Hello lovelies, summer is finally on its way and hopefully lots of hours of sunshine await us. I wish for that not only for ourselves, but also for: my balcony and my city farming paradise. You see, in collaboration with Do It + Garden Migros* I got to carry out a wonderful urban gardening project, and I'll be telling you about it not only today but all summer long. I already took you shopping along on Instagram, then came the building and planting, and today I'm happy to show you how my green balcony looks now. How far I've already gotten with urban gardening and what we planted. And of course I'll keep you posted on how successful we are with city farming and, hopefully, share our rich harvest with you. But I can tell you one thing already: I take incredible joy in my little "garden" and can only recommend everyone to do a bit of gardening too, because it simply makes you happy.
City Farming
You don't need much space at all for a successful planting project; even a small balcony can be transformed into a green oasis with city farming. First you of course need suitable planters, soil, fertilizer, and plants as well as seeds. And back then you could get all of that at the City Farming campaign at Do It + Garden Migros. In collaboration with the great girls from Kraut & Quer, the green pop-ups could be found until the end of June back then. The pros from Kraut & Quer were also on hand in the stores on certain days, to answer all your questions and give you valuable tips (and they were incredibly helpful, I know what I'm talking about!!). You could even have your shopping delivered to your home within 1 hour, a service Do It + Garden Migros offered in collaboration with the courier Anna Now.
These were the further dates in June back then:
Kids' Beds
So, in keeping with our options, I picked out a few raised beds for our patio, in front of and behind the house. Plus larger pots for tomatoes, flower boxes for the balcony railing, and the girls each got their own bed too – which they're extremely proud of! It's so important for the children to be involved in the first place. That way they can not only experience up close how things grow, but also bear responsibility for their beds. There, besides currants and raspberries, we planted lettuce, carrots, and radishes, and everything is already growing very well. The joy over the first little radish leaves that came out of the soil was simply huge. Each girl painted a sign, which we laminated and attached to the bed – so it's immediately clear whom the entire harvest belongs to :-).
Raised Beds
I distributed the various raised beds around the patio, and in them now grow fennel, celery, beets, kale, and kohlrabi. In another we planted snacking vegetables like cucumbers and peppers. And of course a whole bed full of herbs, like coriander, mint, verbena, parsley, etc. How to properly set up a raised bed I also learned at city farming and from Kraut & Quer. First comes a layer of expanded clay, on top of that a piece of fleece, then the soil, the fertilizer, and then the plant. This structure is important so the water doesn't pool and the plants can thrive optimally.
In the practical planters for the railing I now have flowers, but these are of course also ideal if you only have a balcony available. There you can plant herbs, tomatoes, or other snacking vegetables. In the hanging baskets, balcony tomatoes and strawberries in particular feel at home – I'm hoping for a bountiful harvest there too!
The children had wished for lots of fruit, so we planted a big fig tree, blueberries, blackberries, physalis, and of course strawberries. You can keep all of that nicely in larger pots, so it doesn't take much space at all. With the blueberries, it's simply important to know that they need a different soil (bog bed soil) and should therefore be planted separately (again something I learned from Kraut & Quer at city farming).
Upcycling
And then I have a little upcycling idea for you too. You can fit an old wooden ladder beautifully with flower holders and plant lavender and bee-friendly flowers in them. That not only looks pretty, but lets you make optimal use of the space too. You could grow herbs in it very well too. I rescued the ladder from the trash and take joy in it every day. The second part, by the way, stands in our living room and we use it as a blanket holder.
Tomatoes & Basil
In front of the house I planted various tomato varieties in big pots, because that's where there's the most sun. With the tomatoes you can plant basil very well or sow nasturtium too. With basil, keep in mind not to put it all in one spot, but to divide it up and give it more space. Here you can sadly already see my first little failure, because I planted the basil a bit too early, when it was still too cold. But you can learn from that too, and I hope it'll come along anyway or I'll have to plant new ones again.
Besides the tomatoes, I also have a bed with corn, beans, zucchini, and squash, and I'm already very curious how it will all thrive. In between you can plant lettuce very well, because before the other plants grow bigger, it'll already be ready to harvest. That way you can make optimal use of the space.
My first walk every morning is really past all the plants, to see how everything is thriving, whether anything has grown yet from what was sown, and when the first harvest can begin – well, that'll still take a little while :-) (patience was never my greatest strength). The children watch their beds very closely too, and I'm so happy about their interest. I think that's really a wonderful thing you can give the children for their journey. Especially these days I find it important that the children have respect for food and can experience up close how long it takes for something to grow and why it's so important that we avoid food waste.
Our herbs are already growing wonderfully, and we're already busy cooking with them, making ourselves tea from sage and putting peppermint in our smoothies – so even if the fruit and vegetables will of course still take a while, nature is already giving us something back.
I even found a spot for a pretty planting table. It's really practical for storing seeds, gloves, small garden tools, and you can place herbs on it too.
Do you have a garden or balcony, do you already do urban gardening, and if so, what do you all plant? I'm very curious about your experiences, and if you want to start but don't know what you all need – I can really only recommend city farming and the advice there to you. Sure, you can google everything too, but the pros of course have so much more experience, and especially such important information about what you can plant together and how is simply worth its weight in gold. No matter the size of your available space, you'll find a suitable planter, a variety of plants, and all the necessary accessories at Do It + Garden Migros, and then you can get started.
By the way, you're far from too late, because you get most things as plants/seedlings in organic quality, so you don't have to sow them yourself. The weather is only now turning really lovely.
So definitely stop by Instagram too and send me your pictures of your city farming paradise – I'd be incredibly happy. I'll keep you posted about my garden (especially on Instagram) and take you along again and again – including to the harvest, of course.
By the way, you can read how our garden project continued in my city farming paradise with everything about our raised bed garden. Once the harvest is ripe, I highly recommend our tomato peach salad, and you can see how my herbs live in the kitchen in the remodel of my kitchen work space.
Love, Verena
If you're on Pinterest, you can find me here and are welcome to pin this picture:
This blog post was created in collaboration with Migros Do It + Garden, but reflects my own opinion. ***
