Installing a balcony vegetable garden and growing vegetables and herbs, even in town, is perfectly possible. In previous articles, we saw that there are many solutions for urban gardening even without a garden: grow bags, and also raised beds.
Still, you can’t make the walls any bigger! What other option is there? Choose vegetables and varieties suited to small spaces. These compact or dwarf vegetable plants are often productive. They yield full-size or small-scale vegetables, which is perfect when you don’t need to feed a large family or when you grow as much for enjoyment as for flavour!
To prevent you from restricting yourself to radishes, we have prepared on the site a wide selection of vegetables perfectly suited to small spaces and also ideal for mini vegetable gardens (including square beds); here is a sample:
1) Salads
Almost all lettuces can be grown in pots, but admit that a large heading lettuce, for example, takes up a lot of room. That’s why we recommend cut-and-come-again lettuces and mescluns. However, if you insist on harvesting neat heading lettuces, I recommend:
- Tom Thumb butterhead lettuce: a butterhead type that forms small heads about 15 cm across.
- Little Gem lettuce, the romaine cousin, produces small tender-headed lettuces with excellent flavour.
2) Tomatoes
Cherry tomato is queen of the balcony. If you have a large balcony, you can grow any variety. Otherwise, to avoid the plant taking over the space with its generosity, choose varieties that are productive but of moderate vigour. Some trailing types can even be grown in hanging pots.
- Cherry tomatoes Balconi Red and Balconi Yellow are two F1 hybrids. They produce small ruby-red and golden-yellow fruits about 3 cm in diameter. Their advantage is an ultra-compact habit, with bushy plants that only reach about 30 cm high and as wide.
- Pendulina Red and Pendulina Yellow are similar. From Sweden, they are well suited to hanging pots and will form cascades of pretty cherry fruits weighing 15–30 g, red or yellow depending on the variety.
3) Courgettes
Non-vining courgettes are also available in miniature forms and are easy to grow, such as:
- Courgette 'Patio Star' F1. Ideal for pots, it forms plants about 45 cm high and 60 cm wide and yields delicious small cylindrical dark-green fruits.
- Round 'Eight Ball' courgette stands out for its round fruits: excellent quality and harvestable once about 5 cm in diameter. This variety is repeat-bearing and produces over a long period.
4) Peppers and chillies
Still in the "sun veg" category, peppers and chillies love sunny small spaces. Among miniature varieties, you will probably fall for:
- the Mini Chocolate Bell pepper: productive, producing small red-brown fruits 3–5 cm across.
As for chillies, I invite you to discover:
- Red Cherry chilli (small) produces round fruits the size of a cherry tomato, bright red. Beware, it is very hot!
5) Aubergines
Aubergines love heat and will be perfectly happy on a balcony or terrace sheltered from draughts. Lack of space is a great opportunity to discover surprising varieties.
- 'Patio Baby' aubergine is a very early and productive variety that produces compact plants with small fruits, ideal for container growing or confined spaces. Plant in April–May for harvest from July to October.
- Pusa Purple Cluster aubergine has much to recommend it: originating from India, it is productive and forms clusters of small purple fruits on plants of normal size, very decorative and tasty.
- White Round Egg aubergine is a dwarf variety, producing pretty white, round fruits the size of an egg on plants about 30 cm high.
- If you prefer classic types, the Ophelia aubergine is perfect: the plant stays under 35 cm and its dark-purple fruits reach about the size of a golf ball.
6) Carrots
Growing carrots on a balcony is not difficult, but you must choose a container deep enough for root development. Half-long carrots (such as Carotte de Luc) are therefore well suited, but in pots or standard window boxes, peg-top varieties give the best results. I particularly recommend:
- Carrot 'Marché de Paris': an early variety with round, reddish-orange roots, tender and flavoursome. These small carrots are great glazed or as a snack.
7) Cucumbers
Cucumbers are often seen as space-hungry, but they trellis easily. In small gardens or containers, snack-type cucumbers such as 'Rocky', 'Broumana F1' or 'Iznik F1' are popular. They are just as crisp as standard types, but fruit size does not exceed 15 cm.
8) Beans, peas, broad beans
Dwarf beans and dwarf peas are not necessarily the best answer to limited space… Prefer pole varieties of beans and peas that use vertical space by climbing trellises. Plants occupy less ground area and provide abundant harvests. If you like broad beans, I especially recommend the variety Robin Hood, which yields nice short pods with green seeds on plants about 30 cm high.
The list is not exhaustive and for other vegetables, such as cabbages, leeks, sweetcorn... please consult our collection of balcony vegetables on our site.
To conclude, allow me to remind you of key success factors for growing beautiful vegetables on a balcony or terrace:
- use quality potting compost (avoid the cheapest bags that dry out very quickly)
- remember to fertilise regularly
- monitor watering, as container-grown crops are more vulnerable to dry spells.
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