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SixSqFt: a balcony garden planner for real sun hours and pots
A balcony and patio planner that starts from your real sun hours, zone, and pot size.
SixSqFt is a balcony garden planner for renters and small-space growers who have a rail, a few pots, and half a day of sun. It starts from measured sun hours, container volume, and your zone rather than a backyard bed.
Waitlist Not built yet Updated 5 September 2026
What problem does SixSqFt solve?
Most growing advice is written for a bed in a yard. It assumes overhead sun for most of the day, soil that holds water overnight, and room to put a tomato a meter from a courgette. A balcony has none of that. It has a rail facing one direction, a wall that throws shade for half the day, a building opposite that takes the morning, and pots that dry out by four in the afternoon. So the basil goes in on the first warm weekend and is pale and leggy by midsummer, because the rail faces north and gets bright light rather than sun. The tomato goes into a small pot, sets a couple of fruit, and stops. Nothing on a plant tag mentions container volume, and the words full sun are printed the same way whether you have a field or a fire escape. The failure is not skill. It is advice written for a different place.
What can I grow here?
Sun hours, container size, and season in; a conservative list of plants that fit out.
Free to use. No account. Nothing you type here is stored.
What would SixSqFt do?
SixSqFt would start from the space rather than the plant. You sketch the balcony: which way the rail faces, where the wall and the building opposite sit, and how deep the floor space runs. You log what you actually see across a weekend, morning and afternoon, so the plan uses measured light instead of a compass guess. Each pot goes in by volume, in gallons or litres, because the root run decides more than the label does. From that, SixSqFt would suggest what fits: which pots suit leaves and herbs, which single pot could carry a fruiting crop, and what to bring indoors when the season turns. Every list is general guidance, hedged toward the cautious end, and labeled as approximate. A hot wall and your own frost dates beat any table.
How would it work?
- 1Sketch the rail and floor pots, and mark which way each one faces.
- 2Log the sun you see across one weekend, morning and afternoon, hour by hour.
- 3Enter each container by volume in gallons or litres rather than by width.
- 4Read a season plan matched to those hours and those pots, hedged to the cautious side.
Who is it for?
- Renters with a rail, a few pots, and no permission to dig anything.
- First-time growers who lost a basil plant to a north-facing balcony last summer.
- Small-patio cooks who want herbs and salad within reach of the kitchen.
How do you work out what to grow on a balcony with 4 hours of sun?
Measure instead of guessing, and give it one weekend. Stand at the rail and photograph the same spot every hour from first light to dusk, on Saturday and again on Sunday. Direct sun casts a hard shadow with a sharp edge. Bright shade casts a soft edge or none. Count only the hard-shadow hours, and write the total on the folder. Do the near end of the rail and the far end separately, because one end usually beats the other by an hour or more. Repeat it in a different month if you can. The sun sits lower in spring and fall, so the building opposite takes more of the morning, and a rail that reads six hours in midsummer can read three by late September. When two readings disagree, plan with the smaller one. Now match pots to that number. Leaves and soft herbs do the most with the least light, so give them the shadier end. Anything that has to swell a fruit wants your sunniest spot and a much larger pot, because fruiting plants drink. Work in volume, not width: roughly a gallon for one herb, two or three for chard or a pepper, five to seven for a tomato or a courgette. A wide shallow pot dries faster than a deep one holding the same volume. Then arrange for watering. Group the thirstiest pots together so one can covers them, put heavy pots on the floor and light ones on the rail, and stand everything in saucers if your neighbor below has a washing line. Check your building's rules on rail planters before you hang anything over a walkway.
What do people use today?
| Option | Good at | The gap |
|---|---|---|
| General gardening apps | Large plant databases, watering reminders, and planting calendars keyed to your zone. | They assume a bed in the ground, so pot volume is missing and full sun is never checked against your rail. |
| Plant tags and seed packets | Free with the plant, and honest about days to maturity, spacing, and frost tolerance. | Spacing is written for a row, and nothing on the tag says what four hours of light will do to that variety. |
| Extension services and garden center advice | Genuinely local frost dates, pest pressure, and varieties that suit your climate. | Aimed at yards and allotments, and rarely broken down by the hours a shaded rail actually receives. |
| A notebook and a spreadsheet | Free, private, and the one place your measured hours and pot sizes can live together. | You do the matching yourself, and nothing stops you buying another tomato for a shaded rail. |
What would it cost?
Free
$0
- One balcony with unlimited pots
- Sun log and the planting picker
Grow
$4.99/mo
- Everything in Free
- Succession planting through the season
- Pest and problem notes per crop
- Extra balconies, patios, and windowsills
Prices are proposed. Founding members lock in the lowest price if we build SixSqFt.
Questions people ask
What is a balcony garden planner?
A balcony garden planner works out what will grow in containers on a small outdoor space, using the light that space actually gets. SixSqFt would take measured sun hours, pot volume, and your zone, then suggest crops that fit, with the list labeled as approximate guidance.
What can I grow with only four hours of sun?
Leafy crops and soft herbs generally cope best with low light: lettuce, spinach, rocket, chives, mint, and parsley are common choices. Results still turn on your climate, the pot, and whether those hours fall in the morning or the afternoon. Treat any list as a starting point.
How big should my containers be?
Bigger than feels necessary, and measured by volume rather than width. One herb is usually fine in about a gallon, chard and peppers in two or three, a tomato or a courgette in five to seven. Deep beats wide at the same volume.
Does SixSqFt handle rail rules and building restrictions?
Yes, as a constraint you set. You can mark that planters may not hang over the walkway, or that a fire escape route must stay clear, and the plan then uses only the floor and rail space you are allowed to fill.
What happens over winter?
SixSqFt would flag which pots to bring inside for your zone and which to treat as annuals and replant. Frost dates vary street by street, so the plan gives a window rather than a date and tells you to watch the forecast.
Is the planting picker on this page free?
Yes. Enter sun hours, container size, and the season, and the picker returns a short list from a curated table. That table is deliberately conservative and labeled approximate. It runs in your browser and stores nothing.
When will SixSqFt launch?
There is no date. SixSqFt gets built only if enough balcony and patio growers join this list and say they would use it. Joining costs nothing, and the planting picker on this page is free either way.
Where does this stand?
SixSqFt is a proposal, not a product. This page collects demand from search and answer engines. Askwright builds it only if enough people join the waitlist and say they would pay. Read how this works.