Flowers and Foliage...

The London Vegetable Garden is split firmly into two camps; vegetables and flowers! Whilst my enthusiasm for container vegetable growing threatens to overrun the poor balcony, my girlfriend ensures that we have a botanical balance in force!

Throughout the year we choose a variety of cheap bedding plants for window boxes that generally last anywhere up to three months. These hardy flowers would last longer in the ground, however in containers they quickly grow too big for their environment. Take a look at the before and after pictures – taken two months apart:


Another feature of the London Vegetable Garden's flower display is an array of plants in containers. My girlfriend's father very kindly sent down some new plants from his beautiful garden this weekend. As gardening author Bob Purnell states, one of the benefits of container gardening is your ability to move and re-arrange plants to create a stunning display – this is certainly a huge advantage when pottering about on such a small space.


The London Vegetable Garden project may be about the vegetables, but I'm certainly grateful for my girlfriend's insistence on a certain quota of flowers; it certainly makes the balcony an attractive and a colourful place to work on! The versatility of plants and flowers in pots in containers is incredible – and allows urban gardeners the chance to build some impressive displays.

My First Crops From Pots!

I hope that Mr Bob Purnell will excuse me from drawing so heavily on his book title for this blog post, but my excitement this morning can't be contained – the London Vegetable Garden has yielded its first radishes!

In hindsight (a wonderful thing, but I'm hoping my mistakes will help you chaps out there), I planted my radish seeds too close together, so many of the plants and leaves have been fighting for a very small space. The resultant crop of radishes has therefore been quite varied, as you can see from the picture below, although amongst those, we do have some decent looking ones!

I've scrubbed up a couple of the radishes I'd be comfortable entering into a competition (well almost) and laid them next to the seed packet, as shown below:

As you can see, although I haven't managed to grow enough radishes to open a stall at a farmer's market (yet), this hopefully illustrates just what can be achieved from the confines of such a small urban vegetable gardening space. I'm really proud with these big radishes – and the fact that they look so similar to the picture on the packet!

Please take this as motivation – which is what this London vegetable gardening blog is all about. Why not try planting some radishes of your own? Simply use a decent sized pot and remember to SOW THINLY! Good luck – I'd love to see everyone's results. After all, if I can achieve this on a London balcony next to a busy, smoky London railway line, your balcony, windowsill or patio can too!

Book Review - 'Crops in Pots' by Bob Purnell

As interest in the London Vegetable Garden continues to rise (check out our reference on the Times Online if you haven’t already), more and more of you are emailing or leaving comments requesting information on how to start vegetable gardening in a small space or on a balcony.

The London Vegetable Garden simply started off as an idea one weekend, but there are many dedicated and authoritative books upon the subject of micro-gardening, growing plants in small places and city vegetable growing. Last weekend, my Dad gave me a fantastic book called ‘Crops in Pots’ by Bob Purnell. After an enthusiastic read on a train back to London following my recent Sussex sojourn, I wholeheartedly recommend this vegetable volume for anyone considering starting their own miniature vegetable growing project!

‘Cops in Pots’ starts off by describing in detail what pots to use, how to plant your vegetable pots, what compost to use and ideal positioning, giving any amateur gardener more than enough information to begin. Purnell then goes on to mention what pests and diseases to look for, how to treat these, feeding your plants and general care.

Whilst this is clearly a great book for anyone considering growing a few vegetables in a small space or on a balcony, one of the best bits about this book is its many ‘projects’. It lists several different container combinations for you to attempt, depending on what food you’d like to compliment, such as pasta pots, select salads, textural treats and green garnish. Whilst these all allow for wonderful organic vegetable combinations to be harvested, they remain extremely simple, easy to grow and most importantly, all of these can be achieved in a pot on a balcony – just like the London Vegetable Garden.

If you’ve been inspired by the urban gardening projects brought up by following the London Vegetable Garden, Bob Purnell’s ‘Crops in Pots’ is an ideal starting point for any green-fingered city gardener. Highly recommended.

To purchase ‘Crops in Pots’ on Amazon.co.uk, simply click here.