You do not need a backyard to grow food. A small balcony can keep a kitchen in herbs, salad leaves and cherry tomatoes for most of the year, as long as you work with what the balcony gives you: its sun, its wind and its weight limit. Here is how to set one up, in the order that matters.
Start with the sun
Watch your balcony for a day before you buy anything. Leafy greens and herbs can get by on four to five hours of direct sun. Fruiting plants such as tomatoes, chillies, capsicums and beans want six to eight. In Australia a north or north-east facing balcony is the easy one; a south-facing balcony can still grow leafy greens, mint, parsley and spring onions well.
Sun also moves with the seasons. A spot that is in full sun in summer can sit in shade all winter, so plan for the season you are planting in.
Plan for wind
Balconies, especially high ones, are windy. Wind dries pots out fast, stunts growth and can snap stems or tip pots over. Three things help:
- Heavier, wider pots that do not blow over.
- A windbreak: a trellis with a tough climber, or taller plants on the windy side sheltering the rest.
- More frequent watering than you would expect, or self-watering pots that hold a reserve.
Pots, mix and weight
Every container needs drainage holes. Use a good quality potting mix, not garden soil: it drains, it holds air, and it comes free of weed seeds and soil pests. Bigger pots dry out more slowly and give roots room, so one 40 litre trough usually beats four small pots.
Wet potting mix is heavy. Before you add large planters or a raised bed, check what your balcony is built to carry and what your strata by-laws allow, and keep the heaviest pots close to the wall rather than at the edge.
What to plant in spring
Spring in Sydney is the start of the warm season, and it is the best time to begin. Easy, productive choices for a first balcony:
- Herbs: basil, parsley, chives, thyme and mint (mint in its own pot, because it takes over).
- Salad leaves: loose-leaf lettuce, rocket and Asian greens, picked a few leaves at a time.
- Cherry tomatoes and chillies: compact varieties bred for pots, in your sunniest spot.
- Dwarf fruit: a dwarf citrus in a large pot is a long-term balcony plant.
Go up, not out
When the floor is full, use the walls and the railing. Wall pockets, tiered planters and rail-hung troughs turn a narrow balcony into a growing wall. Keep the thirstiest plants in the bottom tier, where water collects, and herbs that like to dry out at the top.
Keep it watered
Most balcony gardens fail from water, not sun: pots dry out on a hot, windy day while you are at work. Water deeply in the morning, check the mix with a finger rather than going by the calendar, and consider self-watering planters, which hold a reservoir in the base and feed it up to the roots as the mix dries.
Feed the soil
Potting mix runs out of nutrients within a season. Top it up with compost or worm castings, or liquid worm tea, every few weeks in the growing season. A small worm farm or bokashi bin turns your own kitchen leftovers into exactly that, even in an apartment.
It is the same idea we work on at a bigger scale. Our food waste collection takes the leftovers from Sydney's kitchens so they can grow food again; a balcony garden is that loop at home.
Where to find the gear
If you are setting up from scratch, our Loop Shop has a "grow in any space" section: balcony planters, wall pockets, wicking beds and dwarf fruit, hand-picked from Australian shops. You buy direct from each shop.
Sources, checked 17 October 2026: Yates, Gardening in containers; Love the Garden, Growing a fruit and vegetable garden on a balcony; The Seed Collection, Balcony gardening.