Raised Bed for Your Apartment Balcony
Garden centers and hardware stores sell ready-made kits and whole sets of raised beds designed for apartment balconies. Due to their lightweight, raised beds made of wood, galvanized metal, or plastic are ideal for use on a balcony.
Raised beds are available in a wide selection of colors, styles, sizes, and materials, making one ideal for practically every balcony owner.
Filling and Planting the Balcony Raised Bed
It’s time to fill the raised bed once you have set them up in a proper location. To protect the wood and maintain moisture in the soil, raised beds are first lined with a bubble or pond liner on the inside. After that, the raised bed gardens will be filled with soil. Once this is done, you can start planning other layers.
The drainage layer is first filled in with coarse materials such as shrub trimmings or heavier branches, with the addition of a few stones. Wood chips, leaves, and grass clippings form a filling layer on top of this. It is now time to add a layer of well-matured compost to act as a nutrient and water reservoir.
Composting filler like organic compost is perfect for the compost layer. Due to its high humus content, this peat-free compost encourages soil life and healthy root development. Potting soil of the highest grade is applied as the last layer. A nutrient-poor, permeable herb soil or a pre-fertilized vegetable substrate may be used, according to the plant’s needs.
Balcony raised bed gardens are ideal for growing annual flowers as well as space-saving vegetables and herbs. Bush tomatoes ‘Tiny Tim,’ for example, can be grown in raised bed gardens. Our special article on tomatoes in raised beds has more information.
These raised beds are as well adapted to chili plants (Capsicum), exotics such as Pepino (Solanum muricatum), and Ground Cherry or Husk Tomato(Physalis pruinosa). It is possible to plant leafy crops like pak choi, head lettuce, and spinach (all of which are members of the Brassica rapa family), as well as some root vegetables like radishes, all year round.
You can also grow root vegetables in low beds, such as the ‘Paris market’ carrot type, which has short roots. Additionally, a balcony can be used to raise strawberries as well. Basil (Ocimum basilicum), parsley (Petroselinum crispum), and mint (Mentha sp.) grow well in small raised bed gardens or on pallets’ sides.
How to properly care for herbs on the balcony and what to consider when planting, you can learn in our special article on herb gardening on the balcony.