V for Victory?

Perusing the morning's newspaper on my daily commute is usually an automated exercise that makes the train journey from Hackney to Richmond less laborious. However, this week I was struck by a news piece that was so relevant to the London Vegetable Garden that I jumped up in surprise, much to the shock of the dozing commuter opposite me!

As you all know, one of the main things I've been campaigning for as part of the London Vegetable Garden project, is the opening up of disused spaces for allotment and gardening purposes. With London allotment lists currently more oversubscribed than the Susan Boyle fan club, being a keen gardener within the confines of the M25 can be a 'fruitless' occupation – yet this is simply not fair.

So as you can imagine, it was with real relish that I read of the City of London's plans to open up some of the many vacant building sites that have sprung up around the city in recent months. The recession we're currently wading through has put a stop to much building work, leaving large open spaces that are currently unoccupied and unused.

Sue Ireland, head of Open Spaces in the City states that: “There are plenty of temporary sites awaiting development and there is no reason why, if carefully done, they could not be turned to other uses. We are trying to identify a site on the edge of the Square Mile that would be vacant for between 18 months and two years. Grow bags are one possibility. They could be butted up together and moved as and when the developers need to start work."

This may seem like another social gardening story that will pique press attention for a couple of weeks, but I honestly believe this is the start of a much larger movement. Since the very beginning of the London Vegetable Garden project, I've been adamant that if enough of us get behind a movement, we can bring about change in London's councils and reclaim disused public space for new allotments and gardening purposes.

This current news story represents a dynamic shift in local government thinking and is a huge victory for all urban gardeners – let's build on this progress and keep pushing for more allotments and open space – the power to do this is in all of our hands. What are your thoughts? Please feel free to leave your opinion in the comments section.

(To read the article on the Guardian website, simply click here.)

Don't Strangle Me!

Morning all – just a very quick blog post this morning to kick the weekend off and proffer some green-fingered London vegetable gardening advice. When planting out tomato plants (or any other vegetables / fruits for that matter), many of us tie string or ties around the stem to fix it to a supporting cane.

Now, this is all well and good, but one thing to remember is that plants grow thicker, as well as taller! I was replacing my plant supports with bamboo canes the other evening and came across a piece of string on one of the tomato plants. Now, I thought I'd removed all of these bits of string, so was shocked to see one I'd left!

As you can see from the picture below, the string had indeed been cutting into the stem of the plant as it grew. Luckily I caught this in time, and it has since recovered, but strangling your plants with string and ties is a veritable menace that many amateur gardeners overlook. If you've used (or are planning to use) ties or string, always make sure that you leave some room for growth in the loop and check back regularly.

The Darling Buds of May (and June...)

It's a well known fact that the banalities of life (such as a job, visiting the doctors, doing the shopping) all detract from valuable gardening time. The aforementioned banalities also consume valuable blogging time, which is why the London Vegetable Garden has been as sparse as my carrot plants in recent weeks - you have my sincere apologies.

But moving on, I've managed to weed some time into my diary to get firmly back on track with recording the progress of my organic odyssey. The recent hot weather has been responsible for a huge surge in growth, with vegetable plants taking over much of the London Vegetable Garden balcony. This has harassed the other half immeasurably, as putting out the clothes horse now requires military precision to avoid squashing tomato plants and radish pots. It gives me however, plenty of new fodder for a blog entry and an update on the London Vegetable Garden!


The plants that have fared the best in the current British heat wave are my runner beans. Two plants died recently, which I fear was my own fault when I removed the bottoms from their pots to place over the grow bags. With these weeded out, along with plenty of water and sunshine, their fortunes have reversed and thay now dominate the balcony wall.


As you can see from the pictures, they are also starting to bud flowers, which indicates that they're well on their way to produce-bearing stage. Although I didn't harvest many actual runner beans last year (OK, three to be precise), I'm hoping that the added compost underneath the pots and the regular feed I'm giving them will see an increased crop this time around. Watch this space for more updates...

I've been getting my hands extremely dirty today, but fear not, I haven't been claiming expenses for 'duck islands', toilet seats or mock tudor beams - we have perfectly capable elected representatives for that. Literal dirt rather than political dirt was the order of the day, as I went up to Stoke Newington's weekly farmer's market this morning with my better half.

Inspired by Joanna Blythman's superb book 'Shopped' (review to follow soon) and an extreme hatred of shuffling around a zombie-infested Tesco, I decided to check out alternative ways of purchasing the weekly shop.

For far too long now, UK consumers have been accepting poor quality, unripe fruit and vegetables from supermarkets that are shafting UK suppliers on price. Yet we continue to flock there in our masses, under the illusion - and a false one at that - that supermarket vegetables are cheaper.

Apart from proving an infinitely more pleasurable experience, the visit to the farmer's market yielded some positive results. We managed to buy a selection of cheap, organic produce from the farmers that had harvested them only literally the day before - no sitting in supermarket depots for these vegetables!

As you can see from the picture above, these vegetables look ten times more appealing than supermarket produce and in fact, collectively, cost less - don't believe supermarket lies! From now on, I'm going to try and make a concerted effort to buy the majority of my fruit and veg from the farmer's market.

Underneath the Soil...

Exactly one month ago, I added radishes to the expanding list of produce being sown enthusiastically on the London Vegetable Garden balcony. 31 days later and the radish leaves have grown to truly impressive portions, so I thought I'd do a little digging to see just how far they have actually grown.

