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!

Updates - Day 18...

A quick update – I’m hoping to do some more work in the garden (on the balcony) this weekend. Plenty of you have been emailing in, sharing your tips, so thanks for these – they really are appreciated and most helpful! Plus, a week after planting, the radishes have sprouted already – no doubt spurred on by this mild April weather we’re enjoying in London!

As you know, last weekend I transplanted some of my tomato seedlings into pots so that they would have a bit more room. I was reluctant to move all of them, in case it turned out to be a disaster and I lost the whole crop! Whilst the seedlings that remain in the seed trays admittedly look the strongest, the transplanted seedlings look pretty healthy too.

One piece of advice I received from a post left on the Royal Horticultural Society website explained that when the seedlings are big enough, I should plant in bottomless pots that sit on top of an open grow bag, thus giving the roots plenty of room to spread out in a confined space. Well, I’m going to attempt this with the runner bean plants (that are looking extremely strong at the moment) this weekend.

Unfortunately, a battle with compost bags and public transport beckons, along with the fact that I’m going to have to saw the bottoms off the pots without losing all the soil in the process - I guess that’s simply a price I’ll have to pay in order to yield a magnificent harvest…

As for the rocket, I think I’m going to have to sort this out this weekend. It seems to have slowed down a bit and looks crowded. I’m hoping that by thinning the plants out, they’ll start to grow a bit more again, if the transfer doesn’t affect them badly.

Make sure that you check back to see the developments over the weekend!

Vegetables on Twitter!

Unless you've been hiding under a very large rock at the end of your vegetable garden, you'll no doubt be aware of the latest social network craze sweeping the Internet, Twitter! Well, the London Vegetable Garden likes to think that although it's only a balcony, it's up to speed with all the modern gardens, hence it now has its own Twitter account! Simply click on @londonveggarden to start following us on Twitter!

Preparing for a global food shortage?

A friend of mine passed me a copy of the Sunday Times magazine supplement this weekend, pointing out an interesting article by John-Paul Flintoff, who happened to be writing about several issues that are extremely relevant to the London Vegetable Garden. Whereas I’ve previously examined the concept of growing your own produce as a money-saving ‘credit crunch’ alternative, Flintoff argues that global food shortages could mean we’re all going to have to get proactive with our plots – and soon.

Whilst this feature isn’t meant to paint an apocalyptic picture of doom and gloom, it does raise some extremely interesting points. For example, did you know that 40% of the food we eat is imported, including 95% of our fruit and the wheat in our bread? This is an unbelievably shocking statistic, especially when you consider that in 1900, agricultural employment was at 40% - paltry compared to Britain’s 2% today.

If I were an economist (those that know me will note I usually am after a few pints), I’d start arguing the case that during a recession and rising UK unemployment, surely the Government should start decreasing the amount of produce it imports and start creating more agricultural jobs? Financial politics aside, it’s seems extremely clear, that modern governments just aren’t concerned about self-sufficiency.

This belief is shared with Professor Tim Lang of City University, London, who draws upon a recent report from the Cabinet Office, stating that “existing patterns of food production are not fit for a low-carbon, more resource-constrained future” – a damning indictment indeed. So if our ‘elected representatives’ are failing to deal with this, apparently very real, issue, perhaps we as communities and individuals should be tackling this situation at a much more ‘grassroots’ (forgive the intentional pun) level?

Flintoff talks about ‘Transition Towns’ as a collective answer to a shared problem. Several towns are now planning ahead and striving to become more self-sufficient. Initiatives such as shared-space growing, sourcing local produce and fruit tree mapping are all schemes that are being met with considerable success. But where does that leave us in terms of our individual responsibilities?

Faced by the very real possibility of future food shortages, more and more of us are re-learning to do something that most of us have forgotten, despite the fact that we’ve been farming for 600 generations. What is this? Simply, how to grow our own food. The London Vegetable Garden may not produce enough radishes to sell to local shops, and it may not keep hunger at bay should a global food shortage kick in, but I’m getting back to my agricultural roots and trying to highlight just how much can be achieved if all of us chip in and do our bit.

(The original article can be viewed on the Times Online website by clicking here.)

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.