The 30 Year Old Intern

Not a bad film title, my new job situation... I have been slack with posting recently. Really need to stop writing epic posts and get into a little-and-often habit with the old blogging, methinks. Heyho. But, have been incredibly busy these last couple of weeks as I have started an internship with the amazing FARM: project, based at FARM:shop in Dalston.

This might be a slight deviation from my usual balcony-centric blather, but hopefully that will be a refreshing change for you devoted readers. (All 3 of you)

(FARM:shop - A farm, in a shop!)

So, the long and the short of it is - having become more and more interested in growing plants and food these last few years, I was starting to wonder about making a serious career change in that direction. When the charity I worked for went belly up at the end of May, It seemed as good a time as any to make a change. Though I have useful and transferable professional experience, none of it is in the world of growing. As well as continuing to develop my balcony, and possibly start an evening/correspondence horticulture course (any recommendations? RHS level 2 maybe?) I wanted to find voluntary work with a project, preferably an urban agriculture one, to learn more about the technical side of things, and generally get a foot into the door of that world...  I'm not really a believer in fate but sometimes things do seem to happen at the right time, and chances arise just when you really need them.

When I saw that FARM: were recruiting for an intern, it seemed like the most incredible opportunity. Though there are lots of city farms and brilliant veg growing projects in London, I was particularly excited by FARM: because of their experimental approach, the aesthetic element of their work, and the fact that their project is so completely different from the others. (And they have chickens on their roof! To be honest, that's what tipped the scales...) As well as traditional growing, they work with hydroponic and aquaponic systems, which has been fascinating to learn about. I have literally learnt more in one week with them than I have in full years with other jobs. It's amazing how easy it is to learn about something when you find it so interesting.

A very cool external project I'm working on for them is maintaining their 'FARM:wall', installed at Hackney House (a summer pop up venue on Shoreditch High St). It consists of 3 caged hydroponic wall systems, growing basil (Thai and Genovese) and rainbow chard. I think they look amazing! 

In the same area as the FARM:wall (an open-air section at the front of the venue) is a 'Lily Vanilli' cake and coffee concession. If you haven't had the pleasure, Lily makes the most ridiculously delicious cakes in her bakery on Columbia Rd. This week I have helped to design and build an 'edible wall' for her. Contrary to my slightly panicky/paranoid expectations, the finished thing is a dead ringer for my design drawing. Very satisfying!

 

I realise this whole post sounds a bit like an advertorial for FARM: (what can I say, I'm loving working there!), but needless to say, FARM:shop is well worth worth a visit if you're in the area. They have a cafe serving up produce grown on site, and you can eat in the garden (or polytunnel if its rainy!). You might even stumble across me, propagating basil for a hydroponic wall, cropping fresh salads from the garden, or clucking at the chickens.

I really am having the most absolutely brilliant time in my internship. No doubt I'll be writing a lot more about it all...

Tinned geraniums and a box full of beans

It's been a hectic couple of weeks on the balcony. I recently went on a Capital Growth course specifically about growing in containers - it was fantastic, and left me full of ideas and excitement. (I know, I know, I'm a massive geek). Everyone there was a Londoner, growing mainly food, often in small or awkward spaces. It's so exciting to see how many people are doing this, it really does feel like a snowballing thing. 

We got some great advice from a fellow student on the course. She volunteers with Food from the Sky (a permaculture growing project on a supermarket roof in North London) and said that all of their growing containers are old recycling boxes from Haringey council. Lucky for me, my mum lives in Haringey, so I was able to thieve a couple of her old boxes to repurpose.

This one is full of runner beans (I really loved making a bamboo frame for them! Something incredibly satisfying about it. Can't wait for them to start climbing and twining up it.) The boxes are a great size, big enough to fit lots in, and deep enough for serious rooters. Another consideration is that I'm fast running out of space on the balcony, so using square sided containers rather than round ones is a good idea. Not to mention the fact that they're free. I'm hoping to obtain a few more. Perhaps some nocturnal scavenging round the streets of Haringey is in order...

I also picked up some pallets locally - one of the many great things about east London is the amount of useful things left out on the street. They're perfect for gardening purposes, solid and durable. As well as boosting the height and therefore the light available to the plants, the pallets lend a sense of structure to the space - I much prefer having a group of pots on a pallet than just hanging out on the floor.

On the theme of freebies, I've made some planters out of old double-size tins (in this case, chickpeas, fresh from feeding my hummus addiction).

A few drainage holes in the bottom and it was good to go. Although for the next ones (I'm saving all my old tins now) I'll line it with something to insulate the roots - apparently (and logically) they scorch a bit otherwise. This trailing geranium seems happy enough though. Probably because we've had so little sun!

