When we hear folks claim that they can’t garden where they live, it’s often a matter of growing space, lack of sunlight, or financial abilities! But when we say anyone can garden, we really mean anyone! Apartment gardening can be easy and cost effective whether you’re growing on your balcony or your kitchen counter. Especially when you’re using high-quality, open-pollinated seeds in your garden. Here we’re going to spell out some small space gardening tips, so that by the end, you’ll be ready to get growing regardless of your garden space! 

Choosing a Location for Your Apartment Garden 

Location, location, location - it’s true in real estate AND gardening! You’ll have to keep a few things in mind in order to set your small space garden up for success.

Indoor vs Outdoor

Depending on the type of space you’re working with, you may have access to the outdoors or you may be limited to a sunny kitchen window! Do not fear, both of these are workable. 

If you’re working with an outdoor area, think about how to maximize the space - can you use hanging pots as well as some that sit on the ground? Can you take advantage of vertical growing where you could grow cucumbers or squash on a trellis? Will a mess cause problems with neighbors? Where is the nearest water source? 

When working with an indoor space, keep an eye on the area for a few days. Measure how many hours of direct and indirect sunlight it actually gets. Consider ways to maximize that space as well! Can you install shelves in a window so you can get multiple layers of containers in it? 

Regardless of which space you decide on, you’ll want to keep a few more things in mind. 

Sunlight

It’s important to choose the spot in your home or outdoor space with the most light. This will help widen the types of plants you’re able to grow. Many fruiting plants require a full day of sunlight (6-8 hours) which can be hard to come by in an apartment or certain urban homes. But, if you don’t have that much light there are still options! Salad greens (such as arugula and lettuce) and kitchen herbs (chives, thyme, and oregano) can all be partial-shade tolerant. 

Think about the spaces you have at your disposal - do you have a sunny window with a warm afternoon glow? A balcony that shines all day? Access to a rooftop area? These kinds of questions will help you determine which  kinds of plants you’ll be able to grow with success! 

Water

As you may know, water is extremely important for growing success. And access to water- arguably more so! A rooftop garden is all great and good until you have to lug gallons and gallons of water up and down the stairs. So! One of the most important things to consider is where you’re getting your water from. Tap water is just fine for plants, and a small watering can can make filling up from your kitchen sink a breeze. 

For outdoor plants, it can be tempting to let nature do its thing, relying on rain for water. But this can quickly become a problem if a drought hits your area, so we recommend having a backup plan just in case. 

Wherever you decide to place your garden, locate a reasonable water source where you can expect to regularly water your garden from! 

Soil

Turning a lawn into a garden is one thing - but a cement block? Or a wooden deck? Different situation. Luckily for you, garden supply stores will carry a wide range of soils and other materials that you can fill your containers with. Typically, you’ll look for a soil mix that is some combination of top soil and compost. 

You can also make a mix of your own, about 40% compost, 40% topsoil, and 20% some aerating agent such as perlite - all of which can easily be purchased. Or you can find a container garden soil mixture at any garden store! 

Depending on how much soil you’re buying, we know it can get expensive. But the best part of container gardening is that you can take the containers and the soil with you wherever you go! 

Wind 

Certain balconies or rooftops can be prone to rapid winds which can tear through plant leaves or even flip over pots on certain days. If this is your growing space, it’ll be important to have some kind of windbreak like a railing or screen of some kind. Alternatively, choosing containers that are wide and low to the ground can help anchor them even in the face of winds. 

Choosing the Right Plants for Your Garden

With all these factors taken into consideration, you’ll have narrowed down the best growing spot. While it may not be perfect, we promise there’s plenty to be done regardless of the size or situation! Certain traits of your growing location may dictate what kind of plants you can grow. In order to have the most success, you’ll want to dial in on what will grow in your situation! For instance, you may not want to spend your time trying to grow tomatoes on your kitchen counter, but basil can thrive in that environment! 

Herbs

Growing herbs inside is a delight for many reasons. There’s nothing quite like waltzing over to your windowsill in the middle of cooking to pluck a fresh sprig of sage off of your very own plant. On top of that, you’ll find your home is constantly filled with the delicious smell of fresh culinary herbs. 

Most herbs are pretty easily grown indoors but for a failsafe trial run choose the more agreeable, low maintenance herbs like basil, chives, oregano, parsley, rosemary, and thyme. These are great options for indoor herb gardens with limited light, however providing a grow light can be very helpful in increasing your harvests! 

