Window Box | the medicine box
Part five of my window box diary, which I’m currently keeping for the Guardian.
All is currently quiet in the world of my window boxes so it seems sensible to start the new year fantasizing about other options. ‘Tis the season of colds and flu and I’m dreaming of potent plants that have healing powers. If I had a window box planted with such things, I could pluck myself a cure as soon as my throat began to tickle and my nose to dribble. Or at least harvest leaves that would taste delicious in a therapeutic winter roast or stew.
I first met Mala Bissoon in the summer, on a guided walk during which she revealed that humble herbs are capable of great things. Mala is a medical herbalist and knows a thing or two about home grown remedies. I asked her what I should grow in a living medicine chest for winter ills and she suggested a combination of thyme, sage and chilli. We debated whether a chilli plant would survive outside and decided it would probably be alright if it was in a warm spot.
Mala explained that thyme is antiseptic, and a thyme tea or syrup is useful for coughs. Gargle then swallow sage tea to treat a sore throat, or simply chew on a leaf when you feel a tickle. Sage is also very good for general oral hygiene. Happily, my picnic basket planter is already hosting purple leaved sage. A small chilli plant would be decorative, and the fruits help promote circulation and clear catarrh. All would be fine within the confines of a sheltered window box.
Mala also thought hardy peppermint and lemon balm would be useful. A tea using both helps clear the head in the early, feverish stages of a cold. Both aid digestion too. Lemon balm comes highly recommended – the 16th Century Swiss alchemist Paracelsus declared it to be the ‘elixir of life’.
My favourite medicinal plant is pungent garlic, which is anti-infective and full of vitamins. It was first cultivated in the Middle East and Muslim myth has it the smelly bulb sprang from Satan’s left footprint. Chaucer called it ‘poor man’s treacle’ and, after recently roasting some huge cloves in their skins, I can see why – the slow cooked, soft flesh oozed a sticky sweetness that was better than anything out of a red Tate and Lyle tin.
While you would be running late, it is still possible to plant some cloves now to harvest leaves and bulbs in spring and summer. For the last two years, I’ve grown garlic in a deep pot on my rooftop and I’m now wondering whether it would grow in a window box. There’s currently some space in my salad box after some serious leaf eating, so a clove of garlic from my store cupboard has been duly sunk into the soil. We shall see.
Urban Agriculture | Part One | Down South
Over the next year, I’ll be exploring the UK’s burgeoning urban food growing scene for Kitchen Garden magazine. Every month I’ll report from a different town or city, as I seek out urban agriculturists and profile projects ranging from the small-scale and personal to the unusual, ambitious and commercial.
“The architecture, the people, the seafront, the history – all make Plymouth fascinating” enthuses Darran Mclane, who’s fallen hard and fast for the city since moving here last spring. Plymouth is also the only city with a Food Charter, set-up and run by the Soil Association, which makes it as good a place as any to begin a quest to document, in part, the food growing projects that are changing the urban landscape across the UK.
“It’s very diverse and affluent, but there are pockets of deprivation” continues Darran, who runs a project called Diggin’ It. It was crowned the ‘Best Producer of 2011’ at Plymouth’s recent Food Charter awards.
“Certain people have a very poor grasp of nutrition. Local and organic food often comes with an expensive sting – or people assume it does. Diggin’ It is about exciting and educating people about food, mainly school children. It’s about finding the right language.”
But Diggin’ It isn’t just about teaching people the value of local, fresh food and five-a-day, it’s also about growing that produce and selling it. If urban agriculture projects with short-term funding want to be sustainable and self sufficient – and practise what they preach to an extent – they have to find ways to make money.
Darran used to work for Riverford (the veg box giants) and has ambitions for Diggin’ It to grow a lot more crops. He subtly suggests that the project needs more land but that things are set to change, and Plymouth can expect them to have more of a presence in the city in the near future. For now, they have a shop in Stoke on the edges of the city, where produce can be picked to order. In November they began supplying Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall’s high profile new eatery in the Royal William Dockyard.
