Urban living and small spaces go hand in hand. But even you live in an apartment, you can still grow your own tomatoes, potatoes or strawberries.
Below are a few examples of our innovative balcony and small garden space solutions. As well, click here for one balcony garden package that we put together, or take a look at the garden we built in the small yard at McLean Drive
Apartment Composters
Smaller versions of the backyard compost bin. With a properly designed compost system, you can compost indoors too, using a worm bin - odourless, and efficient for the small household.
Stacking Potato Boxes
These modular boxes (approximately 18" x 18") allow you to grow as much as 100 lbs of potatoes from a single plant!
Start by planting a potato in the bottom box and it will begin to produce potatoes on its roots. Then as the plant grows, stack another box on top and add soil, or even just hay: the plant grows higher, producing more subsoil offshoots, on which further potatoes develop. You can stack these as high as 4 or 5 feet. At harvest time, you work your way back down the stack, removing potatoes as you go!
Tomato and Herb Terraces
Tomato and herb terraces are three-tiered containers which take up a space approximately 2 feet by 3 feet - or smaller, as needed! The structure saves space by overlapping the boxes so that there's plenty of soil and light for the plants, but the footprint stays small. It will hold as many as 6 small tomato plants, 3 large - as well as the smaller plants (basil, parsley, lettuce), that you plant at the feet of the tomatoes.Or perhaps you prefer a salad garden - all variety of lettuces, rocket, arugula, and so on. These containers are suitable for any variety of vegetable/fruit crops: imagine a raspberry bed or a herb garden! And in the winter, you can grow crops like kale, broccoli or cabbage.
These also make a nice accent feature in flower gardens, too!
This one (right) is an herb garden: thyme, rosemary, sage, parsley and oregano - with a few flowers thrown in!
Custom Containers
Any shape or size you can imagine! We can either customize the above containers, or make any variety of other containers, custom built for your particular needs. Anything that grows in a backyard garden can be grown in a container!
Fruit and Nut Trees
Many fruit trees also do fine in containers, given proper care. Dwarf varieties of orchard trees (apple, plum, pear, cherry, hazelnut) typically grow to 7-8 feet high, and need a good 6 feet in growing space - but they can also be espalliered (shaped flat to a wall or lattice).
We advise growing two trees of different varieties, since cross-pollination results in heavier yields (apples, pears and plums can cross-pollinate each other; or you may want two varieties of just one kind of fruit). Some grafted trees have several varieties on a single tree - or maybe you and a neighbour want to go in on one tree each! Or you may want to consider low-bush blueberries, currants and other berry bushes.