Vegetables

When we’re stepping up our container gardening game to include vegetables, we’ve got to think a little bigger. These plants tend to be larger than herbs, so can require larger pots. Tomatoes are perfectly happy in a pot (no smaller than two feet wide) with a tomato cage to help support them. Tomatoes can also be put in hanging pots, hanging upside down over a railing. Plants like kale and swiss chard can also be grown in containers and offer a less sun-dependent growing option. You might consider filling a window box with baby lettuce so you always have fresh salad greens. Check out our lettuce mix or our herb salad mix for a more flavorful option. You might even consider experimenting with growing carrots and beets in pots that are at least 10 inches deep. 

When growing a container garden like this, we recommend having an outdoor space for your crops. These vegetables tend to require more light, six to ten hours of sunlight per day, making them a great option for a patio or deck! 

Fruits

Believe it or not you can even grow melons in containers! You’ll want to be working with at least a five gallon container to grow these fruits. You’ll also have to train them to grow vertically, either trellising them or even using a tomato cage! You’ll use clips to attach the vines to the trellis in order to train them to go upward and then can use fruit slings to support the melons as they mature! These will help hold the weight of the fruit so the stem does not get damaged. While full size melons can be grown in this setting, you’ll have better luck with smaller varieties that produce smaller fruits and shorter vines. Try the Minnesota Midget Melon or Sugar Baby Watermelon. 

Flowers

If container landscaping is what you’re looking for you have endless options. Everything from daisies to saffron crocus can be grown in containers. Marigolds can also be grown in containers and can even offer some pest control benefits when around your other potted herbs and vegetables! For bulbs or any perennial plant grown in a container, you may consider bringing them inside during the hardest freezes as plants in containers are not as well insulated as plants in the ground. 

The Best Varieties for Apartment Gardening: Deciding What to Grow 

If you have a container garden, there are almost no limits to what you can grow! That being said, we do have some favorite varieties from vegetables to flowers to herbs that we specifically recommend for the space-challenged gardener. Don’t let this list stop you, grow everything in containers! 

Dwarf Jewel Mix Nasturtium Seeds

A deliciously spicy and bright, low-growing bushy flower. Nasturtiums are great for repelling aphids AND great in salads? What more could you ask for? 

Blue Lake 274 Bush Beans

While all bush beans grow great in containers, we especially love this variety for the reliable harvests and heavy yields. The stringless beans are delicious fresh or canned! 

Dwarf Blue Curled Scotch Kale

This low-growing kale only reaches 12 to 16 inches tall and about two feet in diameter. Like other kale, it’s especially tender and sweet after a light frost and is also slow to bolt in the spring! 

Parisian Carrots

These carrots are the size and shape of a large radish! While most carrots with their long taproots can be finicky in containers, shorter and stubbier varieties are unbothered by the limited depth. These are the shortest and stubbiest of all, meaning you can grow them just about anywhere! 

New Big Dwarf Tomato

This determinate, heirloom slicing tomato is a real workhorse in the garden! While many beloved slicers are indeterminate and unruly, this one stays small, only one to two feet tall, and produces an early harvest of delicious, deep pink tomatoes that can grow up to one pound! 

Tiny Tim Cherry Tomato

Growing just 16 inches tall, tiny is an understatement! They’re perfect for containers and grow an early and abundant crop of bright red, round, tiny, and super tasty cherry tomatoes! 

Sunspot Dwarf Sunflower

Full-sized ten inch blooms grow on plants only two feet tall! Bring some sunshine to your container garden with these delightfully small sunflower plants! 

Cayenne Long Red Thin Hot Pepper

Most hot peppers do great in containers, producing an abundance of fruits even under less than ideal conditions! Cayenne specifically weighs in at just two feet tall, making it an excellent addition to any container garden.

Dwarf Grey Sugar Snow Pea

A great and delicious snow pea with vines only reaching two to three feet tall while still producing an abundance of pods! Great for containers or where trellis space is limited.

English Thyme

Unlike the English, this thyme isn’t famous for its sense of humour. But it is famous for its easy growing habit and perennial patterns! English thyme grows just about anywhere and survives just about anything and is an essential culinary ingredient as well. 

Lettuce Mix

When we’re growing in containers, we’re looking to save space. That’s where cut-and-come-again lettuce, like our favorite lettuce mix, comes into the picture. Plant once and harvest for weeks, until it gets too hot! 

Dwarf Tennessee Suited Tomato

Another slicer for the books! Medium-sized purplish-red fruits with green stripes grow on stout plants, just three to four feet tall. 

