How to Make Terrace Vegetable Garden | Rooftop Vegetable Garden

Make a Terrace Vegetable Garden on your rooftop! In this article, you’ll learn which vegetables are suitable and how you can grow them on the terrace.

Fresh homegrown vegetables taste delicious, are good for health, and safe from chemicals. You don’t need to acquire a regular garden to grow them. A Terrace Vegetable Garden will take care of your family’s need for veggies easily!

Check out our article on the best plants for the terrace garden here.

Terrace Vegetable Garden

1. Creating a Vegetable Garden in Pots

In terrace garden containers, you can plant almost any vegetable. Choose large and deep pots, avoid thin and poor quality plastic pots because they heat up quickly and drain poorly.

Soil: Using normal garden soil is a bad idea for growing vegetables in pots. Instead, use a good quality potting mix for the healthy growth of plants and productivity.

Vegetables for Pots: Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Radishes, Beans, Zucchini, Potatoes, Onions, Carrots, Beetroot, Lettuce, Garlic, Chilies, Peppers, Melons, and Eggplant.

2. Create Raised Beds on Terrace

If you’re looking for practical as well as a stylish way to make a terrace vegetable garden, then making a raised bed is a great option. You’ll be able to grow a lot of vegetables as compared to containers. Plants will thrive better, with less care and maintenance.
The raised bed on the terrace does not differ fundamentally from those you see in a regular garden.

In well-stocked hardware stores or even online shops, you will find special raised beds for terraces; you’ll only need to configure which one is better for you. Just ensure before installing that the surface of the terrace below is waterproof.

Fill Raised Bed with Soil: If you fill the raised bed with soil, consider preventing voles and pests from entering the bed. To make soil, mix quality garden soil, ripe compost, and manure.

Advantage of Raised Beds: Probably the most significant advantage of a raised bed is the height and width on the terrace. Gardening can hardly be more convenient!

3. Integrate Vegetable Patch on the Terrace

You can also integrate a vegetable patch on your terrace and grow vegetables on the surface itself. Though doing this is only good on large rooftops. The vegetable patch is similar to making a normal garden bed.

The integrated bed should be filled generally with soil like a regular garden bed. An addition of compost in the soil is a perfect natural fertilizer for most of the plants.

4. Creating a Vegetable Terrace Garden in Planter boxes

Flower boxes and planters can be used to create a vegetable garden. You can hang these on an existing railing or set them just on the floor. How do you use them is entirely up to you.

Do not use ordinary garden soil in these planter boxes. Either use quality potting mix or compost-rich soil. Fertilizing is also important to improve productivity, but it varies according to plants: peppers and tomatoes are heavy feeders, whereas green leafy vegetables do not need much fertilizer.

Plants for Flower Boxes: Cucumbers, Tomatoes, Greens, Garlic, Chilies, Herbs, Radishes, and Bush beans.

5. Repurpose Sandboxes

A sandbox is not just for games. From a small, simple wooden sandpit, you can also make a hefty vegetable patch. This looks not only decorative but provides your plants with an optimal space to thrive.

Instead of using gravel for drainage, just fill the quality compost with the soil. In the sandbox, you can grow all sorts of small vegetables and herbs, mostly low growing that spreads too much.

Vegetable List to Grow: Radishes, Herbs, Garlic, Lettuce, Spinach, Ginger, Asian Greens, and a lot of other green leafy vegetables.

6. Optimize Vertical Space

Smartly utilizing the space on the terrace will help you in making the most of it. Grow vegetable shrubs and vines like beans, squashes, gourds, and tall tomato varieties near the walls and railings. In this way, they’ll not only get support but also grow outside and upward, and you’ll save a lot of your space.

Use old shelves, racks to keep pots and buy pot holders, put them around the corners. On the vertical spaces, you can grow herbs to enhance the taste of salads and cuisines; you can also grow a lot of flowers to appease ornamental views.

Tips for the Prolific Terrace Vegetable Garden

• Fertilize vegetables regularly with good quality organic fertilizer. With some research and experience, you’ll be able to find out which type of fertilizer you should feed to specific vegetables.
• Water plants regularly and deeply. Read this article for container watering tips.
• Check plants regularly for pests.
• Prune plants regularly to keep them in good shape. Look out for suckers, especially in tomatoes and pinch them off immediately if found one.
• It is always good to grow vegetables on the Southern or Western faces, so the plants can get enough sun and thrive easily. However, too much sunlight can be harmful. If you are living in a warm tropical climate where sunlight is too strong, it is advisable to provide afternoon shade to plants.