This more commercial venture feels like a feather in the project’s hat. “We’ve become well-known and have developed into the place for locals to buy fresh veg. People get very excited when they discover us. Yesterday I was at the Job Centre in town, delivering a presentation to the advisors there. Everyone said they wanted to come and volunteer. We’re about growing people as well as vegetables.”
John Dixon from Plymouth City Council tells me more about commercial opportunities in the town. “There’s a history of food growing in this area, and we want to acknowledge this – the famous Tamar Valley, for example, once supplied all Covent Garden Market’s strawberries.”
“The Tamar Grow Local project is promoting community growing and cooperative working, and also markets existing growers and helps them to sell their food locally. The project has commercial as well as community aims. We’re a well-placed city, and food has to be part of a sustainable city plan.”
And what about allotments? “Politically allotments are very well supported here, and people want more. We recently split some larger allotments into smaller, more manageable plots and also introduced shared, group allotments.”
Next stop is Traci Lewis, who works for the Soil Association and coordinates the Plymouth Food Charter. It’s a city-wide partnership of businesses, organisations and community groups, all with an interest in food and how it can be used to drive positive social, environmental and economic change.
“We’ve been looking at how to create and support a local food system. We started work in April 2010, when we carried out a city-wide consultation and then developed a three year business plan. We’re motivated by a desire to create a thriving local food economy for Plymouth.”
I ask Traci whether there is food inequality in Plymouth, as in other British cities, and whether urban food growing projects have any value in addressing issues like this. “There’s a 12 year difference in life expectancy from one side of the city to the other. There are ‘food deserts’, where people have limited access to fresh, healthy and affordable produce.”
“This access should be a basic human right, but our food system is increasingly controlled by very powerful global agri-businesses who have a lot of political power. The Plymouth Food Charter is here to help people make positive changes for themselves and their communities through food. Urban food growing projects engage people with food production and increase access to fresh local produce. They can also play a valuable role in building and supporting community networks.”
It feels like time to move on and see what a different Devon city is like. Exeter is about 30 miles north, on the opposite side of Dartmoor, and it is there that Exeter Harvest is encouraging people to get growing in their own gardens, however meagre they are in size.
“Our main project is our Incredible Edible Mini Gardens” explains Andi Tobe from Exeter Harvest. “We took a road-show around certain neighbourhoods, where we handed out containers, compost and seeds to get people started. People have been growing everything from herbs and salads on window ledges, to beans and tomatoes on patios.”
“We’re also working with a small number of groups around the city who are nurturing community growing spaces. One is in a pub! They have a courtyard and a flat roof, and have been growing salads and tomatoes to serve up to customers. They’ve held seed swaps there and have really sparked new interest in urban food growing.”
Exeter Harvest is half way through its funded period and leaving a legacy is on their minds. “We’re thinking about potential social enterprises that could develop, perhaps selling preserves and juices made from the city’s fruit. This would redistribute local food and reduce waste. So far we’ve harvested over 200 kilos of fruit from private gardens.”
“Exeter doesn’t have a food plan, but there is talk about one. We’re blessed with farmland around the city and there’s a growing desire to get local producers’ food into town. Urban growing here isn’t about self-sufficiency. It’s about a few little treats. It’s about recognising that it can be so much better if we have control over what we eat, and it’s about celebrating the value of fresh food.”
Window Box | the planted picnic basket
Part four of my window box diary, which I’m currently keeping for the Guardian.
DECEMBER
The desire to grow things coupled with a cash flow problem is likely to make you linger over rubbish. Cities are especially good for leftovers – bins often bulge with beautiful things. A recent Feed the Five Thousand event in London highlighted how much good food is thrown away (we ate like kings that lunchtime), but it’s not just eatables that are on offer.
The resourceful people of the Easton Community Allotment in Bristol are an inspiration. They have foraged free wood, bricks and netting from their local area, and are generally kept well supplied by city fly tippers. Their worm food resides in a rescued chest freezer. I too am occasionally known to rifle through waste for choice horticultural pickings. I have a few prize pieces, one of which is a handsome picnic basket. It now hangs from a hook outside my bathroom window and has been properly planted at last.