Homemade Pickles Cucumber

Of course these cucumbers make great pickles, but their bush growing habit also makes them great for container gardening! 

Carousel Sunflower

This bushy sunflower produces multiple branches with multiple flowers, culminating in a little sunflower bush! Adorable, beautiful, and space-saving.

Italian Large Leaf Basil

We love these large-leafed plants that grow 24 to 30 inches tall! Very productive, this plant can be pruned into a bushy habit, increasing its productivity and space-saving ability. 

Santo Cilantro

Cilantro makes a great addition to your container garden. It can mask crops, protecting them from pests, while also making an easy harvest in the middle of cooking! 

Beginner Apartment Gardening: Step-by-Step

Step One: Where Are You Growing?

Your first step is narrowing down your best growing location. Once you’ve weighed light availability, space, indoor or outdoor, etc. you’re able to narrow down what types of crops you can grow! From here, it’s time to get organized. 

Step Two: Sourcing Materials

Container or apartment gardening can be really inexpensive if you’re willing to get a little creative! You’ll need to source the following items in order to get started. 

• Pots and containers 

• Rocks or branches for drainage

• Potting soil 

• Watering can

• Garden trowel

• Labels

If growing indoors, you may need some extra materials:

• Grow lights

• Drainage tray

When selecting pots and containers, you’ll want a varying range of depth. Typically, you won’t want a pot any shorter than eight inches deep, but even up to two or three feet deep can be helpful for especially large or deep-rooted crops. In large pots, sometimes more than one plant can be planted. When deciding how to plant your crops, take into account the mature planting distance information found on the seed packet. Is there enough room in the pot for two or more plants, given this distance? Plants need space to spread both above ground and below. An important aspect of container gardening is to not underestimate either of these needs.

Step Three: Setting Up

When getting ready to plant, you’ll need a place to plant in! Take your collected pots and containers and ensure they have drainage. If you’re not using traditional pots with built in drainage, you’ll want to use a drill to drill holes in your planting containers. This will allow the water to drain out the bottom of the pot, ensuring the roots of your plants don’t rot. If you want to take this a bit further, or have especially deep pots, you can fill the bottom of the pots with broken up twigs or small rocks. This takes up space in the pot, saving you some money on potting soil, while also allowing for faster drainage. If you do this, just ensure that there is enough potting mix in the pot for your crops to grow - at least eight inches for herbs, and at least 12 inches for most vegetables. We recommend pre-moistening your soil as you put it into your containers. This can help ensure the soil stays evenly moist.

Place your pots around your growing location. You may consider using vertical space with shelves, or hanging pots to maximize your growing area! When growing indoors, provide a drainage tray so you don’t end up with water all over the floor or countertop. If you do not get enough natural light through your windows, you’ll want to set up your grow lights, similar to how you would when starting seeds!  

Step Four: Picking the Right Soil

Your growing medium may be a whole range of things. It is most cost effective to mix your own with compost or worm castings, coco coir, and an aerating agent like perlite. But, you can also purchase bags of potting soil at any hardware store. 

Step Five: Planting Seeds or Starts

If you’re working with seeds instead of plant starts, you always want to follow the planting directions on the seed packets. Seeds can be started indoors with just a few extra tools. Read our seed starting guide for all the information you need to get started!

Step Six: Watering and Maintenance 

It’s important to keep your plants watered. In fact, when growing from seed, not enough water is the biggest mistake that new growers make that inhibits seed germination! In general, you’re looking for 40-60% soil moisture. Here’s how to test the soil moisture with just your hands:

When you squeeze a handful of soil, water should not seep out between your fingers. But when you open your hand, the soil ball should stay intact on your palm and not crumble. This is the moisture level you’re looking for. It’s a good idea to mix your soil with water to this moisture level before planting so you can know you’re starting at a good place. 

From there, keep your plants consistently watered! Every other day to one a week is a good call depending on the plant. Do your research and use your eyes! Look for dark, fluffy, and moist soil. If things look light, dusty, and cracked - it’s time to water.

Other maintenance may include trellising, pruning, fertilizing, or pest management - just like in an outdoor garden! 

Step Seven: Fertilizing and Organic Pest Prevention

Fertilizing and pest prevention is the same in an apartment or container garden as it is with any other garden. Especially if your garden is outdoors on a patio or balcony, you may come across all the same pests. As with any other organic garden, it’s essential to practice integrative methods of pest control to get ahead and stay ahead of the damage that can be caused by pests in the garden!  

