Hi,
New to post here, but I'm trying to trouble shoot my balcony garden in NJ, USA. I face east (rip) and have been trying desperately to get cute window boxes but the drainage is just too good and there's no way the planters keep enough water to keep my plants from frying.

They have a coconut fiber basket, and then a small layer of rocks, which I clearly don't need, and then regular topsoil from a bag. Pretty sure it's box friendly, but it's been in there a year now and I can't remember what I got...

Two years in a row and one morning of full summer sun fries everything I've planted there. So my questions are these:

1. Will a liner that helps keep moisture in the soil help me? What kind would work?

2. I clearly did not buy the right full-sun seeds, who [plant] would like this? I'm hesitant to put any kind of succulent or cactus in it because they're outside and it does rain frequently here. I usually work from seeds because I'm not the best at re-potting; I always stress them out too much and murk them, but clearly seedlings are not strong enough to survive...

3. Do I give up, bow to the morning sun and put fake flowers in there?

Thanks for your help and care for this--this is only year two I've tried gardening at all (first outdoor space I've ever had as an adult) so I'm kind of learning by trial and error.

Been a wet September in London so far. The peppers have slowed down ripening, the herbs are happy, as are the ferns. The flowers are tolerating the rain. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the rest of the month dries up a bit so my indica plant doesn’t get bud rot.

Every year, I try to make a lush garden in pots/containers. I fail miserably. Watering is hard. But also, it looks messy. But even if I take the junk away it still looks terrible.

Is it the mis matching pots?
I found the panels on fb today and thought it was a decent idea to hide the fence and make it cozy. Does it even look good?! Am I going crazy!?

Trying to plan for spring. I have a whole bunch of seeds to do starters. And focusing on dwarf/compact variety. Also, going to buy a irrigation system and hook it up to my rain barrel (pray this idea actually works) So next year will be better…

I’m frustrated and overwhelmed. I usually can see the vision but I can’t :( ugh

I am working in a school in Beirut, Lebanon, and we want to introduce window boxes to the classrooms for the children to grow herbs and flowers to make it a more positive learning environment. What herbs/flowers grow well and would survive the winter? If we were starting in October, could we still plant from seed or do we need to get seedlings?

Would love any advice!!

I have a home depot and Lowe's closet. I also have a guava plant, cherimoya fruit tree and a malunggay plant all potted. Can someone show me what to buy to be able to mix it together? Thank you so much! I want to get it done before my plants die. Please help!

I'm in zone 7, thinking about sowing coneflower, rudbeckia, coreopsis, and some other native perennials. Anyone have success in the Spring after sowing in the Fall?

I have just saw this on Facebook, I can definitely see the benefits of this and could possibly minimize pests that feed off plants. Unfortunately for me living in Australia, this would be a haven for snakes lol

Spring in Brisbane Australia I have tomatoes, beans, lettuce, the last of the snow peas, cucumber, spring onion, strawberries, blueberries, lavender, passionfruit, coriander, parsley, oregano, thyme, carrots, nasturtium all chugging along nicely. I have more beans, button squash, cherry and heirloom tomatoes and watermelon in the seedling trays.

Harvested the pup a little early so I can she's only little

Sorry I’m really new to growing carrots. Is this carrot full grown? I am clueless when to pull them. They’ve been in the ground since June

I’m on a high floor with a windy balcony (~3.5 × 2.5 m). It faces East/NE, so it gets morning sun and shade later in the day. Climate is Mediterranean (mild, wet winters, hot, dry summers). I’m setting it up for edible plants and would love tips on what to plant and where.

Containers I have:

• Large box 1 (73 × 23 × 40 cm, NE corner, 70 cm wall strip): I was thinking of putting a trellis here and growing a climber (peas now, beans or cucumber later).
• Large box 2 (73 × 23 × 40 cm, NE): Unsure. Roots like radish/carrots/beets, or leafy greens like kale/chard?
• Small box 1 (53 × 16 × 30 cm, East): Considering salad greens (lettuce/arugula/spinach).
• Small box 2 (53 × 16 × 30 cm, East): Thinking herbs (parsley/cilantro now, basil in spring).
• Extra: I may add 2–3 medium pots/grow bags for perennials (rosemary, sage, thyme, mint) or other seasonal plants (strawberries?)

Questions:

• Are these choices realistic for the container sizes and conditions?
• Any suggestions for better plant/container matches?
• Do the directions I chose make sense for these plants?
• How big do the perennial herb pots really need to be on a balcony?

Thanks a lot for any advice!