The basket is an unusual, curvaceous old thing that I found discarded on the street. It’s classic wicker with stripes of rusty orange and slate blue, and is split into two lidded compartments. There’s room inside for a motley crew of four small plants. For decoration, there’s creamy ivy that tumbles out of the basket like a spilt drink and a coronilla ‘citrina’. This was a gift, selected for me because tough coronilla is apparently hard to kill. It’s an evergreen shrub, with scented pale lemon flowers that bloom from autumn until spring. For winter flavour, the basket hosts giant red mustard and aromatic sage.
Window box and basket gardening has led to thoughts about dirt, drainage and water. Those of us who grow on urban rooftops, window ledges and balcony edges often don’t have easy access to free compost. Unfussy and slightly chaotic about many things, soil is something I try to take seriously. I don’t want pesticides or chemical fertilisers near my plants, and I definitely don’t do peat. I’ve bought my compost in and, even though I’m stony broke, it’s organic and peat free.
My cheap plastic window boxes didn’t come with all important drainage holes, so I punched some in using a metal spike, a hammer and a blue-tack cushion. They sit in sheltered, warm positions and are rarely touched by rain. So, even when it’s wet out, I’ve discovered it’s wise to check they aren’t bone dry.
The new view of foliage and flowers from the bathroom continues to be a happy one, although the salad box is looking a little peaky. It’s become a favourite of the marauding Holloway squirrels, and I regularly return home to find soil sprayed up the window and the plants at odd angles. The ornamental trough is less dishevelled. My favourite window box plants at the moment are edible land cress and ornamental hebe – one is loved for its strong peppery taste, the other for its simple evergreen good looks.
Window Box | steam, salad, experiments
Part three of my window box diary, which I’m currently keeping for the Guardian.
NOVEMBER
I found a squirrel in my window box yesterday. There was a pause as we looked into each others’ eyes, while great clouds of steam billowed from the bathroom into the cold morning air. Ridiculous, but I do love the way the low autumn sun filters through the vapours a shower creates at this time of year…
Anyway (!), the squirrel braced itself, defiance rippling through its taut body; my dreamy steam-gazing face melted into a frown, and then a yell. A sudden puff of disrupted soil later and it was gone, and I was alone to upright my ruffled but ultimately unharmed plants.
I left you at the beginning October the proud possessor of two boxes and a beautiful basket, but sadly lacking in vegetation. Empty window boxes look depressing so I’ve been quick to make decisions. I want a mix of hardy edibles and evergreens, and flowers too. I like the idea of whites and greens, spiked with elements of heat – hot colours or hot tastes.
The smaller window box is now hosting a variety of cut-and-come-again winter salad leaves. Land cress is quietly creeping about in one corner – its vibrant leaves hiding secret fires. Mizuna red knight and giant red mustard add colour and height, while frills mustard brings some shaggy texture.
And so the bathroom window ledge has been painted several shades of green, veined with warm streaks of dark burgundy. The lush young leaves are a mix of soft circles, messy frills and sharp serrations. All this detail is blurred by the frosted window, but is gloriously revealed on throwing it open.
The larger window box – held in place by balcony brackets – is decorative rather than edible. Ornamental doesn’t come naturally to me, but I’ve created something that I at least think looks good. I’ve mixed an architectural Carex oshimensis with a dwarf Hebe albicans, added a couple of laser white cyclamens, and topped the soil with smooth pebbles.
The bronze striped grass overspills the container pleasingly, while the punky hebe has sharp, frosted foliage. The flowering cyclamens have heart-shaped leaves, tightly printed with white graphics. The slightly cheesy pebbles are actually a squirrel deterrent that seems to be working.
The hanging picnic basket is, for now, still a work in progress. It has an increasingly sickly jalapeno pepper and some ivy in it at the moment, but I think its future is herbal. I’ve inherited a small sage plant, and think perhaps some thyme would fit nicely too. And maybe a bonsai bay, if such a magical thing exists?
