Growing spaces: balcony

Roots below, usable leaves above, and it tolerates a container better than carrot.

Fast, thirsty and best trained up a net where air can move around it.

A monsoon-flowering lily of the western hills, grown for its white tuber cluster.

Near-indestructible succulent for a bright sill; water only when the soil is dry through.

The black nightshade of monsoon fields — a leafy green in the east, a weed elsewhere.

A tiny monsoon herb that appears in every wet pot, with fruit strung under the leaf.

A low monsoon weed of wet ground, gathered for hair oil for as long as anyone remembers.

Plant a knob of market haldi in June; harvest your own in February.

The same trick as turmeric, in slightly more shade and slightly less time.

A curcuma that smells of raw mango — the pickle rhizome of the east.