Around May of last year, after a few months of working (and doing just about everything else) from home, I decided to turn my concrete balcony into something a little more lush. Like anyone who has been confined to a very small condo during the pandemic, I became a bit obsessive over something that, pre-COVID, I had never even considered: creating a personal oasis out of an uninspired slab. I spent lunch breaks wandering around outdoor garden centers and evenings scrolling through Central Texas gardening blogs. I bought star jasmine, carefully twining and training it along the metal railing as it grew. I filled the corners with tall potted cacti that drew blood from my arms as I wrestled them out of their nursery pots. And I coaxed bushy green hibiscus plants to flower, which delighted me with bright pops of red and yellow. With no way to sustain the weight of raised beds, late-night Googling led me to discover hydroponics. Now, most evenings, I walk through my carefully landscaped flora and fauna to harvest everything from cilantro to bok choy to strawberries from a three-tiered vertical gardening tower.