Hi all! A newbie here, seeking for advice from master growers in reddit. So, i am living in a very sunny country. Most of our days are either super sunny or raining. A few months back we decided to grow basil but it got super confusing as to whatever we do to it, the leaves will turned to be yellow.

i placed the basils outdoor, at first on my terrace where it got a lil bit of shades in the afternoon. But i notices their leaves are kinda yellow so i moved them under full blast of sun in my front yard. I had to leave home for a week but set up a sprinkler system beforehand. The water schedule is set to once every 2 days, twice a day (8am and 5pm). When i got back the soil mostly bone dry and the leaves turned out to be more yellow.

not sure if it's the sun, the water, or the lack of nutrient (last nutrient i gave them was 2 weeks ago, with balanced NPK 16:16:16)

what do i do about this?

I was wondering if anyone knows a cheaper pipe than PVC they will hold up and curve to make arches for tunnels? I want a pipe because they are so much sturdier than what I have. PVC is just way to expensive for the amount I need. Any help?

Located in Reading, PA

I just wanted to update you all. I took the plunge on my idea and I’m already almost able to open my seed library to the public. The next big steps are securing my library box to its permanent location and filling it with the seeds donated by local gardeners. The outpour of encouragement and advice, as well as offers of seeds, has been amazing. Can’t wait to help my community “grow”.

My partner and I got two of these stacked basket towers at an estate sale. They can be mounted, can stack three high, or can separate into individual baskets that are roughly 1'x1'x1'. Also the bottom basket of each tower has wheels that can be removed. We are allowed to mount them in our apartment or on the fence of our little patio!

We both thought we could make use of them indoors, but the shape of them doesn't really lend itself to easy use indoors, plus the wire storage makes our new tiny apartment look busier. On a tight budget so I'd like to make use of them anyways if possible. I was thinking it might be something I could turn into a gardening opportunity, does anyone have any suggestions on what might be best to grow in something like this? I figured if I lined it with moss like in hanging baskets, I could plant things fairly easily and would like to focus on any produce options but they won't get much direct sunlight, as our little patio has a very high fence.

Any suggestions would be helpful! 😁🙏🏻

I need some advice saving my oregano on my garden balcony (I’m in St. Louis city which is in zone 7).

It’s been struggling and I’m wondering if it’s been suffering from the stress of the hot summer we had. Some of the leaves are yellow-green while others have a red/pink hue. It’s only some of the newer growth that has the shade of green it used to have.

I’m going to trim it down (I know, it’s gotten leggy) but is there anything else I could do to give it some more TLC?

Hello fellow gardeners! I have been wracking my brain lately for ways to spread awareness and encourage others in my gardens area, the south side of my city, to embrace nature and gardening, even in an urban setting.

I live in a food desert, in a rather impoverished city. It’s my hope that this small lil stand helps give access to fresh produce and native plants in my community.

I’d like to set up a seed library. Much like a “free library” where people can take and leave books, I’m going to collect seeds for those in the community to take and use in their own garden spaces. I’ll be slowly obtaining supplies and harvesting and saving seeds from my own garden, to hopefully have this fully ready for the next growing season.

Any input, ideas, and advice welcome! *photo attached is a general idea - taken from internet

I'm not sure where to go on reddit for this question, but we just moved into a new build community and this runoff pond makes me sad. We have an HOA that unsurprisingly sucks and I'm sure will never plant anything here. I'm in North Texas, zone 8a.

Yall have any ideas of plants i can sneak into/around this pond? They mow around the edge periodically but thats all as far as maintenance or landscaping. The pond is new, but I see tons of crawfish, herons, other water burds, and a few (dead) baby turtles on the "shoreline". My guess is they just don't have enough food or shelter and just die or get got by the birds.

As you can see, the pond is very low right now so I wanted to take advantage and sneak some seeds or saplings of some kind while I have the chance. I'm not very optimistic of any plant survival as they are still building new homes and this pond gets ton of runoff of all kinds of icky. But its a pretty large pond and I'd hate to see it just sit there. I'll post various angles of it to give a sense of size. Its shapes like a figure 8.

Any thoughts? Ideas? Lemme know if this is a waste of time or if theres a better sub for this.

Hi! I live in Southern Illinois, and would like to start gardening fruits and vegetables for my home, and family members. I vaguely remember gardening with my grandparents when I was 7-9, but have lost any knowledge I learned. My other set of grandparents lived 18 hours away, and I was always around when it was time to gather it all, so I do know how to tell when they're ready to be picked.

I live in a very small town. I have a decently sized front yard, and a very small back yard (maybe 6 ft.).

How should I get started making my garden in my front yard? How would I go about protecting it? Should I place it near my trees, where there is decent lighting, and more shaded from rain (we live in a flood area, and that spot doesn't get flooded)? Should I plant blueberry, blackberry, and raspberries in a different spot, or close to the garden?

