can tolerate slightly less sun and grow well with just morning sun in most areas. A very shady balcony, deck or yard is going to be far less productive than a sunny area.
How much sun a location receives changes with the seasons. In mid-summer the angle of the sun to the ground is much higher than in winter. Consider what can happen when there is a line of trees nearby, or a neighboring building. They might block the low-angled rays of a winter sun, but the high summer sun can clear the tops, making the ground below sunny for summer vegetables. You should also be aware of the types of trees close to the place you plan for your garden. Are they deciduous? A deciduous tree drops its leaves in fall, which allows more sun through in the winter.
If you are evaluating your potential garden space during that time, you could mistakenly think that there will be light enough for your veggies come summer. But when the leaves come out in spring, you could be unpleasantly surprised to find the trees are blocking the sunlight, so a spot that was sunny in winter is now too shady to grow summer vegetables.
East-west is best. If you are house- or apartment-hunting, you will ideally want to see the location in summer so that you can assess the sunlight, but a general guide would be to find a home with an east-west orientation. Having morning sunlight streaming into kitchen windows and afternoon sun bathing your balconies and patios gives you optimum possibilities for your garden plans. On the other hand, a north-south orientation gives very little direct sun in the morning and afternoon. Likewise, an apartment unit on the north side of a building would be problematic for growing vegetables.
Having sun coming directly through a sunny window is particularly important for indoor growing, as well as for starting seeds. A room that is light enough for most people is generally not sufficiently bright for vegetables to thrive. The intensity of light decreases rapidly from a window to the center of a room. Modern window glazing impedes the rays coming in from the sun just as it keeps drafts and cold temperatures out of the room. Consequently, an apparently bright, sunny room that is lit by indirect sunlight may be pleasant to sit in and perfectly fine for many houseplants, but it is not bright enough for many vegetables, such as summer squash or eggplants.
Unless you have a bright, south-facing room with lots of window space, some supplemental light will be essential for indoor growing.
Apartment Growing
Asher Wittenberg is a young man starting his professional life in New York City, where he has an apartment. He enjoys cooking but found that essential fresh herbs were hard to find and expensive to buy. His mother, garden writer Nan Sterman, sent Asher some seeds so that he could grow fresh herbs on his sunny windowsill. The container is placed outside the window on a ledge that is about 8 inches deep, and he waters the garden by opening the window next to the garden. Now Asher is enjoying his first garden and harvesting fresh lettuce as well as basil and cilantro for his recipes.
Basil, cilantro and colorful lettuce fill the container.
This container of herbs sits comfortably on a ledge outside Asher’s window.
Water. For healthy growth, plants need consistent water. Since nature does not always provide that, the gardener will have to supplement where necessary. Outside containers are particularly hungry for water and dry out very quickly in the height of summer (see page 40 for container watering solutions). It goes without saying that an outside spigot is very helpful for watering both containers and the garden plot. Don’t place your garden area too far from the water source, because two or three hoses strung together produces a much lower stream of water than just a single hose. Think about getting one of the modern hoses that coil or roll into small bundles for neat storage; they take up much less space than a conventional hose. A timer on the hose to water at dawn is also useful but can be wasteful if the water comes on during a rainstorm, so keep an eye on the weather forecast and adjust the timer when necessary. Too much water can be as detrimental to a plant as too little.
Sharing space with your vegetables. Your vegetable garden might end up competing for space with other things, like gym sets, sand pits and paddling pools – or a volleyball net and room to throw a soccer ball. For balconies and patios, you need to leave room for a chair or two and maybe a barbecue. Your enthusiasm for colorful, productive containers can be wonderful until the sheer number of containers makes it hard for you to turn around!
Finding balance. The reality is that you probably will not be able (or willing) to grow every vegetable you like to eat – whether you don’t have the time, energy or space, or you love some vegetables that take up too much room for a small home plot. I recommend growing some things at home, some things in a community garden, then using a farm stand or farmer’s market to supplement your homegrown produce. That way, you are optimizing your garden space. And don’t forget the value of exchanging garden produce with friends who also garden.
Rooftop Gardening
There has been a revolution in growing vegetables in less conventional spaces, and that includes rooftops. For a simple container, this is not a big deal as long as you can get water to the garden. More extensive rooftop gardens require careful planning and more than likely require permission as well. For apartment dwellers though, this can be a wonderful space to have a small garden – with abundant sunshine and no animals to create havoc when the crops are ripe (except for fruit-loving birds). Definitely worth looking into!
A Garage Does Double Duty
Carol Siracuse and Tom Palamusa live on a small urban plot that has neither sun nor room in the front or back to successfully grow all the vegetables that they wanted to use. Their solution was to create a garden on the roof of their garage. It is accessed with a library ladder and affectionately known as the vegetable library. In the three years since they started, the garden has expanded to 20 wooden boxes lined up along the supporting edge of the garage roof. The garden is watered primarily with a hose. Because the garage faces the driveway and road, Carol and Tom incorporate colorful flowers in among the vegetables.
Gaining Space by Vertical Growing
Vertical growing has been around as long as container growing. You have probably seen espaliered fruit trees in walled gardens or grape vines in greenhouses – both using the vertical plane to allow the tree or vine to grow in a protected environment. (Espalier is an ancient method of artistically pruning branches against a frame or wall to control growth.) More recently, though, the idea of using that vertical plane to grow vegetables, or to maximize the space on a patio, has taken on a new look. Tomatoes, which traditionally have been grown from the ground up and supported on stakes, continued that