Unfortunately, in small gardens and especially indoors gardens, certain pests tend to spread pretty rapidly. So it might require you to keep a close eye on things. Always check the bottoms of leaves and crowns of plants for signs of infestations (small white dots taking over stems are likely aphids while small yellow eggs on the undersides of leaves are often cabbage moth eggs, so on and so forth). Depending on the severity of the infestation, there are a few things you can do. If there only seems to be a few small signs of pests and you want to be careful, try a regular application of castile soap and water, sprayed on your plants covering all surface areas once a week to every four days. If this isn’t working or you have a worse infestation, try neem oil or Bt. Always try to identify your pest or disease before treatment to make sure you’re using the correct product!   

Our favorite organic fertilizers for container or apartment gardens include a gentle and balanced vegetable garden fertilizer. This is a great option to use indoors or outdoors because it doesn’t smell strongly and is safe for kids and pets. For outdoor container gardens, we love this liquid fish fertilizer. It’s really gentle on plants while still encouraging lots of growth. Use it as a root drench at planting time or as a foliar feeding spray throughout the growing season! As you might guess, this fertilizer smells pretty strongly, so we recommend using it outdoors. 

Step Eight: Harvesting

Different plants are ready for harvest at different times. With most herbs you can start clipping off little leaves here and there as needed and as they’re growing but always be careful not to harvest more than a quarter of the plant! Fruits should be picked when they ripen and peppers can even be picked early when they’re green! The “Days to Harvest” can be found on the seed packet and will vary depending on the species and variety.  

Now here comes the fun part. For herbs and greens, try to avoid harvesting more than a quarter of the plant at any one time to avoid causing distress. On the other hand, harvesting little bits at a time can encourage growth in many plants! Fruits should be picked when ripe (or earlier to try out the different flavor profiles of the plant). Always use pruners or snips when harvesting to avoid the spread of disease and create a clean cut so as to not damage the plant. 

Getting Equipment, Soil and Seeds for Container Gardens

Your next step is sourcing your equipment. This is a straightforward but essential part of the process. Make sure you use your container gardening checklist to get all of your materials together before getting started. 

Containers 

Plants will grow in any situation that gives them what they need - the look or price of the container very rarely matters! Coffee cans with drilled holes at the bottom or mason jars with rocks for drainage will work beautifully for many kitchen herbs. The most important thing about what you grow your plants in is that the pots have some way to drain, either holes or a layer of gravel at the bottom of the pot.

Tools

Oftentimes you don’t even need garden tools for a small home container garden like we’re describing here but it’s nice to have a hori hori or hand trowel for digging up deep roots or transplanting into pots. A good pair of pruners are always handy too! 

Soil & Fertilizer

Most garden stores will have all the materials you need to create a balanced potting soil for your container garden. Worm Castings can be an excellent addition to any garden, high in nutrients but extremely gentle, this amendment works wonders to help your plants produce as much as they can. For an all purpose fertilizer, we love fish fertilizer which is water soluble (fast acting) and gentle on all plants. To read more about other ways to treat your soil check out this blog post! 

Seeds & Bulbs

Check out our wide selection of vegetable, herb, and flower seeds. If you can’t decide what to grow, perhaps start with our Urban Container Garden Collection Tin which features great varieties for your container gardening needs including tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, chard, and culinary herbs! Did you know you can also plant bulbs in containers? Set a flush of gorgeous crocuses in a pot to enjoy as you’re walking in and out of your house - and get a nice harvest of saffron too! 

Creative Apartment Garden Ideas & Setups

By now you probably have an idea of what kind of garden you could grow in your space. Here are some of our favorite creative gardening ideas for small spaces! 

Balcony Garden

Gardening on a balcony or deck is a great way to utilize your limited outdoor space. Not only do you get to grow a wider array of plants than you could inside, it also offers a beautiful aspect to your outdoor space that might not otherwise exist! We love to use outdoor pots and rail planters to fit as much as we possibly can into a small space. Consider using a pre-existing guardrail as a trellis for climbing plants like peas or pole beans. 

Vertical Garden

Extra limited on space? Consider creating a vertical garden! This can be done indoors or outdoors. Outdoors, you may consider rail planters and hanging baskets to add a vertical element to your growing space. Indoors, consider hanging plants and a shelving unit! 

Plant Stands and Shelving

Indoor growing can offer a variety of benefits to your living space. Besides being an avenue to growing food year round, having plants in your living space is also beautiful! Using plant stands and shelving units can create aesthetic interest while still being space conscious. 

