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!

Radishes Almost There...

Saturday morning on the London Vegetable Garden has brought about great excitement and it's radish-shaped! That's right, whilst I'll readily admit that I planted my radish seeds too thickly to bear a large crop (the benefits of hindsight...), the radishes that have been growing are now looking ready to be harvested.

When growing vegetables, or any plants for that matter, it's always important to regularly check the surface of the soil and clear it of old leaves, dead flower heads etc, as this can decompose and have a detrimental effect upon the health of your vegetables and plants.

As you can see from the picture, the radishes are so leafy now, that it's very hard to see the top of the soil in the plant pot, so imagine my surprise (and delight!) when I checked them this morning to see this:
I'm going to leave them in for another week and then harvest the ones that are poking out of the surface, like these ones. I'm hoping, in addition to fresh radishes in a salad, that the smaller radishes that have struggled will now have some more room to grow – it'll be interesting to see what happens. Ensure you check back regularly to find out what happens when they're pulled out!

All Change on the Middle Window Box Front...

Avid followers of the London Vegetable Garden could well be forgiven for thinking my agricultural attentions have been too focussed on flora and fauna in recent weeks. Fear not, as vegetables are very much still the focus of the balcony and this blog, but one of the window boxes has looked rather dilapidated in recent weeks and the time has come to re-do it.

As you can see, I planted ivy in this window box over a year ago. Whilst their longevity is a testament to the hardy nature of the plant, this one really has become too big for the box it's planted in. You can see from the stem size below just how big the plant has come; whilst it would flourish in a garden, planted in the ground, in this window box it really has reached its limit.

It just so happened that when making a (compulsory I might add) visit to Tesco, they had some cheap bedding flowers on offer for £3. I've done well out of supermarkets for cheap gardening paraphernalia recently, including the excellent grow bags I blogged about a few weeks previously.

A pleasant weekend afternoon was spent potting this new plants into the window box, although in terms of outside space, it's proving more and more difficult to manoeuvre out on the balcony! I'm hoping that in a few weeks, we'll have a beautiful floral display acting as a colourful centrepiece of the London Vegetable Garden. Watch this space.

Tomatoes on the Move...

Seizing on the opportunity to snap up a couple of grow bags retailing in Somerfield for £1.29, I spent the afternoon tending to my multitude of gargantuan tomato plants.

I'm experimenting yet again and in this instance, am putting some tomato plants into grow bags outside on the balcony, with some more remaining inside on the windowsill. I'm still unsure as to how I'm going to construct a 'bed' for the indoors grow bag (to avoid mess inside the flat), so whilst I deliberated over that produce problem, I set to, transplanting three tomato plants into the grow bag outside.

The first step I took, was to take 3 flower pots and cut the bottom out of them:




The intention was to sit these pots on top of holes in the grow bag. Tomato plants can grow further roots out of their stems, so by offering the plants an extra flower pot's worth of compost, I'm hoping that I've given them another incentive to give the London Vegetable Garden some tomato plants this summer, even if it is only a few!

Once I had cut the holes into the flower pots, I wedged these into the openings I'd created on the grow bag:


Following this, I proceeded to lay a bit of compost in the flower pots, transplant the tomato plants into the pots and then cover the stalks up with compost until the pots were full:


As you can see, I've inserted some plant sticks and tied the plants to them for added support. I've given them a good watering, as it's extremely hot and sunny on the London Vegetable Garden today and hopefully, it'll remain warm enough for them going forward now. Rest assured, progress will be monitored and recorded on your favourite London gardening blog!

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!

Day 45 Balcony Update – Lettuce Begin!

45 days ago, the world was a much more innocent place. The bubonic bacon bandwagon known as swine flu or ‘H1N1’ had yet to rear its ugly head (sniff), MPs were still nonchalantly claiming expenses for troublesome toilet seats and Peter Andre and Katie Price were still manacled together in marital bliss (at least when Max Clifford was in sight). A lot has happened in 45 days, however the event that eclipses all of these snippets of news is the astounding progress of the London Vegetable Garden.

Over the past 6 weeks, I’ve been determined to grow my own organic vegetables from the confines of a dreary London balcony and the resulting crusade has gone further than I ever expected – from mentions in Times gardening blogs and enquiries from London newspaper journalists, this project has grown quicker than my runner beans!

