Salad Box

Earlier in the year, I sowed a variety of cut-and-come-again salad leaves in a shallow fruit box. All was going well and I was getting a few side salads a week. However, in midsummer, our landlord decided the roof needed resurfacing, and all the plants had to be taken into our sitting room. The salad leaves were the worst affected by their time in the relative darkness, and by the time they could go back outside, they had been decimated by a plague of green fly, and soon died.
I sowed some more as soon as possible, and here the results:

I'm not entirely sure what I've got going on in here, but I think far left is Red Salad Bowl, with one or two Lollo Rossa mixed in, then Cos Freckles. Next is what I think must be Red Salad Bowl again, only with darker red leaves, followed by Green Salad Bowl on the right. In between are the scattered seeds of Winter Mix, containing Mustard Red Frills, Kale Scarlet, Kale Blue Curled, Mizuna CN, and Rocket Dentellata.
This box alone provides more leaves than I can keep up with, particularly if the weather is sunny. Mizuna and Mustard are borderline unstoppable, so another time I would sow a lot less of this seed mix. The upside is they germinate super fast, and should carry on into the winter if given some cover. The Mustard and Rocket get a stronger taste as they go to flower, so I will remove them at this point.

I can't recommend growing leaves enough, you get so much food off them, really fresh and really cheaply. Love it.

Onion Update

Looking back, I was rather pessimistic about the Pickling Onions I sowed in a bulb planter. I should have been way more optimistic!

They're even bigger now..

I'll take another picture before I pull them up, but the pretty much the whole surface of the pot is covered in Onion. Can't wait to get pickling. I am a big fan of all things Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, and I have found a recipe in the River Cottage Handbook No.2 "Preserves" written by Pam Corbin. It's a great book, full of ideas, this particular recipe has honey, root ginger and a cinnamon stick - sounds good to me.

Get. That.

Sowing Seeds Pt. 2 - Indoors Cont.

Courgettes have to to be the ultimate reliable option for a small place gardener; only a one or two plants will produce more than enough for one person if they get going. I sowed seeds of Defender, One Ball, and Patriot at the start of April. They came up within a few days, and grew on well. 

However. They became pot-bound. I think I sowed them too early, so when they were ready to be going outside, the weather was not ready for them. It seems once the roots have been stuck at a certain size, they wont expand again when given more room - when I investigated the roots of the weakening plants, I saw they had not explored the new soil. Of the six plants that looked so good, only one made it on to adulthood. It was a Defender, so is a fairly standard green variety. Rather sad not to have any yellow One Ball survivors, but, lesson is learnt for next year. 

One plant, one bucket: First Courgette!

Bright Lights

Back on the 20th May, I mentioned I had planted some seeds of Chard Bright Lights. I put six seeds in one of the deeper fruit boxes and that now seems about right. One seed produces a few clumps of leaves, each with a different vibrantly coloured stem.

Take a look!

I cook the leaves like spinach..

..and eat the stems raw in salad.

I'm really pleased with how they're doing, in fact, I can barely get through it quick enough to keep up. I started off eating the leaves raw as a salad leaf, but found them, as a friend in work so delicately put it, rather hard to digest! Now I mostly just get through the stems, which add a good splash of colour and crunch to my daily lunch of Roof Top Salad.

Sowing Seeds Pt. 2 - Indoors

No growing attempt would be complete without Tomatoes. While I know that I will never be self sufficient in the sweet juicy fruits that I crave, I wouldn't be happy if I didn't try.

I sowed the seeds in plastic cups indoors way back at the start of April. I bought the varieties Garden Pearl, Sun Gold, Gardeners Delight, and then "borrowed" F1 Tumbler, Tumbling Tom Red, and Tumbling Tom Yellow from my parents. All germinated well, and I repotted them into plastic pots made from 4 pint milk cartons, but only after they had got massively pot bound, and leggy from lack of light. The pot bound-ness hasn't seemed to have affected them, and I countered the leggy growth by planting them much deeper in the soil in their new home. As roots sprout from the stem, this helps to build up a larger root system.

Tomato seedlings with courgettes alongside

When I repotted them into their final homes some time in late June, I again submerged the stem up to the first leaf axil, and, despite an initial set back due to a complete lack of hardening off, they have recovered well and the fruits are now beginning to ripen. Final homes include fruit boxes, cheaply bought buckets from Wilkinsons, and large pots, containing a mix of peat-free and multipurpose compost.

