Starting a balcony herb garden (need advice - including automatic watering system)

 

I know virtually nothing about gardening. However, I would like to grow
small amounts of chives, basic, dill, rosemary etc. for cooking
purposes. I have a small apartment with a balcony and a good amount of
sun.
Are there any good websites that explain how to start this?
Should I get a kit (please recommend one), individual packets of seeds,
or plant existing small plants to start off? What type of soil, etc.
Besides watering, what else do I need to do to care for the plants.
Also, I often go away on business trips, can someone recommend an
automatic watering system that works well.
Something I can fill up with water and operates on batteries (I don't
have a hose outlet near my balcony).
Looking for advice.
Thanks

 

What hemisphere are you in?  (Are you in australia or new zealand for
example?)    In the northern hemisphere its late for balcony gardens..
In the springtime, my local nursery offers window boxes of herbs.
(Waterloo Gardens in Wayne, PA.) Your local garden shop might do that
as well.

 



Get the biggest pots you have room for.  Then you can plant things that take
the same type of soil and water needs together and have room for them to
spread.  A lot of the more aromatic herbs are from the sunny Mediterranean
area, so they'll often need less water than vegetables, for example.  But
pots dry out easily, so they'll need more water than if you were planting in
the ground.  Good drainage is a must!

There are lots of books and pamphlets around that focus on herb growing.  If
you look through one or two, you will probably get plenty of instruction and
a few ideas for more herbs to add to your garden.  You should probably have
one to refer to as the season progresses anyway.

I'd use starter plants, which might be hard to find this time of year
(depends where you are, of course).  Most seed packets have way more seed in
them than you will need.  With healthy starts, you are several months ahead
of seed.

Deb
--
In Oregon, the pacific northWET.  NWF habitat #32964

 


This stuff works pretty well, and you don't need any batteries or any
other power source:
http://www.blumat-shop.de/index.php?language=en

 

techman41973@yahoo.com wrote:

Some perennial herbs grow slowly and take a while to get established
(rosemary, oregano, thyme, chives), so you may want to get those as
small plants from the nursery (or even your grocery store--some will
sell small potted herbs). Basil and dill grow easily from seed. Parsley
is also not hard to grow from seed, but it helps the germination rate if
you soak the seeds overnight before planting. Dill grows quite large (3
feet or more), and to get useable amounts of basil you also need several
decent-sized plants--they'll get to a couple feet and should be in
fairly large pots, like 8" in diameter. I don't think there's any
particular advantage to buying a kit.

You can use anything for pots, so long as they have drainage holes.

Herbs are pretty easy to care for and will generally tolerate a lot of
neglect. If your business trips are a week or less, you may not need to
mess with an automatic waterer if you set up a system where your pots
can be sitting in a tray with some extra water, moved to the coolest,
shadiest part of your balcony while you're gone.

Rosemary is a "tender perennial," some varieties are hardy (will survive
outside in the winter) to zone 7 US. If you routinely get winter
temperatures below 10 degrees F, you'll have to get a new one each year
(and as it is slow growing, it's probably not worth it).