NOTHING beats a sweet, perfectly ripe, warm cherry tomato, picked straight from the plant and gobbled up on the spot. It’s not just the taste but the smug sense that you grew that cherry tomato and you're now at one with farming ancestry and Mother Nature… This may be going a bit over the top but they do taste really good.
There is still time to plant fruit and veg this year- the bank holiday is perfect opportunity-so grab any containers you can (hanging baskets, old tins, stacked tyres, anything), fill with compost and sow some seeds or pop in a plug plant and get ready for the veg prize season.
Recently a group of us met at Piccadilly Basin to get stuck into the Garden City- Spring Spruce up. If anyone has been past the car park at Piccadilly Basin they will have noticed in the top corner a mini oasis of wild flowers, fruit trees and raised boxes for locals to grow fruit and veg. Residents of the Northern Quarter Grow boxes came and we chatted about growing in small spaces and I gave advice on getting started.
Runner Beans
If you see them out there tending their plots say hello, they may even have some spare seedlings to pass on.
Anyway these are some tips even if you only have a windowsill large enough to hold plants. Your efforts may even win a prize at this year’s Dig the City festival.
My Top Tips:
If starting out growing in containers or grow boxes try salad leaves, tomatoes, chilies, strawberries, runner beans, peas and herbs.
If your site is not sunny then salad leaves (such as lettuce and spinach), rhubarb and herbs such as chives and mint will all grow in shadier spots.
Anything planted in a container needs watering more than if it was in the ground. Try and plant in as big a container as possible to reduce watering needed. You may also want to add a water retaining product (gel capsules).
Compost within your containers will need topping up or completely refreshing if using year after year as will not have enough nutrients. Adding slow release fertiliser will help your crops and heavy croppers such as tomatoes need regular potash feed (diluted tomato feed when watering).
Make use of all the space available. Use trailing plants such as trailing tomatoes and trailing rosemary down the sides of containers/boxes and make use of the sky to grow runner beans up eight foot canes.
If you do not have enough windowsill space to start off seedlings or are too late, buy plug plants. This is also a good way to grow many different varieties.
Chives
My favourite varieties to try:
Tomato ‘Tumbling Tom’ (Red and Yellow varities) and ‘Tumbler’ are trailing varieties that don’t need supporting with canes or pinching out side shoots- just water, feed and pick ripe fruit.
Runner Bean ‘Firestorm’.
Any Cut and Come again lettuce- ‘Salad Bowl’.
Spinach ‘Palco’.
Eye on the Prize
If the above hasn’t inspired you to grow your own then the reports of Peter Glazebrook’s world’s heaviest cauliflower at 25.5kg and six foot wide (if you have not seen it then put it into a search engine - it’s a monster) surely will.
As part of this year’s Dig the City Festival there will be a ‘village fete’ in St Ann’s Square on 10 August so don’t eat everything straight away and save your best to win.
Tomato Plant