But enough chat – if you want pretentious piffle, my Modern Musings blog is the place to go. Here, I’m checking in with you, my faithful readers, and reporting the current produce progress happening outside the windows of my London flat.


As you can see from the new photos, the most impressive result so far is the rocket. After only 6 weeks, this looks like something you could actually eat! I’m waiting for it to get a bit longer before harvesting it, but it’s doing extremely well in its hanging balcony box – and getting a lot of sun every day.

The radishes look equally impressive, although I pulled a plant out to examine progress the other night and the stalk is simply attached to a root system – I have no idea when the actual radishes start forming, so anyone who can enlighten me, please leave a comment!

The tomato plants are looking sturdier by the day. This weekend, I plan to gamble with leaving a few outside. If that goes successfully, I hope to transfer the tomato plants into a grow bag for their final growing positions – they seem big enough already but once again, any advice from any experienced gardeners is hugely appreciated!

On a final note (and at the cost of sounding like a vegan hippy), I’m really beginning to connect with my plants. The tomato plants are filling the flat with an extremely vivid smell that evokes childhood memories of greenhouses and the progress the whole garden has made over 6 weeks is a visible reminder of the care and effort I’ve been putting in. All gardeners say how satisfying it is to grow your own, and with progress like this, it’s not hard to see why.



On your own personalised calendars you can track your gardening tasks and growth of plants along with your everyday appointments and holidays. You won't forget the last time you watered the tomatoes - or your mother's birthday!

For regular news and updates on the London Vegetable Garden, please subscribe to an RSS feed, follow the blog or join me on Twitter: @londonveggarden.

No Balcony? Herbs are for ANYONE...

A balcony, despite its confined space, is a luxury that many green-fingered Londoners simply don’t have. Whilst this blog aims to record my progress as I attempt to grow vegetables on my balcony, I’m also trying to promote awareness around green issues and the fact that ANYONE can grow a few things, even if it’s on a windowsill!

Whilst I’ve focused my agricultural attentions on producing a variety of vegetables right here on my London balcony garden, I’ve overlooked one of the simplest and easiest ways to start enjoying growing your own within a small London home – the humble herb garden.

Regular readers will be aware that I’m growing coriander plants from seed (a wonderful addition to any salad), however on the Bank Holiday weekend, I purchased some herb plants to put on the kitchen windowsill.

One of the real attractions to growing herbs (apart from their ability to freshen up any salad or evening meal, straight from pot to plate) is the fact that they are easy to maintain and even a complete beginner can manage them. Simply a sunny ledge and regular watering will ensure that you have a constant crop of fresh seasoning that tastes infinitesimally better than expensive supermarket offerings that wilt before you’ve got them home.

On our kitchen windowsill, we have four pots of herbs growing; curled parsley (Petroselinum crispum), basil (Ocimum basilcum), oregano (Origanum vulgare) and sage (Salvia). I’ve looked on a leading supermarket’s website (one that will remain anonymous, since the London Vegetable Garden is too poor to incur libel costs) and fresh packets of herbs all retail at around 79p, with a ‘short product life’ warning emblazoned next to them.

Let’s say you needed some fresh basil for a mozzarella and tomato pasta salad – why waste 79p when you can have a pot that is as fresh as you can get and will last you months? These particular pots were part of a 4 for £5 offer, meaning that financially, growing your herbs is an extremely viable way to save money whilst enjoying better, fresher organic produce – why would anyone choose not to?!

So if you’re thinking that you’d like to start growing your own, but have no idea where to possibly start, herbs are an ideal, easy and satisfying way to start your foray into growing your own vegetables in little or no space. These pots are available in supermarkets and garden centres, but if you’re feeling particularly adventurous, why not try growing a few from seed – my coriander is showing recognisable leaves after only a few weeks!.

For tips on growing your own herbs, visit the BBC Gardening website by clicking here!

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.

Bank Holiday Update...

Whilst I wouldn’t describe the Homebase Bank Holiday experience as ‘relaxing’, it was a necessary evil that resulted in some enjoyable gardening activity in the London Vegetable Garden this afternoon.

