When choosing what plants to grow in your apartment garden, start small. Pick two or three things that you frequently reach for in the kitchen. This will increase the likelihood of actually making use of your harvest. You are already learning one new skill with this gardening venture, no need to ask yourself to learn how to cook with new ingredients at the same time!
Know your climate! The Bay Area contains climate zones 14-17, so pick plants that grow best in these zones, and they will be more likely to succeed. Almost any plant can be made to survive in our gardens, but those native to an area with a Mediterranean climate often require less intervention and oversight. We in the Bay Area are in luck, since regions that enjoy balmy Mediterranean climates are the source of thousands of delicious crops like olives, grapes, herbs, citrus, and tomatoes. We have plenty to choose from.
It can be a good idea to start with herbs and small containers. Herbs are cheaper to replace, and they grow very fast. You can make mistakes and try again during a single season.
I personally wouldn’t consider tomatoes a beginner-friendly plant, since they can be extremely fussy. They require massive amounts of water daily to produce all that fruit. Yet they are also prone to contracting fungal blights if the conditions are too moist. For example, if there is too much morning dew lingering on the leaves of your tomato plant, it creates an ideal environment for disease to thrive. You might notice the appearance of a powdery white mildew on the foliage and stems. This is caused by the fungus Oidium lycopersicon. The mold can rapidly spread between your crops and lead to devastating results. Preventing this mildew is the reason why tomatoes, in particular, should be watered only at the soil level, rather than spraying the entire plant indiscriminately with a garden hose.
That’s just my personal experience, by the way! Plenty of enterprising new gardeners have reported achieving success with tomatoes, though this humble author has never experienced that triumph herself.
Here are a few examples of plants you can grow in different seasons:
Winter: Cabbage, beets, lettuce, onion, shallot, collards, Swiss chard, kale, peas, spinach
Spring: Tomatoes, peppers, cucumber, parsnip, celery, carrots, runner & snap beans, mustard, strawberry
Summer: Spring plants + cauliflower, strawberry, melons
Fall: Fava beans, onion, turnips, artichoke root, garlic, radish, rhubarb root
Books ideal for families that are new to the world of gardening.
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