Welcome to the potager forum, shel. You probably thought of this, but the Balcony gardening forum could help you out with the soil question better than we could. Sounds like you have a great space with all that sun.

About a year ago there was a post which tried to define what made a potager different than a standard vegetable garden on one hand, or a cottage garden on the other. There was a lot of heated debate, but I think people agreed on this:

Potagers are designed for beauty and order as much as for raising vegetables. They are usually enclosed (no problem for you and your balcony), and they usually employ symetry. (Mine is an exception; it's more like a cross with a cottage garden, because it has irregular-shaped beds.) The potager can have flowers, a fountain, and ornaments, but its emphasis is food production. It is first and formost a vegetable garden. Beyond that, there was much disagreement.

Maybe you could do a search on the bottom of this page for pictures. There were a lot of them posted at one time, and I know that I got a lot of ideas that way. (Unfortunately, I don't have any to share of my garden, because my DH and I are living a low-tech life right now.)

Anyway, good luck. This forum has been a little slow, but I think it will pick up in the spring.

Hi Shel. I never heard of a potager before today, but I do grow vegetables on a sunny balcony. I am right now in the design process for summer, and thinking about how to make it pretty instead of just functional, which is how I came to this forum. I have no advice (only one season of gardening experience) but I do hope to hear more about your balcony potager adventures!

Well, I use a mix from the square foot gardening crowd: equal parts vermiculite, compost and peat moss.

I don't garden on a balcony, just in a small walled garden.