Want to grow your own vegetables on the terrace but don’t know how to begin? Lifewall the pioneer of Vertical, Terrace, Rooftop & Balcony Gardening in India, will explain to you all you need to know to start your own Veggies Terrace Garden. The right mix of the soil to what veggies to grow and how to take care of them. Here is your complete guide to a lush green urban terrace garden.
Earlier in India every house had a kitchen garden in the backyard. The culture got lost somewhere but we want to recreate them back by growing garden on the terrace or rooftops in Urban areas. Nowadays many people are interested in terrace gardens but they don’t know how to start it, practically speaking terrace or rooftop gardens takes lots of time and patience. Here in this article, we are going to help the beginners how and where to start gardens on terrace or rooftops.
Getting started with organic terrace garden:
Right Space for your terrace garden:
You can build your garden in two ways that are you can cover the entire area with soil and can use to grow garden, but in this case before starting you need to make sure to waterproof the surface to avoid any leakage into the home. Another method is a regular terrace garden with pots. Once you decided with the method can go forward with other things like pots, seeds, and soil.
Suggestion: If your house is an apartment then go with pots, if your house is a villa or individual bungalow then try another method.
Right Soil:
The next and very important thing is soil, as the nutrients decide the growth of the plant. The right soil requires the mix of regular soil, compost coir peat, and vermicompost in equal quantities. Can add compost every week to make sure the soil has enough nutrients to grow plants.
Suggestion: After the heavy rains we should add nutrients back to the soil as the water tends to wash the nutrients away. So after every heavy rain add compost to the soil to restore the nutrients.
The first step to first-time gardeners:
If it is your first time at gardening, can start with a small pot and single easy growing vegetable like cabbage, tomatoes, chilies and then gradually expand to other veggies. As these plants are easier to grow and don’t require much care. These plants seeds are easily available in the kitchen, ex: cut the ripped tomato and use it to grow a tomato plant, dried chilly seeds can be used to grow chilies.
Suggestion: You should have lot of patience as it will take a couple of months to give results. Don’t grow all the plants in single pot use different pots to grow.
A complete list of terrace garden plants:
All most all every vegetable we can grow on the terrace. French beans, chilies, tomatoes, brinjal, okra, and lime are easier to grow. You can also try if you have more space ridge guard, bottle guard, root vegetables like carrots, radish. You need to get the seeds, nowadays all the seeds are available online.
Suggestion: It is better to try simple vegetable first after that go for the rest of the vegetable as all the plants require more care. Use only organic boosters and fertilizers.
Important things to know:
Watering regularly is a must. According to the season need to take care of the plant. In summer season need to pour water twice a day. In winter season check the moisture level in soil and then pour the water accordingly. In the rainy season it is better not to water the garden not even one day after the rain as the water drains all the nutrients away. Another important thing the plants should get at least 4 to 6 hours of sunlight every day, so choose the place accordingly for the terrace garden.
Suggestion: If sunlight is too harsh use shades to prevent the plants.