Useful tips on how to grow & enjoy fruit & veg. from your windowsill !

Let's get real :

   Growing food in windowboxes or any container outdoors is very unlikely to be as productive as growing the plants directly in the ground, where they have a greater depth and spread of topsoil in which to root in – meaning they are less likely to dry out and can have greater access to the nutrients they need.

However, there are advantages to containerised growing – and windowboxes in particular:

Firstly, you can manipulate the soil a lot easier, effectively choosing the growing medium you want to use, depending on the requirements of the food crops you want to grow – For instance, some fruit crops, such as blueberries, cowberries and cranberries will only grow in acidic soil.

Secondly, Being off the ground (particularly for windowboxes) means that your fruit & veg. are less likely to succumb to certain pests, such as slugs and carrot fly, although you still have to watch out for those pesky caterpillars and blackfly.

Thirdly, with the plants being at eye height, or slightly below, it means that you can quickly spot the offending critters eating your greens and don’t get a bad back reaching down to get rid of them – It also means maintaining the box and harvesting the crops meant for you is a hell of a lot easier.

Fourthly and perhaps most significantly is the CONVENIENCE! 

So, it all sounds pretty good, but you do have to be aware of the drawbacks and do what you can to reduce these as much as possible. Look through the sections on Getting healthy windowbox crops for details on how to do this.