No, it’s 59.4m2 exactly. It’s one of the reasons I bought the apartment.
Our favorites are beans of any kind, pole beans, green beans, snap peas etc, cherry tomatoes and salad greens like lettuce and spinach. Okra and zucchini would be nice too.
Yes, you can buy them online in taiwan.
Youre probably thinking of Opuntia dillenii which is well known on penghu for a food dye. Most of the ice cream, alcohol etc actually uses Hylocereus now, they just retain the fun story of “Cactus xyz”. They are terrible for food, though edible. Their insane spines make the pads too fibrous to chew and too annoying to despine.
Taiwan grew them to prevent sea invasion from the Chinese. To be honest, i think they are as effective as land mines, maybe moreso, for infantry haha!
They are somethin you do need sun for. They vrow in the shade, but etiolate like nothing else. This makes pads so thin ts not worth despining. So decent light is better. They make great fodder as well. W have used them with amazing results in cricket breeding to replace water basins which cause death and bacterial growth. Saves a ton of time! Even when it dries it just becomes food for them. Ther succulent nature and hardiness of the species make them less likely to go funky 
You have a fantastic situation there. If t were me i would first judge your natural lighting situation. For example if you have a very long sun facing side but narrow balcony that faces the sun most of the day without huge sun blocks across fromyou, i cant inagine why you would need lighting. It its super dark then can sonsider different options. There is no way to calculate cost without a lot of details. But the size makes for some nice options!
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It faces SW, but there is a tall wall all around it and sunlight gets blocked by another building. Artificial lighting would be essential.
You might want to google up square foot gardening to get an idea of how much space various vegetables need in relatively high density gardens.
Thanks, I’ll check at the weekend.
[quote=“finley, post:10, topic:217898, full:true”]
Airflow is going to be a major problem on a balcony, which is why I suggested getting a power source set up - lights and fans are going to improve your results dramatically.
Melothria isn’t a standard gherkin, it looks like a tiny, tiny watermelon. Tastes basically like a cucumber though. I reckon you could pickle it, but I prefer eating them raw. The foliage is more open and net-like than cucumber - it’s very easy to train up a piece of hardware cloth or something similar. You get absolutely loads of fruit in the right conditions.
Agree. I wouldn’t bother growing grains for any reason except amusement value. In an open area they’d probably be destroyed by birds anyway.
I wonder if Soybeans from the market will grow or do you need get seeds from the farmers store,
Unless the are ultra old, thy ahould grow. Many places sell germinated soybean seeds forfood. They grow well ifther fridges arent too cold.
The advantage of seed stores is you know exactly what variety you have, and your records can be accurate for future referrence. They are also generally pretty good about not having disease and pathogens. Something food grade iant concerned with much past aesthetics or dangerous to human ones.
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If you don’t get weevils.
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Rosemary grows like weed.
“Rosemary thrives in chalky or sandy soil in full sun. The herb grows wild on dry, rocky slopes near the sea”
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Taiwan has local huge avocados.
Maybe I buy organic ones, if that is better?
I was thinking more Italian style, basil, parsley, oregano and garlic.
All these failed for me on the roof garden seeds and garlic I bought in Taiwan.
Grow ok on the window sill indoors?
Oregano grows well on my balcony. Parsley has always been an insurmountable problem. The local basil at the market works for me.
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That’s awesome. You could do a lot with that, even if it’s shaded.
As @Explant said, your best bet is to find whichever bit of it is reasonably sunny (this might require a bit of observation) and start there with a few square meters. Salad greens just won’t care at all - they have one of the lowest light requirements of all plants, which is why they’re popular with industrial “vertical” hydroponics operations.
Beans might be OK, but I’ve found that they vary quite dramatically in their tolerance for shade. Some are fine with it and some just hate it, and I haven’t figured out any obvious pattern, except that vigna unguiculata will always sulk without full sun. Just give it a go with some of your favourites and see what happens.