The main job completed today was the (rather complex) task of cutting holes into the runner bean pots and sitting them onto a grow bag. When I disposed of last year’s runner bean attempt, the entire soil was densely packed with roots. In order to give the roots a bit more space this time round, I’ve opened up a grow bag and sat the two pots, sans-base, on top. The roots should hopefully now have a lot more space to grow into, which should have a positive impact upon the harvest – we hope!

Admittedly, removing the bottoms from the pots with beans already in was an extremely difficult task and I’m concerned that I’ve disturbed the plants. However, previous experience has shown me that runner beans are hardy vegetables, so hopefully they haven’t been too badly unsettled. For future reference, this set-up should definitely be implemented the minute the seedlings are big enough to be transplanted from their original seeding positions – I guarantee it will avoid turning into a garden grump, like I did this afternoon as soil and roots went flying everywhere!

Hopefully this work will enable me to maximise my harvest of runner beans, with the added benefit of taking up no extra space. Since the pots are sat on top of the grow bag, the only space used is a few inches of height, so this is definitely a top tip if you wish to grow vegetables on your small balcony or roof garden.

A Budding Bank Holiday...

Along with clogged-up motorways and visiting family members you’d really rather not, the Bank Holiday invariably shifts people’s attentions to the garden once again, even if only for a few hours of mowing or barbequing.

Whilst not a middle-aged dad who’s finally been roped into tidying up the back garden before the mother-in-law comes over, my girlfriend and I do intend to join the legions of harassed husbands at a Homebase later this morning. Keen to make the most of the Bank Holiday weather (which, strangely for England, is actually warm and sunny), I want to spend some time outdoors before I return to the daily commute and eight hours cooped up in front of a computer screen.

The main task I’d like to get sorted is the grow bag base for the runner beans. These vegetables have incredibly fast-growing and extensive root systems and the pots they are currently sat in don’t offer them enough space to grow. One of the London Vegetable Garden’s followers kindly emailed in with some tips, suggesting that a bottomless pot sat on top of a grow bag would reap dividends for the roots and subsequently, the runner bean crop.

Here on the London Vegetable Garden, we do enjoy our flowers too! The pansies that lasted through the winter have now succumbed to fatigue and have joined that big compost heap in the sky – worryingly, I think white fly is partly to blame. With this in mind, I’d also like to sterilise these pots and bed-in some new flowers.

I intend to sit down and record the day’s events later on this evening, but until then leave you with some recent pictures of how the various vegetables are progressing. The radishes are especially impressive!

April Summary

As we approach the end of April, now seems a good time to summarise exactly where we’re at with the London Vegetable Garden.

It’s been little under a month since I decided to start making use of my balcony and trying to see how many vegetables I could grow. Since then, the idea has really ‘sprung into life’ and I’ve started looking at issues surrounding self-sufficiency, growing vegetables as an answer to financial hardship and also at allotments in London.

As you can see from the picture above, we’re well and truly under way in terms of actual London balcony vegetable growing! This blog has started picking up a regular readership and more people are starting to leave comments. I’d like to thank everyone who reads this blog for their continued support, but we’re far from over yet!

Over the next few months, I’ll be charting the progression of my produce, naturally, and am also set to explore some more areas around gardening, growing your own vegetables and the implications it has on today’s society. If any readers feel they have an interesting area to discuss or would like to see me write about a certain topic, then please don’t hesitate to email me at callumsaunders@yahoo.co.uk

I’m hoping, that in May, the London Vegetable Garden will continue bearing flora and fauna and we’ll hopefully have something edible appearing! April’s been a very interesting month and really seen this project take off, in ways I didn’t ever imagine when I started – let’s hope May is full of more agricultural adventures as I attempt to bring horticultural hope to the people of London!

Lots and lots of pots!

Only yesterday I was enjoying a London marathon basked in glorious sunshine; today I have been out on the balcony getting cold, wet and dirty. The British weather truly is an unpredictable beast, but the London Vegetable Garden marches proudly on whatever Mother Nature throws our way!

I’ve been working in the London Vegetable Garden this morning, as I have this week off work and am escaping to the countryside for a few days. With this in mind, I wanted to make sure that the tomato plants were re-potted before I went. The weather has been very sunny over the previous week, and sat on the balcony windowsill, the tomato plants have been faring extremely well indeed.

