FoAM offered me to transform their small balcony into a Bioproductive site. It will allow me to practice gardening and garden design.

The balcony is facing East and South. Walls protect it from West and North. Thanks to its position at the last floor of the building, he gets sunlight during most of the day. He can also benefit from rainfalls, as it is not cover by a roof or another balcony.

I borrowed this fantastic book from Annemie's library, and extracted most of the following design principles from its deliciously-written pages.

Here are the design principles I will try to apply in the design of the Bioproductive Balcony:

• Big planters need less water: biggest pots & planters dry less quickly and need less watering.
• Small plants go in the front: place the smallest plants on the front of the balcony to avoid shading by taller ones.
• Place shade-tolerating plants behind sun-liking: place the shade-tolerating plants (mostly leaf- and root-vegetables) behind the sun-liking (mostly fruit-bearing plants).
• Apply companion planting: place plants benefiting from each other the one next to the other.
• Perform crop rotations: do not plant the same plants at the same spot all the time & make several harvests within one growing season.

Here are some sketches representing potential designs for the balcony.

Here are some details about seedling pots made from waste, planters made out of grocery bags, self-watering trials and windshields.

I built most of my seedling pots out of waste packaging found in FoAM's bin.

I used many different kinds:

• Plastic bottles bottoms
• Aluminium drinking cans
• Aluminium food cans
• Small & big plastic yoghurt pots
• Cardboard-aluminium drink boxes bottoms
• Cream cheese plastic boxes
• Appetizers plastic boxes
• Vegetable plastic boxes
• Eggboxes
• Toilet paper rolls

The only thing not to forget is to poke holes at the bottom of the containers for draining.

My favorites remain plastic boxes. Aluminium cans are good, but their cutting edge may be harmful for some creeper's thin stems. Pure cardboard ones, like eggboxes and toilet paper rolls dry very quickly and are fragile when soaked with water. I would not advise them.

My first batch was made from very big pots, which need a lot of soil to be filled. My subsequent ones where made with smaller pots, to save the amount of soil use and start out more seeds from the beginning.

To start out seedlings, I would say that small yogurt pots are the best I found until now.

After some web research, I understood that it seemed completely fine to use common grocery bags as a planter. I ended up sewing one out at the right dimensions from a similar plastic fabric found in FoAM's storage space. This bag is now the main growing space on the balcony, and the first radishes planted there are thriving !

I also performed some self-watering trials.

After dramatic death of my first seedlings during a windy day, I started to think about how to protect the plants on the balcony from the wind. I have currently installed a piece of transparent plastic and some glass windows as windshields. I may move towards a system based on plastic bottles.

I am looking for seeds, and I have a few of them to exchange too. Have a look at my seed library and get in touch with me (michka dot melo at gmail dot com) if you wish to get/exchange some.

On February 26th, I planted indoors the following seeds brought by Rasa:

• Three pots of Cornichon Vert Petit de Paris (small cucumbers)
• Three pots of black and purple Beans
• Two pots of Cherry Tomatoes
• Two pots of Green Peas
• One pot of Bio Brocoli Vert (broccoli)
• One pot of Garlic
• One pot of Pak choi Taisai
• One pot of Epinard Matador (spinach)

On March 3rd, I planted indoors the following seeds bought at Fraternités Ouvrières's garden:

• One pot of Aubergine Ronde de Valence (eggplant).
• One pot of Concombre Vyaznikosku (cucumber)
• One pot of Lentille Verte (Lentils)
• One pot of Poivron King of the North (pepper)
• One pot of Poivron Doux Chocolat (pepper)
• One pot of Piment Hot Cherry (chili)
• One pot of Tournesol Géant (sunflower)
• One pot of Tomate Jaune Yellow Belgium (yellow tomato)
• One pot of Tomate Blanche Douce de Picardie (white tomato)
• One pot of Tomate de Bonne Garde New Zealand Paste Pink (pink tomato)
• One pot of Tomate Grimpante De Bearo (creeping tomato)

On March 4th, I planted indoors the following seeds bought at Fraternités Ouvrières's garden:

• One pot of Basilic Pesto (basil)
• One pot of Réglisse Française (liquorice)
• One pot of Stevia Stevie
• One pot of Verveine Officinale (verbena)
• One pot of Saponaire (cockle)

On March 25th, I planted indoors many others seeds (156 exactly). Detailed report is coming…

I started direct sowing of a few vegetables on the balcony. Here are the information I gathered to sow Céléri à couper and Carottes.

• Fraternités Ouvrières, Mouscron
• Graines de Troc website
• Plant Catching website
• From friends

As I have quite a lot of wall surface, I would like to grow many creepers.

• Cucumbers
• Creeping-tomatoes
• Beans
• Small squashes

• Radish
• Salads - especially varieties with continuous growth

• Peppers
• Egg-plants

• Garlic
• Green onions
• Chives
• Thyme
• Rosemary