Growing vegetables on an enclosed balcony: 20 kinds of vegetables in 2 sq m, enough to eat all year

Step one of growing vegetables: making use of space

On a small 2 sq m balcony, the first thing to think about is how to use the space. All kinds of iron and wooden racks are the basic tools for growing vegetables vertically.

Specific steps:

For a spot near the window, where light is good and use efficiency is high, set up a two-tier wooden rack. You can have it custom-made from anti-corrosion wood boards, with waterproof cloth as an inner lining, and plant chives, small chili peppers and small tomatoes. To prevent overheating from direct sun right next to the window, you can stick reflective heat-insulating aluminum film on the side facing the window.

On two sides of the balcony you can set up two rows of movable iron racks. Make one row into a single-tier hanging type, used for growing climbing vegetables such as cucumbers. You can imitate the way of a greenhouse, using thin white string as guide lines so the vines grow upward along the strings. Make multi-tier shelves on the side of the rack for placing small potted plants, growing strawberries.

The other row of racks can be set up with multi-tier hydroponic vegetables, using hydroponic pipe cultivation, to grow some leafy greens, such as lettuce, water spinach and garland chrysanthemum. Hydroponic leafy greens are planted crop after crop, clean and soil-free, and grow quickly.

Step two of growing vegetables: light and ventilation

The biggest problem with an enclosed balcony is that the sunlight hours are too short, plus the very fatal ventilation problem.

Light:

Living in a building, in a small balcony, although more than 10 hours of natural light a day cannot be achieved, to meet the growth needs of the plants we can provide artificial supplementary light. Install LED grow lights on each row of racks to increase light.

Ventilation:

When ventilation is poor, install equipment too: mount two solar panels at the top of the window, connected to fans installed at both ends of the racks, so that the whole enclosed environment is in a state of air flow, preventing the balcony temperature and humidity from getting too high, which easily breeds pests and diseases.

Step three of growing vegetables: the trouble of pests and diseases

When growing vegetables on a balcony, what cannot be avoided is the breeding of pests and diseases. Some are small insects that fly in from outside, and some may be pathogens or insect eggs carried in the soil.

For the problem of pests and diseases, the most important thing is frequent observation: detect early and deal with it early. Remove plants affected by pests and diseases to prevent them from continuing to harm other vegetables. When the pest infestation is severe, in order to wipe them out, a small amount of pesticide can be used.

If you don't want to use pesticide, we can catch the insects by hand, hang yellow sticky insect traps next to the vegetables, or make our own chili water: choose especially spicy red chili peppers, add water and boil for half an hour, let it cool, then spray it on the surface of the vegetables.