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A Garden In Pots
Growing something worth eating on a balcony, a step or a windowsill
A Garden In Pots
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A4 · this is a layout preview in the “Handbook” design. When you generate, the studio writes every chapter in full, paints the cover and chapter art, and composes a downloadable A4 PDF with your name, bio and store link on it.
A small growing space is not a compromised garden; it is a different one, with its own rules about light, wind and water. This guide works through those rules in order, so the plants you buy suit the space you actually have rather than the one in the photograph.
What's inside
- 1Reading The Light You Actually HaveHow to log sun hours across one clear day and what each band of light allows you to grow. After this chapter you will know whether you are in tomato territory or salad territory before spending anything.
- 2Pots, Compost And DrainageChoosing pot sizes that hold water long enough to forgive you, and what to fill them with instead of garden soil. You will finish able to pot up a container that drains properly and keeps its structure through a season.
- 3Six Plants That Forgive BeginnersA short list of herbs, leaves and one fruiting crop that cope with containers, interruptions and British weather. After this chapter you will have a planting list matched to your light log.
- 4Watering In Wind And HeatWhy containers dry from the top and the sides at once, and how to water so it reaches the roots rather than running down the gap. You will learn a checking method that takes ten seconds per pot.
- 5Feeding And RepottingWhen container compost runs out of nutrients and what to do about it without a shed full of products. After this you can keep plants productive from midsummer onwards instead of watching them stall.
- 6Winter And Starting AgainWhat to protect, what to cut back and what to simply let go, plus the small January jobs that make spring easier. You will end with a short seasonal checklist for a container garden.
A sample from chapter one
Watch the light before you buy anything
Before a single pot arrives, spend one clear day noting when the sun reaches your space and when it leaves. Check at nine, at midday, at three and at six, and write the times down. Four hours of direct sun is the line most edible plants care about: above it you can grow tomatoes and beans, below it you are in the useful world of salad leaves, mint and chard.
Walls matter as much as hours. A south-facing brick wall stores heat and releases it overnight, which stretches your season by weeks. An exposed corner with wind funnelling through it will dry a pot out by lunchtime whatever the forecast says. Note where the wind arrives from, then put your toughest plants in its path and keep the tender ones tucked behind them.
- Check your tenancy agreement and building rules before fixing anything to walls or railings.
- Pots under twenty centimetres across dry out too quickly outdoors to be worth planting.
- Every pot needs a drainage hole and a tray to keep run-off off the balcony below.
- Group pots together so they shade each other's compost and lose less water on hot days.
Key takeaways
- The light you have decides the plant list, rather than the plant list deciding your light.
- Wind dries a small garden out faster than heat does, so shelter beats sunshine in an exposed spot.
- Bigger pots are easier than small ones, because they forgive the watering you forget.
The studio writes every chapter from this outline, paints the art and hands you a PDF you can sell the same afternoon.
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