Compact Indoor Growing

If you’re severely limited by space and light but still want to grow indoors, there are plenty of indoor growing systems that are perfect for you. We especially love this easy-to-use hydroponic growing system, which is perfect for growing herbs on your kitchen counter.

Seasonal Guidance: Using Grow Lights

We’ve established that light is an essential part of growing most, if not all, plants both indoors and outdoors. But what do you really need to grow your container garden at home? 

Light and Seasons

The first step is to understand the difference between light availability in winter and summer. In North America, with shorter days in winter, light simply isn’t available at the same rate or intensity as it is in summer. This is part of the reason only some crops will grow at certain times of year. It is also why, when starting seeds indoors, simply relying on a window for summer crops often won’t do the trick. If you have a greenhouse or a large, south-facing window, sometimes it’ll work! But often, for the healthiest starts, you still need grow lights. 

When growing indoors, low-light houseplants, microgreens, or partial-shade greens like lettuce and spinach can often grow without growlights, given that there is a good window with as much light as possible available. But, if you’re running into trouble and your seedlings are becoming leggy, you’ll probably want to consider getting grow lights for your indoor crops. 

Types of Grow Lights

There are two main types of grow lights to consider; LED’s and fluorescents. These are widely available in many garden stores and have their array of benefits and drawbacks! 

Growing in Windows

Growing in windows can be effective for short-growing crops like sprouting seeds or microgreens. If you have a large, south-facing window with lots of available light, you may even be able to grow winter greens like lettuce or spinach, just with what sunlight is available in winter! Be aware, that this light will become more intense in the summertime and may scald certain crops if not moved out of the sun in the heat of the day. 

Apartment Gardening FAQ

You’re just about ready to get started growing food in your apartment! If we haven’t answered your question already, we probably will below. 

Why are my indoor herbs wilting?

There could be a few reasons for this - number one would be not enough water. We recommend watering your plants, especially those that require heat and sunshine, twice a day during the hottest part of the year. This could also be happening to your warmer weather herbs, like basil, as the temperatures are cooling in the fall. This is especially likely if your basil is next to a window or other drafty area. 

How can I grow vegetables in my apartment without a balcony?

It’s easier than you think! We love this easy-to-use hydroponic growing system, which is perfect for growing fresh greens on your kitchen counter.

What are the easiest herbs to start indoors?

We’d recommend starting with cilantro, parsley and dill indoors and go from there to basil, sage, thyme and more! 

Is apartment gardening worth it?

This is a great question. Apartment gardening can be inexpensive - but it isn’t without its costs. You’re also limited by space and it does require some labor - albeit not as much as a full in-ground garden. Apartment gardening, especially for beginners, won’t result in a large harvest of vegetables, but will result in a tender addition to meals and the joy of growing food with your own hands, regardless of the scale. Whether or not that’s worth it is up to you! 

Why Grow an Apartment Garden?

Personal Benefits

Many gardeners may find that as they start gardening, they start to feel better! Whether it’s the regular exercise or just having our hands in the dirt, we cannot deny that gardening makes us feel good. There’s even plenty of research out there to suggest that this phenomenon is not made up! Gardening helps our mental and emotional health.

Fresh Food On-Demand

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, there’s nothing quite like waltzing over to the windowsill to snip a pinch of fresh rosemary or grab a huge red tomato to slice for your sandwich. Having fresh food right at your fingertips is just an amazing thing! It can save you trips to the store to get that one vegetable you don’t have - and also impress all of your friends. 

Reduce Waste

Oh, and all those trips to the grocery store? They produce waste! Why get your peppers wrapped in plastic when you could pick one fresh off the balcony? Even more so, having a garden is a great excuse to compost! Use your food scraps to give back to the soil from whence  they came. 

You feel ready to tackle it? Growing in small spaces can seem intimidating but anyone can do it! And I bet you’ll find that once you start with a couple herbs you’ll quickly move on to the tomatoes and beans and kale of your dreams! A garden can grow in any size or space, given the right conditions, and it’s a great way to have a little bit of nature at home. Sow True Seed is here to guide you through your garden journey of any size or skill level with high-quality, open-pollinated seeds, education, and guidance every step of the way. Explore our collection of seeds for your perfect small-space garden this year.

	Article Written by: Hannah Gibbons
	About the Author: Hannah Gibbons, an employee at Sow True Seed since 2020, has nearly a decade of experience in the agricultural industry. Their passion for environmental education and regenerative agriculture has been the cornerstone of their work, aimed at making gardening accessible to all.