Window Box | cheap troughs and a beautiful basket
Part two of my window box diary, which I’m currently keeping for the Guardian.
OCTOBER
I’ve bought my window box. It’s 56cm long, 12cm wide and 10cm deep. Actually, I’ve been greedy and got two. The other is 36 x 12 x 10cm. At first I dreamed of rustic wood and aged zinc, but I’m a girl on a budget so I headed to the pound shops on Seven Sisters Road instead.
My cheap troughs are plastic ones, but they’re sturdy and surprisingly good looking. They’re a creamy terracotta colour, with curved edges and gently curling top lips. Best £2 I’ve ever spent.
I deliberated for hours about where to position the planters. My flat is tiny and options are limited. Our windows open outwards and the window ledges slant. Plants have been knocked from the kitchen before, never to be seen again. I don’t own the flat and want to avoid drilling holes in rented walls if possible. It’s tricky, but a decision has finally been made.
Only half of the bathroom window opens, meaning part of its ledge is immune to knocks. This is where the smaller box will sit. It can nestle back safely against the window without sliding down the sloping ledge. It’s not an ideal location. The glass is frosted and invariably curtained with condensation, but it’s beside a window that’s often open. Steamy showers will end with views of flowers. Nice.
I’ve turned the flat roof outside the bathroom window into a garden and this is where the larger window box will sit – on the roof garden fence, close to its cousin on the bathroom ledge. A romantic soul once bought me some adjustable window box hooks as a Valentine’s gift. They grip onto the fence without the need for tools and provide secure support for a container. You could try a window box hanger or adjustable brackets.
Not everyone has a window ledge or balcony edge. Imagining I’m without both, I’ve decided to include a hanging container in my window box project too. You could get something inoffensive for 99p, spend more on something made from sweet wrappers or attach something to a drainpipe.
I’m going to fill a beautiful old picnic basket that I found discarded on the street with plants and hang it from a hook. I won’t fill it with soil because one day I may fill it with sandwiches and champagne, so I’ll tuck pots inside it instead. The window boxes and basket are now in position and I’ve created about 100cm x 12cm of growing space. Now I need to think about the plants…
Window Box | the beginning
Welcome to my window box diary, which I’m currently keeping for the Guardian.
SEPTEMBER
This is the beginning of the diary of a window box garden. The garden doesn’t exist yet but it soon will. For now it’s a figment of my imagination that bloomed overnight. I’m conjuring up something slim and trough-like, stuffed with neat little bushes and romantic trailers. It sits outside my bedroom window, all knitted about with growth.
If you lack outside space to call your own, but feel your fingers have a certain amount of green about them, it’s heartening to know that many plants can cope with an entirely container bound life. If you’re a serial renter of small spaces in big cities, it’s also good to know you can create and tend a plot that’s completely portable.
The box garden I’m going to create will be tiny – with dimensions in centimetres not metres square – but it will have much potential. It could be planted with attractive autumnal edibles like green frills mustard, endive, blood veined sorrel, giant red mustard and mizuna red knight. Or delicious hardy herbs like chervil, mint, rosemary, sage and thyme. Or it could hold a textured mix of evergreens like ivy, lavender, heather and hebe.
I’m feeling inspired after witnessing the transforming, fiery beauty of a window box in Wales. It was filled with scarlet geraniums and peachy diascia – petals that painted a cool white wall with hot summer. The reds and oranges were reflected and doubled by the glass they rested against.
Back in a London that’s feeling rather gloomy under a fat rain cloud, I’m craving the heat that tiny garden gave off. But don’t mistake me for being anti-capital. I love this place. What I love most is its endless capacity to surprise. It’s both brilliant and reassuring to know that a huge swathe of this heaving, seething city is natural land and that numerous wild things thrive here. And I think attempting to be a grower in the face of spatial limitations and other urban excuses is important. Let all London’s window ledges host window boxes.
Gardening in a small boxy space, in a place that you can’t really call your own, isn’t uncommon and there are lots of great resources to help you make good window box decisions. For now I will be stealing planting and planter ideas from the London streets – especially Islington pubs and the Barbican – as well as balconyboutique.co.uk, rocketgardens.co.uk and thebalconygardener.com. And then the work will begin.