Unfortunately I lost all the little tags, so I'm not sure which variety is look the best, but I think it's F1 Tumbler. It is copping well with the intense heat on the roof, and is totally weighed down with green fruit. I'm not going to pinch out side shoots at this point, as I am convinced the extra light they get up top means they can ripen a limitless amount of tomatoes. 

Just planted...

I still have lots of catching up to do posting about other things that are already underway, but I thought I would just mention what I have been up to this week.

Firstly, I finally managed to sow some more lettuce seed. I decided I wanted some more of the Freckles mentioned before. It's really pretty in a mixed salad, so, a few rows of that in a shallow tub. A few more of Red Salad Bowl, which I think you probably get in most mixes, but anyway. One or two rows went to a mix from Unwins. I've just noticed this contains both red and green salad bowl, so I may remove them to leave space for the others, which are Lollos Rossa, Biondi and Grand Rapids.

I think I may also have added one row of salad onion Ishikura. The packet is open... so it looks that way.. and yet, I'm not sure I even like salad onions..? We shall see. Nothing has come up in that area of the tub, while the lettuces have popped up after about seven days in the soil.

Yet again, I have implemented a flagrant disregard for the planting distances specified on the packet.

In pots inside I have sown some red leaved Basil, to add to the more regular Sweet Genovese I started a few weeks ago. I've never managed to grow enough Basil to meet my greedy needs, so will probably have to sow some more soon. It takes a frustratingly long time to get to picking size.

Also, thyme. The seeds are very small, so mine have come up in clumps of about five - I have already thinned them out a bit. They come up within a week on the windowsill. 

Finally, back outside, I got around to sowing the Chard Bright Lights. The stems will really brighten up the roof, and I think the six plants I hope to get in the one fruit box will provide more than enough leaf. Again, I'm not sure I like Chard all that much, but I do know it's good for me.

The Strawberry Experiment

I've never grown Strawberries before. My parents garden was so infested with slugs that it just wasn't really a possibility, but maybe it just didn't occur to me. Anyway, the roof seems like the perfect place to try them: there is plenty of sunlight, no slugs, and they do well in containers.

In early April I made a trip to Riverside Garden Centre. The fruit bushes I had bought from here before were doing well, the staff are super friendly and helpful - both good reasons to return. They had a good selection of different varieties, I bought:

Christine, Elsanta, Honeyoe, Calypso, Florence, Alice, and two Aromel. I potted up four plants per box in mid-April, in compost, with manure and some chicken manure pellets mixed in.

Hopefully by the end of the year it'll become clear which variety is worth pursuing, and I'll grow on some runners. 

CW from TL - Christine, Elsanta, Honeyoe, Calypso

Honeyoe - Ridiculous name

Christine - getting huge!

Christine, Elsanta and Calypso were the first to set fruit. It was around this point I became mildly obessed with the idea that a pidgeon would steal my treats. Wilkinsons sorted me out, with some netting at 75% off.

With a few sprinkles of manure pellets, and a splash of Comfrey water, all seems to be going well. I scoffed the ripe ones earlier today, but this is how it looked before:

Christine - Marvelous

The box - Swoon

They tasted seriously good. I'm not too hot on subtle flavours, but I think there was something there. Probably a massive dose of smug self satisfaction. And slight amazement at being able to pick strawberries on a roof top...


I went home a few weeks ago, and "borrowed" a few plants of the alpine strawberries that have grown by the garden path for as long as I can remember. I also tried growing them from seed - so far, not to be recommended - only three seeds out of twelve germinated, and growth rate is painfully slow. They were sown a month and half ago, for progress, see below.

Thievings

Seedlings

Sowing Seeds Pt. 1 - Outdoors cont.

Cut-and-come-again lettuce crops are always suggested for a small-space grower, and I'm dead keen on a salad. The plants will hopefully manage in some of the shallower fruit boxes mentioned previously. April (2nd) was a little early for some of these leaves, so I planted half with Cos Freckles (from Sarah Raven) which allows sowing from February onwards. Hedging my latest-frost-date bets, I planted Mixed Lettuce leaves from B+Q, (Cost: 38p) in the other half.

The situation on April 2nd...

