What Do I Grow on My Loggia? Herbs, Vegetables and My Experience

Coming from South Moravia, it always felt completely natural to me that people around us grew a lot of things themselves — whether it was vegetables, fruit or herbs. Of course there’s a lot of work behind it, but nothing beats the feeling of picking something straight from your own garden or your own bush. 🫑

We didn’t always have a garden ourselves, but I remember how much people helped each other out. Someone had redcurrants, someone else gooseberries, someone had something else again, and we ended up getting a bit of everything. Apricots and peaches were bought straight from the orchards. And then, of course, came the canning and putting up supplies for winter.

Maybe that’s exactly why, after moving from South Moravia to the Vysočina region — specifically to Jihlava — I started noticing that I actually missed some of these completely ordinary things.

At first I had no idea where to even get black or red currants, gooseberries or other fruit that I used to take almost for granted. These days I obviously know where to buy them, but what I missed most was simply being able to step outside and pick something myself. The older I get, the more I think about what we actually eat. Lately I’ve also become much more interested in where our food comes from and how much of it we can grow ourselves.

My little garden on the loggia

So I gradually started building at least my own small garden wherever I had room for it — on our loggia.

We have an ordinary unglazed loggia. But thanks to it I discovered that you can actually grow quite a lot even on just a few square metres. And maybe what I enjoy most about all of it is the very beginning. Scattering a few tiny seeds into the soil, checking on them regularly, and then one day noticing that something green has appeared above the ground. Watching a plant gradually get stronger, grow, produce its first flowers, and eventually maybe even something we can eat. It’s a small joy, really. 🙂

Our small garden on the loggia

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I get my love of plants from my mum

I know I definitely get my relationship with flowers and plants from my mum, and maybe from other ancestors too. My mum loved flowers. At home we always had various green houseplants — I remember a pothos, for instance, that trailed beautifully for us. Geraniums were her favourites too. She looked after her plants with love and also enjoyed growing things herself. ❤️

I love green plants too, flowers, the scent of herbs, and above all that feeling when I plant something myself and it actually starts to grow.

What I’m growing on the loggia this year

Our loggia faces the morning sun. Sunlight reaches us mainly in the morning, roughly until noon, and after that the loggia is mostly in the shade. This year I decided to try growing a bit more than before. Gradually thyme, rosemary, common lavender, mint, parsley, chives, basil and stevia appeared on our loggia. As for vegetables, I planted classic tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and white peppers, and just for fun I also bought an everbearing Elan strawberry plant.

For cherry tomatoes I grow the Vilma variety from MoravoSeed. It’s a compact bush-type balcony variety, so it’s well suited to growing in pots. And as always happens with growing things — some plants did really well, and some didn’t. 🙂

Herb and vegetable seedlings I planted this spring

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What worked well and what didn’t

Basil made me really happy this year. It did really well for me. Cherry tomatoes and peppers also grew nicely. Mint and chives, on the other hand, surprisingly struggled. I would have expected mint especially to grow almost on its own.

But that’s exactly what I enjoy about growing plants. You can research everything, prepare what you think are ideal conditions for a plant, and it still sometimes does whatever it wants.

On top of that, I was pretty cautious with planting this year and put most things out on the loggia only in May. After South Moravia, Jihlava feels noticeably colder to me. The weather here is also quite changeable, so I’m still learning to judge when it’s safe to leave plants outside without worry.

Basil, tomatoes, peppers and strawberries in full growth

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Growing plants isn’t just about the harvest

I like going out onto the loggia even when there’s really nothing to do there. I just look to see what’s grown a bit more, whether a new flower or a small tomato has appeared. Sometimes I even stroke my plants, and I talk to them too, occasionally. It’s my little oasis of calm.

Sitting there, looking out over Jihlava while surrounded by all that greenery I grew myself, is a huge joy for me.

And my husband is happiest of all once there’s something ready to pick and eat. 🙂

Soil and tiny flies

Over time I found out that a lot also depends on what you plant your plants in.

In the past I bought ordinary potting soil several times and brought tiny flies home along with it. And it barely mattered where I bought the soil.

After these experiences I switched mainly to suppressive substrates from the Forestina Profík brand. Depending on what I’m planting, I buy the version for houseplants, herbs, or specifically for tomatoes and peppers.

They’re more expensive, but my personal experience so far has been very good, and I haven’t had tiny flies appear in them yet. Of course that doesn’t mean they can never appear, but it hasn’t happened to me yet. I also feed the plants with natural fertilizer whenever they need it.

What else I grow at home

My love of growing things obviously doesn’t stop at the loggia. At home, for example, I have a peace lily. It’s wonderfully easy to tell when it needs watering. As soon as it’s low on water, it droops its leaves and lets me know pretty clearly that it’s time to grab the watering can. That’s quite a practical way of communicating, for me. 🙂

I was also given an amaryllis, which bloomed beautifully again this year. When its huge flower fully opened, I could hardly believe something like that had grown at home in a pot.

Last December I received two Christmas cacti, and another one of my regulars is a lemon verbena.

Peace lily, amaryllis and Christmas cactus at home

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Lemon verbena

I love lemon verbena mainly for its strong scent. You can make syrup or tea from it. In summer I sometimes make a simple homemade drink with it. I put a few crushed lemon verbena leaves into a glass jug, squeeze in a lemon, add a bit of honey or cane sugar, and top it all up with water. Sometimes I add freshly squeezed orange juice too. In a similar way, I like water with fresh mint, lemon or lime. It’s exactly one of the reasons I enjoy having my own herbs so much. I don’t have to go anywhere for a few leaves. I just open the door to the loggia and pick them myself.

Lemon verbena on our loggia

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Does it make sense to grow anything?

For me, definitely yes. Not because a few pots would make us stop buying vegetables at the shop. That’s really not the case. But the feeling of picking a tomato from a plant I sowed as a tiny seed a few months earlier is completely different. At the same time, you realise just how much work and time is hidden behind something you simply take off a shelf and put in your basket at the shop. But every morning, when I step out onto the loggia and see all that greenery around me, it makes me happy. And that, really, is what it’s all about. 🙂

This year's first harvest — strawberries and cherry tomatoes

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I simply love growing plants. And what do you grow? 🙂