Balcony gardening is a curious sort of gardening. There is no soil to dig, no shed to retreat into, and the wind arrives from a direction you did not choose. What you do get is control: you can move a pot half a metre and change its entire season. A tomato that sulks in a rain shadow behind the railing will romp away once it is tucked against a warm wall.

That portability makes a seasonal routine more useful, not less. Compost in containers runs out of food, small volumes of it swing between sodden and bone dry, and anything tender left out in a February gale rarely forgives you. Treat the calendar below as a prompt rather than a rule. A balcony in Cornwall and one in Aberdeen share a country but not a climate.

Read the balcony before you read the seed packets

Give yourself a week with the space before ordering anything. Note how many hours of direct sun it gets at midsummer, and again in December. Those two numbers decide almost everything. A south-facing balcony will ripen chillies and aubergines; a north-facing one grows excellent salad, chard, mint and parsley, and will quietly disappoint you on courgettes.

Then work through the less romantic details:

• Wind. Upper floors funnel it. Choose squat pots and low-growing varieties, and use a mesh screen rather than a solid one, which simply creates a larger sail.
• Weight. Wet compost is heavy, and a large planter can weigh as much as a person. Spread the load along a wall rather than the middle of a balcony. If you rent or own a leasehold flat, check your lease before fixing brackets or standing anything substantial on the structure.
• Water. A balcony under an overhang receives no rain at all. If there is no tap nearby, count the trips: a thirsty tomato in July can drink several litres a day.
• Drainage. Pot feet or bricks keep the holes clear, and saucers stop your excess reaching the neighbours below. Empty those saucers in winter so roots are not sitting in freezing water.

Spring: sowing, potting on, hardening off

March and early April are for the tough stuff. Broad beans, radish, chard, spinach, spring onions, cut-and-come-again salad and first early potatoes in a pot the size of a bucket all cope with cool nights. Sow under cover if frost is still likely, and keep the compost barely damp, because cold wet compost rots seeds.

Tomatoes, chillies, peppers and courgettes can be started indoors from late March. They want warmth more than light at that stage, so a windowsill above a radiator beats a chilly conservatory. Once seedlings have two sets of true leaves, pot them on into something bigger, and bury tomato stems deeper than they were: they root along the buried stem.

From mid-May, begin hardening off. Carry plants out to a sheltered spot in the morning and bring them in at night, stretching the time outside over a week or ten days. In most of the UK, tender crops can stay out from late May; in the north and in exposed spots, wait until early June.

Feeding starts when growth restarts. A general-purpose liquid feed every fortnight suits leaves and herbs; switch to a high-potash tomato feed once flowers set.

Summer: water, feed, keep picking

Watering is the whole job in July. Push a finger in to the second knuckle, morning and evening during hot spells; if it is dry down there, water until it runs out of the bottom. Little and often beats a rare flood, which splits tomatoes and encourages blossom end rot.

Feed fruiting crops weekly from the moment the first truss sets, and keep herbs such as rosemary, thyme and oregano on lean rations. They prefer grit and restraint to rich, damp compost.

Pests arrive with the heat. Aphids and whitefly can be knocked back with a sharp jet of water and a daily squish; red spider mite thrives in dry air, so mist leaves in hot weather and check the undersides. Ladybirds and hoverflies do a lot of the work for you if you leave them alone.

Pick hard. Cut salad leaves about 2cm above the base for repeat harvests, take beans and courgettes while they are young, pinch out the side shoots of cordon tomatoes, and tap flower trusses at midday to move pollen around if bees are scarce at height.

Autumn: harvest, resow, plant for winter

September is a second spring. Sow winter salad, spinach, coriander and oriental greens, and plant garlic and overwintering broad beans in deep pots for next June. Clear spent crops promptly, especially anything mildewed or spotted, because diseased leaves left in a pot are an invitation.

Old compost from tomatoes and potatoes should not be reused for the same crops. Use it for bulbs or as a top dressing elsewhere, and top up containers with fresh compost and a handful of slow-release granules.

October and November are bulb months. Tulips and narcissi planted in pots now, kept cool and out of waterlogged compost, will give you late-winter and early-spring colour on a balcony that otherwise looks bare. Bring tender herbs such as basil inside, and wind feeding down as growth slows to a stop.

Winter: protect, tidy, plan

Insulation matters more than heat. Group pots together against a wall, raise them on feet so drainage holes stay clear of freezing paving, wrap the outside of terracotta with bubble wrap, and throw fleece over anything vulnerable on the coldest nights. Frost alone rarely kills a hardy container plant; sitting in cold, wet compost usually does.

Water sparingly on mild mornings and never onto frozen compost. Evergreen herbs and winter salads still lose moisture, so a fortnightly check is worth the trip outside. When you empty pots, look for the creamy, C-shaped grubs of vine weevil in the compost; if you find them, bin that compost rather than spreading it around.

Use the quiet weeks for the parts of gardening nobody photographs: washing pots, sharpening secateurs, checking stored bulbs for rot, and planning what goes where next year so tomatoes do not follow tomatoes.

A month-by-month quick reference

• March: sow hardy salad, radish and broad beans; start tomatoes indoors late in the month.
• April: pot on seedlings, keep hardening off, plant out hardy crops.
• May: last frost risk passes in most areas; plant out tender crops and begin liquid feeding.
• June: water daily, feed weekly, pinch cordon tomatoes, tap flower trusses.
• July: peak watering and feeding; keep picking; watch for red spider mite.
• August: sow winter salad, lift onions and garlic, take rosemary and mint cuttings.
• September: plant garlic and overwintering broad beans, clear tired crops, refresh compost.
• October: plant bulbs, move tender herbs inside, cut back faded perennials.
• November: insulate pots, reduce watering, stop feeding, mulch with gravel.
• December: check protection after gales, water only on mild mornings, order seeds.
• January: plan the year's pots, clean and sharpen tools, inspect stored bulbs.
• February: start early sowings indoors, top-dress pots with fresh compost, prune winter shrubs.

The five-minute habit that saves a season

Walk the balcony once a day with a mug of tea in hand. Poke a finger into a pot, lift a leaf or two, and look at the growing tips. Most container problems, from drought to aphids to a pot that has quietly gone waterlogged, announce themselves days before they become irreversible, and five minutes of noticing is worth more than any amount of corrective effort later.

Photo: Schnellmanfred / Pixabay