Alternative Plant Containers for Balcony Gardening

To celebrate Earth Day today, I started the balcony garden. The work in progress may be finished by winter, but then again, I'll probably winter over a few things as well. This project perfectly illustrates the Dull Knife Way: maximum self-sufficiency with minimum expenditure.

After purchasing a few plants, a few seeds and a bag of potting soil, there wasn't much money left over that wasn't earmarked for other things, but even if that wasn't true I believe in reusing things. And, it's amazing what can be done when you look at things in a different way. Just about anything will hold dirt.

I had some pots left over from growing things in other years, but not enough for the scope of the garden laid out in my head, so I started hunting through the closets. And the trash. The dumpster yielded a couple of 2 liter soda bottles -- cut the tops off, cut a few drainage holes in the sides, fill with dirt and stick a vegetable plant in it. Still, not enough. An ugly old basket came down from the back of a top shelf, as did a plastic mesh container. I used the woven basket as-is, but the holes in the plastic container were too widely spaced, so I lined it with tinfoil because it works and it was all I had on hand.

Finally, an old glass punch bowl layered in an inch of dust, attesting to it's worth in my life. While the glass bowl doesn't have drainage holes, the glass lets me easily see the moisture level, so it's been okay so far.

As much as it might be fun to get all of the garden done now, it's just as well I have to go along slowly. Things grow at different rates and harvesting will be spaced out for months, so hopefully there will be a nice steady supply of fresh veggies for some time.

Broccoli, lemon cucumbers, spinach, scallions, chard and herbs are in the dirt. Next weekend: cauliflower, lettuces, radishes and strawberries, and a few more really unconventional containers. Note: the wood box you see to the left in the top picture isn't unconventional, but it did come to me through a friend who works for a produce stand. It used to hold kiwis. Also, the table everything rests on is an old wire spool I snagged when I was the assistant controller of an electrical contracting company. The point of all this is to look at everything you come across as if it could be used for something completely different than its intended use.

The important thing is to plant your own vegetables at a tiny fraction of the cost to buy them. It doesn't matter how the garden looks (mine is very far from pretty at this point) or what you have to do (dumpster diving) or use (anything you can find) to get it done. Just, make it so.