10 things I’m doing wrong on my first attempt at a balcony edible garden

Half into the season, I’ve distilled a first set of recommendations for you and my future self based on everything I’ve doing wrong.

1) Killing my corn salad

I should have researched how to harvest corn salad before I did it.

I went just for what would look closest to the corn salad you get at the supermarket, so I cut the plants right at the ground level. It turned out that then they couldn’t regrow! After some reading online (that I should have done earlier) I found that it works best if you leave some leaves in each plant so that it has a source of energy to regrow.

Here are shots before and after I attacked my pots:

Corn salad just before (left) and after (right) harvesting. These and all other photographs by author Luciano Abriata.

My salads were growing very well… while they lasted…

Salad plants in and out in my balcony’s edible garden

2) Reading and researching *after* I had started the project!