Rapid urbanisation in our country has led to an acute shortage of open spaces. People living in urban areas mostly reside in apartments, so rooftops and balconies are increasingly becoming popular garden spaces. One needs to be more creative than a conventional gardener in such a case, because gardening in such a limited area can be a demanding endeavour. There are a few essential things you need to think of before starting a rooftop or balcony garden, like how to design the garden space, whether you want to grow vegetables or herbs or flowers, how often will you tend the garden, and, most importantly, how much weight can your roof and balcony take.
Buy large pots: You should be selective in choosing containers for plants, and spend money on a couple of large ones, rather than on many smaller ones. Popular materials for containers are wood, plastic and terracotta. Ceramic pots with a wide opening and a few holes for drainage can also be used for your garden.
Popular options: Some of the easy maintenance plants that you can grow are tomato, pepper, lettuce, spinach and peas. A fair-sized pot and some sunlight will help the tomato plant to blossom. Pepper is a typically sun loving plant and if your balcony receives adequate sunlight, it will flourish on its own. A medium sized pot will suffice for peas and you can put the container along the base of the handrails for the pea-vines to grow.
Lettuce and spinach will need potting soil from the store. You can lay the soil bag on its side, cut a hole on top and remove the plastic. Then put the seeds in it and water it regularly for it to blossom.
Don’t let shortage of space keep you from gardening, because a rooftop/balcony is good enough for a small garden with your favourite plants.
Payel Bhattacharjee