Many gardening blogs, books etc tend to show the reader only what's happening externally, but without testing a few plants, it's hard to see just how far along the organic odyssey we actually are. My rocket is evidently ready to be eaten now (Bank Holiday treat perhaps), but what's going on in pots that haven't shown any demonstrable change in recent weeks?

I gently pulled out one of the radishes from the side of the main radish pot, so as not to disturb any roots around the others. In retrospect, I have now learnt that radishes shouldn't be sown so close together - a concept that's hard to avoid when filled with the enthusiasm of sowing tiny seeds in a huge pot! However I have had helpful comments left on the blog and also on Twitter (@londonveggarden) telling me that the radishes on the London Vegetable Garden may just be planted a little too densely to bear a spectacular crop - we shall just have to wait and see what transpires!

Anyway, I digress. As I said, I've pulled up a radish plant and photographed it to show you how far it has grown after 4 weeks. As you can see from the close-up, a 'radish shape' is clearly visible even at this early stage. Some members of the London Vegetable Garden's Twitter contingent have already told me that once the edible part of the radish starts growing, it grows very quickly indeed, so watch this space!

On a slight tangent, I chanced to pop into Somerfield this evening on my way home from the gym and noticed that they were selling big grow bags for a few pounds. This comes as a welcome surprise, as it means a short walk to the supermarket rather than a long and cumbersome journey to the more expensive (albeit superb) garden centre a short bus ride away. No excuses for the tomatoes not to have a nice new home this weekdend!

Frequented by Feathered Friends...

Going off on a slight ornithological tangent here, I’d like to comment upon the variety and frequency of the feathered friends that have been visiting my balcony in recent weeks.

When my girlfriend and I moved into this flat a year ago, I put up a bird feeder with peanuts in, however we didn’t see any birdlife on our balcony for an entire 12 months. What’s truly remarkable in recent weeks however, is the amount of birds that now flock to the balcony several times a day.

It all started around three weeks ago with a solitary robin, which started pecking away at the bird feeder one morning whilst I was watching BBC breakfast news before setting off to work. Amazed, I continued to watch out for this robin and sure enough, he visited the bird feeder every single morning.

Well-known for my passionate impulses, I rushed out at the weekend and purchased a bird food fat ball (contained within a plastic mesh netting) and hung this up next to the bird feeder, whilst also sprinkling wild birdseed mix onto the balcony. Well, since then, the birdlife that has visited us has been astonishing.

The robin (who incidentally, we’ve named ‘Vic’) still comes every day, pigeons are practically resident and a varied range of tits and finches now frequent the balcony at intervals too. Readers mustn’t forget that I’m situated literally 10 metres from an extremely busy railway line, including freight trains – which led me to believe that I wouldn’t really see any wild birdlife, save for the odd London pigeon.

So far I’ve recorded at least 7 different species of birds, however I’m still attempting to classify some of these. I’m not an avid birdwatcher, however the addition of this unexpected surge of wildlife to the London Vegetable Garden project is an extremely welcome and enjoyable distraction.

New Arrivals at the London Vegetable Garden!

The London vegetable Garden has had quite a few visitors in recent days! Considering my flat is in such close proximity to a busy railway line, the frequency and variety of birds that have made an appearance on this inner-city balcony is quite remarkable.

The little robin has been a regular visitor for a few weeks now, along with the pigeons, but I’ve started to see more and more varieties of small birds, including Great Tits, Grey Tits and finches.

Tomatoes, Runner Beans & plenty of Cling Film!

Now we come to the last two vegetables I’m trying to grow. Well, I should say vegetables and a fruits, because the humble tomato is technically a member of the fruit family, owing to its seed rather than root-based nature. These plants have to be started off under cover or in a greenhouse, but as this is the London Vegetable Garden / Balcony Project, I’m using cling film covers and keeping them inside the flat in front of the warm window to start off with.

That seasonal favourite of British greenhouses, I’m attempting to grow my ‘Tomato Maskotka’ (Lycoperiscon Iycoperiscum) on a sunny (English weather permitting!) balcony. I really do believe that tomatoes are a quintessential part of any British garden – I can still vividly recollect childhood memories of going into a warm greenhouse and being hit by that (always warm) sweet, tomato-like smell.

I’ve started off by sowing the seeds thinly in three seed trays, covered with cling film. The packet instructions dictate that these seedlings should stay in their trays until they are around 4 inches tall, before being transplanted into a grow bag, which incidentally, I struggled home with on the train last week!

The final variety I planted last week is the hardy Runner Bean. I’m using the ‘Stringless Armstrong’ variety (Phaseolus Coccineus), which is the same variety I managed to grow with (some) success on this very same balcony last year.

The plants shot up to impressive proportions, however the crop didn’t yield a great deal of beans. I’ve been told by friends that this is probably due to planting in compost and the beans not receiving much nourishment, as well as the polluting factor of the train line that runs adjacent to the flat. This year I have planted the seeds in small pots and will transport them to large pots when ready, this time prepared with a mix of grow bag compost and a regular feed.

So now we’ve established all of the vegetables so far. I’ll be referring to the days as numbers going forward, and these all date from the day I planted everything. Therefore, Sunday 5th April is ‘Day 1’ and so forth. The London Vegetable Garden is well and truly underway!