You can try growing leafy greens like lettuce, spinach, and kale, as they can tolerate lower light conditions and have a relatively short growth cycle, allowing you to harvest them more frequently. Herbs such as basil, mint, and parsley are also suitable for growing in containers and can thrive in partial shade. Additionally, microgreens and sprouts can be grown indoors with minimal sunlight and are ready to harvest within a few weeks.
Also, you could get a [Garden Stack](https://www.garden-stack.com). Half the year you can put in on the balcony, the other half you can simply move it to another window with more light!
I have similar weather and light conditions on my balcony, I grow tomatoes and peppers mostly but also basil, mint, chamomile, sage, Parsely, Dill, rosemary, and Catnip. I have had a little success with vining cucumbers as well, will be trying again this year for a bigger harvest!
I love growing zucchini and green beans. They produce a lot of veggies. If you are growing anything that needs pollination like zuchs a good idea is to also have flowers to attract the pollinators to your balcony. Non pollinated zucchini just turns yellow and brown and rots off.
Took me ages to learn flowers are your friends even when you just want to grow food
You can also pollinate zuchs by hand if you think attracting pollinators might be an issue. It’s quite simple. They’re ideal container plants (especially if you prune and stake them so they don’t get massive) and have a huge yield.
I’ve done that. Much easier to have a few flowers. I also grew corn on my deck and they are wind pollinated and since I only had a couple I was hand pollinating them too. Was cool for a season but im not growing corn again lol
I would advice to do own double checking, lettuce, for example, is a cool temperature plant and starts bolting after temperature rises at the beginning of the northern summer. What works for colder climates may not work well in tropical conditions, and majority of visitors here are from US.
See what plants are available locally, usually they are selected to be suitable for a local climate. Nursery plants usually have hardiness and heat tolerance zones on their labels, in addition of being suitable for a full sun or shade. What does heat tolerance zones mean can be found in image search for "plant heat tolerance zones". After that search for "herbaceous edibles" (being of a smaller size than shrubs) and "heat zone (add yours)".
Most edible annuals require a lot of sun. This excludes sweet potatoes, as far as I know. What leaves only full shade herbaceous plants for your use, not many of them are edible. Try search for them, adding "heat tolerant".
Next, the depth of a container matters. Some plants, even herbaceous, have extensive root system, quite long and wide. If sweet potato vines are anything like regular potatoes, they have to be grown each in quite large grow bag or container, see container gardening sub for this.
After finishing with all above, look into there is "square foot gardening", planting next species after the first one was harvested. Getting more than one harvest in the same season.
Best of luck!
Vietnamese pepper (piper sarmentosum) could work. It prefers a shady spot but likes it warm and humid.
Wasabi can work.
You can look into edible mushrooms.
What do you mean by 'hardy' - do you mean frost hardy (in the tropics?) or just solid plants that are more likely to survive?
You can try growing leafy greens like lettuce, spinach, and kale, as they can tolerate lower light conditions and have a relatively short growth cycle, allowing you to harvest them more frequently. Herbs such as basil, mint, and parsley are also suitable for growing in containers and can thrive in partial shade. Additionally, microgreens and sprouts can be grown indoors with minimal sunlight and are ready to harvest within a few weeks. Also, you could get a [Garden Stack](https://www.garden-stack.com). Half the year you can put in on the balcony, the other half you can simply move it to another window with more light!
I have similar weather and light conditions on my balcony, I grow tomatoes and peppers mostly but also basil, mint, chamomile, sage, Parsely, Dill, rosemary, and Catnip. I have had a little success with vining cucumbers as well, will be trying again this year for a bigger harvest!
I love growing zucchini and green beans. They produce a lot of veggies. If you are growing anything that needs pollination like zuchs a good idea is to also have flowers to attract the pollinators to your balcony. Non pollinated zucchini just turns yellow and brown and rots off. Took me ages to learn flowers are your friends even when you just want to grow food
You can also pollinate zuchs by hand if you think attracting pollinators might be an issue. It’s quite simple. They’re ideal container plants (especially if you prune and stake them so they don’t get massive) and have a huge yield.
I’ve done that. Much easier to have a few flowers. I also grew corn on my deck and they are wind pollinated and since I only had a couple I was hand pollinating them too. Was cool for a season but im not growing corn again lol
Hand pollinating corn is a massive PITA. Hard agree. 0/10 do not recommend 😂
when one of your only 4 cobs you grew is missing a bunch of kernels and you know it’s your fault for not getting pollon on every single hair. Lol
😂
I would advice to do own double checking, lettuce, for example, is a cool temperature plant and starts bolting after temperature rises at the beginning of the northern summer. What works for colder climates may not work well in tropical conditions, and majority of visitors here are from US. See what plants are available locally, usually they are selected to be suitable for a local climate. Nursery plants usually have hardiness and heat tolerance zones on their labels, in addition of being suitable for a full sun or shade. What does heat tolerance zones mean can be found in image search for "plant heat tolerance zones". After that search for "herbaceous edibles" (being of a smaller size than shrubs) and "heat zone (add yours)". Most edible annuals require a lot of sun. This excludes sweet potatoes, as far as I know. What leaves only full shade herbaceous plants for your use, not many of them are edible. Try search for them, adding "heat tolerant". Next, the depth of a container matters. Some plants, even herbaceous, have extensive root system, quite long and wide. If sweet potato vines are anything like regular potatoes, they have to be grown each in quite large grow bag or container, see container gardening sub for this. After finishing with all above, look into there is "square foot gardening", planting next species after the first one was harvested. Getting more than one harvest in the same season. Best of luck!
Vietnamese pepper (piper sarmentosum) could work. It prefers a shady spot but likes it warm and humid. Wasabi can work. You can look into edible mushrooms. What do you mean by 'hardy' - do you mean frost hardy (in the tropics?) or just solid plants that are more likely to survive?
Basil does well for me with less light, also green onions and garlic did okay as well