My patch

To give you an idea or what sort of yield you can get from your small space - our balcony is about 2.5m by 5m, we have a table and chairs, BBQ and a large worm bin out there, keep our bikes out there and still have a bit of space for our three year old daughter to do running rounds, have her paddling pool out etc. Basically our crops in pots are just around the edges, so I'm a long way short of maximising all possible growing space!

Even so, the last couple of years we've enjoyed; juicy peaches and strawberries, more french beans than you can shake a stick at (I can pick a huge handful one day and there's another huge handful to be gathered again a couple of days later) masses of delicious cherry toms (and some rather delicious green tomato chutney made by a friend at the end of the season), loads of courgettes, sugar snap peas, chillies, radishes, peppers, pumpkins, carrots, spinach, swiss chard, various herbs and lots of different salad leaf.

My actual growing space consists of 2 large pots (about 40x40cm), 2 medium ones (about 35x35cm), 4 smallish ones (about 30x30cm), a couple of window boxes and hanging baskets, a strawberry planter and then just various small pots filling the gaps. I went for large square pots to maximise space. If you're really serious about maximising yield, you could allocate a whole area of the balcony to a raised bed. Personally I prefer the flexibility of pots which can be moved around etc.

!!!! Remember, you should always check the weight bearing ability of your balcony before putting out lots of heavy raised beds, or even big pots!!!!

There are some great books about gardening in small spaces which can give you ideas to really maximise your crop. I've got 'The Edible Container Garden' by Michael Guerra and 'Crops in Pots' by Bob Purnell. The first has a really good section with all the fruit and veggies that grow well in pots, minimum container depths for each, basic techniques etc and the second is full of little 'container projects' and some recipe ideas for using the resulting produce.

Here are the amazon links for ref:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Edible-Container-Garden-Fresh-Spaces/dp/1856752208/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274001701&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crops-Pots-Container-Projects-Vegetables/dp/0600615510/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274002123&sr=1-1