Regular readers of the London Vegetable Garden blog will know that I recently re-potted one of my three tomato seed trays into a few pots, choosing to do just one to see how they fared. Well, all plants are doing well, so today I decided to re-pot a second seed tray – this time one seedling to a pot.

Well, with the wind howling against me (and giving the runner beans quite a pounding in the process), I’ve potted these latest tomato seedlings. I now have a mixture of tomato plant ‘options’ going on – those still in seed tray one, the initial re-potted batch (three / four seeds to a pot) and now a crop of one seed per pot plants. With three different options, I’m hoping that at least a few will grow into hardy tomato plants that I can start planting in a grow bag and focusing on. If they all take off, then perhaps the neighbours will be receiving a few plants to start a balcony vegetable-growing project of their own!

Incidentally, I have re-potted some of the rocket today. One of the seed trays looked very packed indeed, so I’ve re-planted the rocket seedlings into a window box that hangs on the balcony. The roots looked very short, so I’m hoping that they haven’t been damaged in the move – we’ll just have to wait and see how well they take!

New arrivals!

So, two weeks down the line and things on the balcony are well underway, highlighted by the impressive size of the newly re-potted runner beans! Now that there is once again a little bit of space back on the balcony windowsill, I’ve made a few new additions to the London Vegetable Garden.

Many of you have emailed in to say that herbs are an easy and space-efficient plant to grow on a balcony or on a sunny kitchen windowsill. I’ve taken this on board and am looking to start a varied herb garden over the next few weeks. The first of these, planted yesterday, is Coriander (Coriandrum Sativum). The packet instructions say that it is enough to grow this in pots on a windowsill, so this is a great way for city gardeners to maximise the variety of produce they can grow whilst economising space.

The second batch of new additions to the London Vegetable Garden this week is French Breakfast Radishes (Raphanus Sativus). The packet states that these are high-yielding crops, ideal for use as a ‘catch-crop’ between slower growing vegetables, so we’ll see if they arrive before the carrots! I’ve planted these in deep pots – as a shallow vegetable, hopefully they’ll have plenty of room to grow.

On a non-vegetable note, my other half is beginning to get concerned at the amount of compost-ridden pots taking over the balcony, so I’ve invested in some more flowers to ensure the balcony retains its aesthetic qualities and keeps her happy – White Foxgloves (Digitalis Purpurea). Progress will be reported here first!

All change on the bean front...

Exactly two weeks to the day and already it’s time to transplant the runner beans! Regular follows of the London Vegetable Garden will know that these beans have been shooting up around two inches per day since they sprouted, so I wanted to get them bedded into pots as soon as possible.

The pictures here show how quickly and densely the roots grow too. Several of you have been emailing in with tips and advice (much appreciated – keep them coming) and suggesting that I should cut a hole in the bottom of the pots and sit them on top of a grow bag, so that the roots can really spread out and dig in.

I’ve put some canes up for the leaves to establish themselves on. Hopefully the plants won’t be too distressed from the move and will now settle down and start winding around the canes.

Carrots are go!

Two weeks to the day and the London Vegetable Garden has its first glimpse of carrot! As you can see from the attached picture it really is just a glimpse, but 14 days down the line and all of the seeds have now sprouted. That’s the easy bit out of the way…

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!

Fly me to the moon...

Whilst this rocket won’t ‘fly me to the moon’ (I couldn’t resist!) I am hoping that it will provide me with some salads that are ‘out of this world’. OK, OK, I’ll stop the awful puns, but I would like to introduce the second crop I’m attempting to nurture on my metropolitan mezzanine.

Earlier this week, I planted ‘Rocket Runaway’ (Eruca Sativa), the name hopefully indicating its fast-growing nature. I’ve sowed the rocket seeds in seed trays and I’m hoping that these will yield some nice baby leaves pretty quickly – the instructions on the packet certainly seem to suggest that frequent yields are possible.

As I’m gardening on a balcony rather than in the earth, I’m presuming that I’ll only be able to grow one batch per seed tray, so I’m keen to see how I get on with this first round. I’m hoping to harvest the leaves midway between baby and mature stage, but as the soil isn’t tremendously deep, I’m guessing that I’ll have to harvest these at baby leaf stage.