NOVEMBER food folly, sea warrior & bats
I have a small box of winter salad growing on my bathroom window ledge. Peppery leaves like mustard, mizuna and land cress that offer heat. When I got home last night the frosted glass was wet with condensation but, despite the double fog, I could still tell that something was amiss. Soil sprayed up the window, odd angled plants. It was the chilliest it had been since last winter and a squirrel had attacked.
This week I’ve harvested and eaten the smallest squash I have ever grown. My only squash this year. A tiny thing, banana curved and banana yellow, good in pasta sauce. I’ve also picked a more impressive crop of green tomatoes. I’m not the chutney making type – more the type in need of hearty and economical things for lunch – so I made green tomato soup.
I fried the unripe fruit in a slab of salty butter with potato, carrot, onion and garlic (roof garlic!), added lots of herbs (roof herbs!), bubbled it all in stock, then blended it. The rooftop tomatoes made four big bowls of beige soup. Beige, but delicious. Fueled by buttery, garlicky tomato feed, I planted five Holloway grown garlic cloves in a pot, which will turn into five whole new bulbs by late spring.
Last week I discovered a rooftop greenhouse hidden behind a town house folly. In the rafters of a fake house, in a room with a glass roof and as many windows as possible, rampant vines of cherry tomatoes (red ones) and chillies are growing out of special sewage pipes. Hackney hydroponics – providing food and heat for an eccentric building.
I also went onboard Rainbow Warrior III last week – the third incarnation of Greenpeace’s powerful ship of dreams. She’s a beautiful boat, with extra sails and an electric engine, as well as an oil one for quick getaways. The Warrior was moored in the Docklands for the weekend. Her first major trip will be to South America to investigate deforestation. We cycled home along the Regent’s Canal after darkness had dropped, with feeding bats zipping alongside us all the way to the pub.
Some news… I’m involved in a couple of events during the first weekend in December – a craft fair and a tree day celebration. I’m also selling signed copies of my first book through this website now – visit my shop! My first article for the Guardian Weekend magazine was published on Nov 5th – it’s on their website too. And my book has been nominated for an Horticultural Channel Award – you can vote here.
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Upcoming events
Books & bird feeders – 3rd Dec
I’ll have a sweet little stall at the Old Fire Station Winter Craft Fair in Holloway, where I’ll be selling signed copies of my book and showing people how to make bird feeders from old bruisey apples and sunflower seeds. There’s going to a range of arts & crafts stalls and workshops, as well as food, music and general festive good cheer. Saturday 3rd December from 11am til 5pm – just £1 to get in.
Urban nature tales & folk music – 4th Dec
Together with the lovely Robin Grey, I’ll be reading extracts from my book while he serenades us with folk songs, at the Centre for Wildlife Gardening’s annual Tree Day celebrations on Sunday 4th December. Robin and I will be on at 2pm, the event runs from 11am til 4pm. Free entry and signed books for sale.
OCTOBER unseasonal squash & other oddities
Two tiny banana yellow, slime-slicked squashes are slowly swelling in one corner of the rooftop. Bunches of green tomatoes are hanging heavy on bending vines. Together with various vigorous winter salads, my tiny garden is looking strangely jungle-like for this time of year. A collection of unripe summer vegetables lit by a low-angled autumn sun, and hung about with mist every morning.
My new window box project is going well… I have hot green leaves growing on the bathroom ledge and a pretty mix of grass, hebe and cyclamen delicately suspended from the rooftop fence. My next blog for the Guardian will be online in early November. In the meantime, read my October entry here.
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I spent the morning helping out at a new community garden on an estate close to Dalston Junction. A tiny patch of land has been reclaimed from weeds, tamed and sheet mulched ready for future growing endeavours. It was like a magnet this morning, tempting people to take a sneaky peak. Robin, Alex and I shovelled soil and pruned a cherry tree, while the other Alex painted a glossy new sign, Lorn made tea and the local kids joyfully wrapped themselves up in an enormous bit of cardboard.