Tomatoes will probably get rather thin and weedy without sunlight. Try a determinate variety (ie., one that stays small by nature). These seem to be more tolerant of low light levels. If you wanted to introduce lighting later, you can reckon on about NT$1000 per square meter for the lamps, power supplies, control systems and hardware (supports and weatherproofing).
Get the biggest containers you can (0.6x0.8m types are readily available), add some gravel at the bottom, fill them about half full with chunks of big old branches, some leaves, and soil from a forest area, then top off with a mixture of 1:4 compost and soil. Then just go right ahead and direct-seed your salad leaves. Keep them moist (not soaked) and you should see results. I suggest putting some sort of mesh over the top until the plants establish, to prevent everything being washed away if there’s a rainstorm. You should aim to have the plants almost completely cover the soil surface at maturity, which means a much closer spacing than they’ll suggest on the packet. For leaf lettuce or spinach, I’d go for a 2" initial spacing and then thin them out as they get bigger.
EDIT: no need to plant big patches of the same stuff. Mix things up. For example you could have a container that includes basil, green onions, and lettuce, interplanted.
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I don’t know about garlic, but with the exception of basil it’s probably going to be way easier to go pick up already established plants from the flower market for NT$100 each. Oregano, rosemary, etc. are pretty easy to take cuttings from if you need more, and I haven’t had much luck growing them from seeds either (it takes ages, and the germination rate for the seeds I’ve bought in Taiwan was essentially zero).
Basil is easy to grow from seed though. I grew a dozen or so varieties last year, just for fun. For sweet basil, I usually use a ton of seeds in a pot and aim for something like this (though you need to use quite a lot of basil and pluck out the weaklings from time to time):
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I had thought about bringing some seeds over from here U.K. but could be trouble if they caught me at customs.
Sealed packages from commercial seed companies would be safe.
Runner, French and borlotti beans can keep seeding from plants.
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Weevils and other beetle larvae are common place. Common storage pracice is deeo freeze for XX amount of time then seal. No weavil issues. The entire country is at risk of insect contamination of grain if not prepared and stored properly… luckily, its very simple to do properly…
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Nope. Organic means little in regards to germination rate. Organic beens frozen for 2 years still wont germinate 
organic means they didnt add certain chemicals. Nothing more.
Garlic and parsley grow well in taiwan. Oregano does ok too, but its hard finding decent varieties (for taste). Imported seeds are best, but often illegal and not bred for our summers. Parsely… the issue is their tap roots get thick and succulent. Once the inner tissues of the tap root start getting woody they are more prone to infection here in the humid climate. Parsley is a crop that shouldnt be grown in store bought peat soils. They do alright while immature. Once they mature, rot is just a matter of time. We grow lots for wholesale here, but fields must be prepped for both water retention and aeration/drying ability with taiwans vey extreme spectrums. Balcony (covered) is actually WAY easier than open air for this species in taiwan.
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Without considering species pathogen preferrences. I think bigger soil areas are always better forthe micro biota. Certainly some thigs should be kept separate (eg crop rotation principles). I find the most cost effective is using agriculture fabric as abotom and sides for raised beds. Its easily removed allows water penetration and limited soil seepage. People in arented apartment can line their balcony and just fill the thing with soil (safety precautions allowing). Stores uusally only sell 50m or 350m rolls. I dont mind selling at cost if anyone here uses it. I usually have a lot on hand if people just need random cuts. We normally have 4 and 6 for widths by however long you need. Thus stuff works well. I can take pics if people are curious how to use it. You can buy it everywhere in whole rolls. Lasts decades under soil, at least adecade on top of soil.
I also dont like tomatoes for this reason. They dont eild well if not infull sun. And taiwans winds, rains, sun and pathogens kick ther ass easy. Its always a luxury crop in my opinion here. Especially if not spraying chemicals and fertilizing. We grow them for fun because we have lots of land, but if i was in an apartment with limted space they wouldnt be there consideration. Unless they were as great as sex, then sure…