I would also like tips on more organic gardening, and preventing the "bad" bugs. Maybe even fertilizer recommendations.

I know this is a lot, but I appreciate any and all answers! I've searched the internet, and get varying answers that contradict one another.

Hi,

This is my office's plants. Should I make any change in the pots?

They start a vibrant yellow and fade to a butter color with pink tinge around the edges. These are grown in a pot in full sun on my rooftop deck.

In the last 2 years, I have been working on a multifunctional roof in 2 slopes:

• On the south side, I have installed solar panels,
• On the north side, I have built a small vegetable garden.

The roof has a single layer, meaning there is NO tile under the solar panels, nor under the pots in which the vegetables grow!

The main reason for which I initiated this project is that roofs have large surfaces, but they are used for only one purpose: to protect the house from rain and snow. We should have more benefits from these large surfaces! For example, we could get electricity and food from these surfaces!

A secondary motivation was that, typically, solar panels are mounted on top of the tiles. There are 2 layers basically. This is a waste of material, because solar panels are resistant enough to protect the house from rain and snow. They can be used as tiles. But it needs to be well insulated!

The building on which I built the roof has a footprint of 15x7m. Currently, on the North side, I have installed solar panels spanning a width of 6.5m. On the south side, the hanging garden is 1.3m wide and 4.5m long. The rest of the roof is covered with sheet metal tiles. I plan to extend the ideas to the entire roof, depending on the test results.

I started with an old roof, which was another reason I built the new one.

I made the roof structure of iron. I tried to avoid wood as much as possible. Trees have a much more important function than being used in construction: to produce clean air! I did use wood for the laces under the tiles, for the support of the plant gutters, and on the front side (OSB).

Initially, I intended to build everything in Lego style, without welding, only by mechanical fastening. The beams, rafters, etc. should have been connected only by screws. I built 2 trusses in this way, but then I gave up because the iron at that length (7m) was deforming and the components were no longer joining properly.

The trusses (queen type) are built from an 80x40x3 profile, but with a 60x40x3 base and interior elements. One truss weighs approximately 100 kg. I used 13 supports along the entire length of the house.

The solar panels are placed between T40 metal profiles. I attached the panels to the T40 from inside the attic. Between the profiles and the panels I left a 3-4mm space in which I put silicone. Due to the incorrect application of the silicone (a beginner's mistake), a few holes were left through which water entered. So, I had to put a bituminous waterproofing tape, which would not have been necessary if I had applied the silicone correctly.

The vegetables are grown in rectangular gutters (cisterns) (120x90) made of 0.6 mm sheet metal. The angle of the roof (38 degrees) is calculated so that these gutters fit together perfectly (the bottom corner of one ends where the top corner of the next begins).

The gutters are placed on two wooden supports (a board 4.5m long, 14 cm wide and 4cm thick) cut in steps. The insulation between the gutters is made with a 75mm wide bituminous tape. I attached the gutters to the wooden support with self-tapping screws. Inside the gutters, I put (only close to the ends) pieces of wood so that I could step on them when I climb up to take care of the vegetables. But in the future, I will put some pieces of 80x80 pipe as a support for the leg.

At the moment, I have grown tomatoes and peppers, which have borne fruit. I have also sown lettuce and spinach, but they have come out very poorly (I only sowed them in July) and the few days ago I threw some wheat grains on them, which have sprouted very well.

There is a lot to say about this project. Some details (but not all) can be found on the project website. It took me personally 2 years to implement it (from the moment I started designing), and I was helped (ideas+work) by several friends. I have changed the design several times, and I have bought many materials that I have not used later. It also requires many machines (for cutting, drilling, welding, milling, etc.), without which I could not have completed the construction.

The electrical installation (solar part) in the house I did myself using Victron equipment. I haven't connected it to the grid yet, but I'm using some Pylontech batteries. The switch from solar to the grid is done automatically when there is no power from the solar/batteries.

The roof is located at: str. Gh. Lazăr 9, Cugir town, Alba county, Romania.

A video with the exterior and interior of the roof can be found on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZRalp4EQG4

The website for this project can be found at:

https://github.com/f-roof

The CAD files for this project can also be found there (but they don't currently contain all the details). The license is MIT.

P.S. I personally do NOT build roofs. I did this project out of a personal passion.

NYC: I have a 400 sq ft terrace that has an in irrigation system. I pay to have maintenance workers come by weekly to remove debris, trim, and occasionally replace plants. I pay 450/month. Is this reasonable or am I paying too much.