Harvest 2024

 As I wrap up growing on my roof garden this year, it’s an opportunity to look back at the food I grew and enjoyed eating at home.

I decided in February that because my raised bed was such a nuisance to remove its protective mesh from, that I wanted to grow something in there that (a) I could plant and leave alone the entire season (b) I really enjoyed eating. This year’s massive beetroot patch was the result.

These seeds were the “Bolivar” variety from Tamar Organics, which I started in seed trays in March. I did weed the bed once or twice, but mainly left them alone. I cropped and thinned them once and then took out the whole bed on the 19th August.

A previous year I pickled these and made a hash of the pickling mixture – way too sharp… This year I worked hard on it, and I’ve been loving these delicious beetroot pickles. One or two a day, sometimes before a meal, a great way to kickstart the tum.

I covered my success with potatoes in a previous post, but never showed what a delicious meal they made. Here, baked and roasted.

These are the “Lady Di” variety runner beans, visible on the top right-hand side, which I grew from last year’s beans. I don’t believe I’ve ever had a nice crop from these, and I have no idea why I have persevered with them. They eat very badly, tasting as though they are run through with bits of hard plastic.

Perhaps the first year’s crop was tender, and I’m forgetting, and that they’ve subsequently shed their characteristics? Never again.

I’ve grown vine tomatoes before – but this year decided I would give the “determinate” bush variety a go.

Growing in containers without much wall space, this made practical sense. I chose the Jani variety which had the advantage of getting going quite quickly in the season. It’s easy to grow something like tomatoes, and suddenly it’s July and one finds they are still green – so that speed in a tomato variety is very valuable.

Practical considerations aside, I have to admit to being disappointed by the flavour in these. I wouldn’t grow them again. Edible, certainly, but…

This rosemary bush has, I believe, grown from seeds started in 2023. I’m so proud of it!

Damn, what a wonderful thing Rosemary is! Green all year round, bees love its beautiful small blue flowers, it’s an amazing medicinal herb (sometimes I just chew on a branch when I am outside in the garden), and it’s really valuable in the kitchen. The potatoes shown above were roasted with it and some garlic.

This Amaranth is now in its third season on the roof garden. Grown from its own seed twice. It loves the sun but more than any other plant needs careful watering, wilting quite quickly without sufficient care. I haven’t yet eaten my own Amaranth, but one day I shall.

Finally, there’s my “Red Drumhead” cabbages. Here showing the twins being united in a single planter with a Comfrey plant between them.

Cabbage takes a long time to grow and in the past I’ve settled for cabbage leaves but no crown. But this year I’ve only gone and smashed it. Check out the head on that whoppa!

Fairchild’s Garden

Thomas Fairchild (1667-1729) was an English gardener who was based in Hoxton, Shoreditch, a stone’s throw away from me here on Old Street. Fairchild corresponded with the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus, establishing with him the existence of sex in plants.

Fairchild is famous for scientifically producing an artificial hybrid Dianthus Caryophyllus barbatus which was a cross between a Carnation and a Sweet William. This was earth-shattering stuff, and the god-fearing Fairchild kept the secret for a number of years before finally presenting it to the Royal Society when he lied, claiming it was accidentally created.

The flower, known as Fairchild’s mule (the mule, a cross between a horse and a donkey which cannot breed), did not produce seed which would grow. We now know that this is because the Carnation and Sweet William are, in botanical terms, too-distant relatives of one another.

Fairchild wrote a book which is of interest to London-based growers. In it, he writes of our tiny city gardens, “nosegays”, “where a little is only to be had, we should be content with a little.”

Fairchild’s Garden, at the foot of Columbia Road flower market, was once a very scruffy park, but Hackney council has recently renovated it. It’s looking quite spiffing I must say…

Here one can read the memorial stone which was erected many years later over his earthly remains.

I thought it was a nice gesture to leave a couple of flowers on top of the stone. A Zinnia and Rudbeckia grown in my own garden.

 

Compost Grinder

 

I found my home-made compost was coming out too chunky. It’s partly to do with using woodchip in the HotBin as a source of “brown” carbon-rich material to counter the “green” nitrogenous material. If I had some coarse sawdust, I would use that instead.

I’m sure there are examples of this, but I’ve not seen it done before. Sieving compost is, after all, a similar process. Sometimes people run a lawnmower over a pile of woodchip – that’s similar in principle too. But I thought I would try grinding it down.

I bought a small industrial apple juicer online and ran the compost through it. Checking all the time for worms, of which there were none. It came out really well. I would like it a bit finer – but it’s an improvement. At the end, I turned a jug of biochar into the mixture and set the end result to work. It’s supported the growth of my red cabbages really well.