I’ve just about finished editing the winter issue of Wild London magazine – it will go to print later this week. Checking through the proofs this afternoon, some stark facts stood out that made me appreciate the community garden on the Dalston estate even more.
- 60% of London is green space. Despite this, nationally, Londoners are the least likely to spend time in the outdoors.
- The quality of open space has a profound impact on people’s health and well-being, and can provide a focal point for social interaction.
- The area of social housing green space in London is not currently known, but in some neighbourhoods it exceeds the amount of public parks.
- In deprived, inner-city areas, people have access to five times less public parks and good quality green space than people in affluent areas.
- Residents living in social housing are more likely to live in areas of public open space deficiency and poor environmental quality.
- CCTV and alienating fortifications have been proved to be less effective than community gardens at improving security.
OCTOBER dear trees & leaves & tomatoes
Early autumn is wind whipped. It’s gold shape shifting shadows, and the slow undressing of my dear, dear sycamore tree. It’s the beautiful death of the tree spinach – shrinking, burnished, hot pink and striped. And it’s gymnastic squirrels, a young rooftop robin and a ruffled wood pigeon. The rooftop view is still leafy – foliage lit by low sun. The fall in this bit of Holloway is still to come.
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Autumn is also, madly, tomatoes – new flowers everyday and the first fruits. I think it’s going to be my year of green tomato jam. Forgive me, but I’d also like to plug my book again, as you can now buy signed copies directly from me.
SEPTEMBER summer / spider on sage
Bring on the Indian summer. I have perfect new sunglasses and the rooftop is ready. (I also have a stripy spider living on my sage and freshly delivered new winter crops – yes I’ve been spending money I don’t have on mail order lettuces – thank you Rocket Man). Please come to the RHS Harvest Festival in Pimlico next week if you have free time on a Tuesday or Wednesday, and you can get excited about poetry, music and enormous vegetables.
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Harvest festival
RHS Autumn Harvest Show | 4th & 5th October | Horticultural Halls, Westminster
I’ll be reading from my book at this year’s autumn show, in the Harvest Hangout area of the stunning Lindley Hall. I’ve been asked by the RHS to invite some other people to read and perform in the Harvest Hangout as well. I love organising spoken word and music events, so this is a joy. I’ve invited poets, writers and musicians who have an affinity with the autumn/harvest theme. We’ll be filling the area with words and song throughout the event. Performers include Robin Grey, Monooka, Buffy, Allan Shepherd, Matt Martin, Luke Heeley, Kirsten Irving, Jon Stone, Holly Hopkins and Michael Weller. Show tickets are £5 Tue; £3 Weds. Buy online.
SEPTEMBER late blooms and beans
The garden and I are running late. Only now are my tomatoes and squashes flowering, and I fear they may not fruit before autumn sets in. The rooftop is overgrown, windswept and rain battered. Dishevelled but productive and pretty, with a single purple pea flower against a white wall, a flea-bitten viola in a worn-out old basket, leaning towers of tree spinach and bean leaves that have been cut into beige lace by snails. Recently I’ve feasted on huge runner beans and saved some as seeds for next year. Chervil, rocket, nasturtium , chive, mint and oregano are all shooting up strong cut-and-come-again leaves from their soil spattered containers. There’s sage, rosemary and thyme enough to see me through the approaching soup season, and I’ve pegged some up inside to dry for winter roasts and stews too.
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SEPTEMBER sea carrots & sea cabbages
In Dorset, coastal paths whiff of salty cabbage. Tough and tall old brassicas cling to cliff edges, with leaves made lace-like by a constant stream of visiting cabbage white butterflies. And there are sea carrots too, with slowly unfurling umbrella-like flower heads of tiny white flowers. These southern sea paths are also lined with hardy blackberry bushes and sloe trees. Rich early autumn pickings for some very happy campers, out of their London bubble and smelling of wood smoke.
AUGUST the other roof garden
A roof garden has temporarily bloomed on top of the deeply concrete Queen Elizabeth Hall on the Southbank and I am in love. She’s beautiful. Let all London’s roofs be like this one, and let it be permanent.