...and May 1st

I'm really pleased with how they have come along. I picked my first few leaves last week, and while I couldn't say they were particularly interesting on the palate as a solo act, they worked just fine as a vehicle for salad dressing.


Sadly, over the second bank holiday weekend, the heat and lack of attention meant that I returned from my travels to find a rather sorry sight. I haven't taken a picture, as I don't want to jinx the swift recovery I am sure they will make. Also, I should have already sown some more, to keep up supplies. I have so many packets of seed to choose from now, there really is no excuse. This week. Definitely.


Also sown outside in early April were Pickling Onions ("Paris Silverskin" - Suttons), into a bulb planter I had hanging around from last year. In many ways, was neither surprised nor particularly bothered when they didn't come up, as conventional wisdom would suggest growing onions from seed is a fools game. However, a month later, I am getting invested. I may yet make that one small jar of pickled onions..

Will they make it?

Sowing Seeds Pt. 1 - Outdoors

On the 2nd April, I started sowing some seeds outside on the roof.

After an initial panic about the amount of containers I would need to buy to grow all the things I wanted, I found that several local food outlets were leaving wooden fruit boxes out on the street for people to take. Some had higher sides than others, both had their uses.

Just planted!

To make the boxes usable, I added a lining of newspaper, (or in one case, flattened foil takeaway trays) ripped in several places to aid drainage, before filling with a mix of peat-free compost and multi-purpose compost.

Turnip to left, Carrot to right

Root crops need the 8" depth of the deeper box, so Carrots - "Flyaway" - and Turnips - "Golden Ball" - were the first in the ground.

Here they are again at the end of April, Turnips to the left. I clearly ignored the planting distance guide, and do not have the ruthless grit to thin them out. However, a small rustling of the soil reveals baby Turnips forming, and they will need their space... 

Close up Carrot Seedling

The Carrots are a bit behind. I'm hoping, being far above the usual low-fly zone frequented by the Carrot Fly, that thinning at any time wont be a problem, thus giving me excuses to delay the matter.

First Things First

Fruit bushes were the first things that I wanted to get planted in the spring. I intended to get started on this very early in the new year, but it was February before I made the first purchase - a green Gooseberry - 'Hinnomaki Green'. At this point I hadn't read much about a Gooseberries requirements, but the fond memories of eating them at home were enough to convince me. 

I bought a potted plant, from Garden Park Garden Centre near Clevedon while on a bike ride, and carried it back to Bristol in my pannier. At £9 I thought this was a little on the steep side, especially as Wilko were selling them for three pounds something. However, the Wilko plants were already in leaf, and packed into very small root bags. For a bush that I will grow for several years (hopefully!) and that would require a relatively large amount of other resources, I think it is worth making a bit of an investment of it - see below.

Here it is, planted up in March, into a mix of top soil, manure and peat free compost, in a 45L container (Wilko - about £5). I had to drill holes into the bottom of the container for drainage, which a hand drill managed just fine.

The next thing I wanted was a Tayberry, or Loganberry. There is very little advice on whether these can be grown in pots, and after considering the matter, decided to leave it for this year.

Instead, I took a trip to the Riverside Garden Centre next to the Grenville Smyth Park in Bristol, around the end of February. They had a really good selection of bare root fruit bushes and some in pots as well. The bare roots were cheaper, and the assistant told me I was just about in time to get them  planted.

 

Blackcurrent - 'Ben Connan

Jostaberry

I went for a Blackcurrent - 'Ben Connan' (I think... the label suggested a slightly smaller growing habit Cost: £4) - and, in a rather a rash moment, a Jostaberry bush (£5). This is a cross between a Blackcurrent and Gooseberry, giving berries that look like large Blackberries, but taste like neither parent, apparently. They are meant to form rather large bushes, so I wasn't too sure how well suited it was to the site, but never mind. Nothing ventured, no tasty berries gained.

Here they are, potted up the same container and soil mix as the Gooseberry.

Skip forward to early April.

The Gooseberry is doing very well. Lots of healthy looking leaves. Likewise the Blackcurrent, while the Jostaberry hasn't made a huge amount of progress. My books seem to be suggesting that cutting the new plants back in the first year is the way forward. I'm reluctant, as I want the fruit this year, but it may well be best, as it will encourage root development.

The other two are flowering. Exciting!