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AUGUST spuds / berries / beans / thoughts
I’ve harvested my second crop of spuds. White ones this time, handsome vegetables that have been growing in a small jute shopping bag lined with plastic. Two seed potatoes have transformed into twenty. They’re currently in a gloriously muddy pile in an old enamel bowl, glowing golden through smears of soil.
The next few days will no doubt feature various potato based dishes, most including roof-grown garlic, sage and rosemary, perhaps with some just picked runner beans on the side. I could make a spud salad with rooftop mint, chives and chervil leaves too.
For pudding there will be a mountain of blackberries, picked from the wonderful Walthamstow Marshes. An urban sprawl of grassland that’s full of huge knots of bramble, laden with dark fruits. The berries taste wonderful straight from the bush, but also baked in a pie or reduced into a syrupy liquid and stirred into sharp yoghurt or sweet ice-cream.
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London is restless at the moment, and sound-tracked more than ever with ear piercing sirens and helicopter buzz. There’s much that can be soul destroying about urban living – inequality and poverty (not just of the material kind) can be magnified in places such as this.
This capital is home to dogmatic and disappointing politicians, and questionable, but worshipped, fat cats of the worst kind. It is home to out and out criminals, and also to people that are just more complicated than that. There’s an angry generation that feels no ownership of the city or responsibility for it, one that believes it has a right to demand stuff but not to demand a decent future.
Seeking to understand and explain violence isn’t the same as condoning or excusing it. How do we prevent situations reoccurring if we approach them with knee jerks and not thoughtfulness?
Access to nature, good food and growing projects are not going to solve riotous urban issues, of course not. But these things do help connect people to places, especially ones that can feel oppressively hard and grey. It can offer a different view point and perspective. It can challenge people to see things differently.
I recently spent a week helping out with a summer growing club on an estate in Dalston that has been transformed into an edible one by community effort. It’s not perfect or idyllic, but it does go some way to foster a sense of worth in everyone and anyone who gets involved. A tended city engenders love and respect, a neglected one reflects a population that is encouraged not to care.
AUGUST love in the mist etc
The roof garden is bejeweled with flowers and looks very pretty. Tiny sapphire blue nigella flowers, caged within spiky green tendrils, are blooming in a shallow tray of dirt. Romantically known as love-in-the-mist, nigella seeds are edible and can be sprinkled onto salads or mixed into bread and cakes.
Delicious oregano is delicately iced with sparkling diamond white flowers, velvet violas burn in purple and yellow, tangled knots of sweet-peas continue to bloom in old baskets and fill the air with a fuggy, rich perfume. Fragrant spikes of lavender are worshipped by bees and butterflies, and twisting runner beans are all strung about with rubies.
JULY paint pot primroses & purple potatoes
The rooftop is yellow and purple like a glorious bruise. The yolky yellow of evening primroses, blooming in a paint pot, and the iridescent purple of potato skin, just harvested from a hessian sack. These primroses and potatoes are special. The flowers were grown from my own seed, saved from last year’s plants. The thick skinned and indigo-fleshed vegetables are the fruits of a wonderful trip to Prinzessingarten in Berlin.
My purple potatoes are an ‘heirloom’ or ‘heritage’ variety – or you could call them outlaws. It’s really important to grow crops like these, and then to save and swap the seeds, so they don’t die out. Speciality spuds need our support!
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JULY poor man’s treacle
I’ve just dug up four large, pink and white striped bulbs of garlic – the result of planting four supermarket bought cloves in a pot last winter.
Full of vitamins, minerals, aroma and flavour, pungent garlic’s strong tasting cloves have an array of healing properties. They’re anti-infective and especially good at treating both bacterial and viral infections of the respiratory tract and digestive system.
First cultivated in the Middle East, Muslim legend has it that the smelly bulb sprang from Satan’s left footprint. It was found in Tutankhamun’s tomb and was written about by luminaries like Pliny, Galen and Chaucer, who dubbed it ‘poor man’s treacle’.
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