Along with the tinned geraniums, and box of beans, other recent additions are an aubergine plant, courgette, peppers and more tomatoes. I've also gone a bit crazy with new seeds, so will be sowing pak choi, kale, and - after the current ones so rudely bolted the other week, more perpetual spinach.

A final mention on this accidentally but seemingly recession-themed post has to go to the nice folks at Alara. They have decided to use a bit of land in front of their muesli factory used as a municipal compost pick up. It's free! I went and filled up 3 huge bags of lush, dark, still-warm compost from them.  Absolutely brilliant. 

Our trainer on the Capital Growth course, Tom Moggach, had some interesting things to say about the ever-increasing commercialisation of gardening, and the fact that we really really don't have to buy into it.  Most of the necessities can be found for free, if you look hard enough, and seeds and cuttings can be shared between gardeners. A true and timely point.

Onwards! To more growing and less spending.

Dead trees and a smorgasbord of mints

My Acer died. I'm pretty gutted. It was a really beautiful small tree (3 feet ish) with the most elegant structure and such lovely changing shades of leaf. It has been living in the inside left corner of the balcony - the most sheltered spot possible, as it didn't like to be blown around too much. Maybe it is the wind that got it, in the end. Or the January snow I wasn't here to clear. Or too much water. Too little? Or just old age. Perhaps the grape hyacinths planted around the base strangled it. There was no drama, no visible disease, it just didn't come back to life this year. Gently it went into that good night.

It was nearly as old as me. And that is pretty old. My mum gave it to me a few years back when she was garden-less for a time, and I can see it, in my minds eye, in all of the (many!) gardens we had through my childhood. A very familiar old friend. Mum assures me that it had a great innings, especially considering its been in the same pot forever. Can't help feeling a bit guilty though, killing someone else's plant. RIP.

On the plus side though, it'll free up a big pot for something new. Heartless. But true. Carrots perhaps..?

Bound for smaller pots, at least for the moment, are these lush new herbs:

I picked them up from the lovely folks at the Herbal Haven stand at last weekends London Green Fair. They were extremely bargainous and are all lovely, healthy looking little buddies.

So - to formal introductions, clockwise from top left, we have: greek basil (a surprising sturdy little bush of a plant), tarragon (which I want to cook with more), dill (ditto with the cooking), chocolate mint (very excited about this one! It'll be heading for an ice cream maker this summer), lemon thyme (I think. Can't actually remember what this one is and it's label-less... Any confirmations/contradictions welcome) and spearmint, (about which I have nothing extra to say. Sorry spearmint.)

It is probably just as well I only have a balcony. If I had a full size garden I would spend every penny I have on plants. I could have easily bought another 20 herbs from the Herbal Haven guys. It was so exciting to see such an incredible variety of herbs! This is probably less than half of their mint section:

Pretty cool huh.

I await the day when I have an entire section of an enormous herb garden dedicated to mint. Until then, I will tend my little collection of pots with a near smothering degree of attention. And dream of more space...

Sunny, summery. LOVELY.

It's been a while since I posted. For various good, bad and odd reasons, not least the biblical rains...

The balcony seems a different place now. Like when babies stop looking like babies and start looking like people, the onset of summer (we basically missed Spring, right?) has spelt a huge leap in the balcony's development. Helped also by the fact that it's such an absolute joy to be out there in this weather that I am smothering it in attention. Check out the overflowing beauties on the window side:

I am now (tragically or thankfully, not sure...) old enough to understand what my mum meant when in the rainy days of our childhood, in response to our moaning, we'd hear that "at least the plants are happy". One day I'd love to be a gnarled old farmer who can squint at the horizon and predict the seasons ahead, or refer back to weather anomalies decades past and recall the effect they had on growth and bounty. Though not there yet, it seems fair to infer, based on my own growing projects and all the green in London, that a very rainy month followed by a very sunny week doth some extremely happy plants make. Word. 

There's so much to write about! I'll select some choice cuts now and blog a whole lot more regularly to catch us up. 

So. I bought a saw! Might not seem an exciting move to most but it's opened a world of possibilities to me. I christened it by halving a set of fairly unattractive shelves from our bathroom. The 2 halves are now reborn on the balcony and have provided some much needed levels on the eastern wall, and some essential shade-eluding height on the front side. It's so satisfying to recycle crap from the flat like this. New levels visible in the photo above, along with some lovely (but flimsy) blue crates I plucked from a bin in Dalston. They make the odds and ends in ugly plastic pots a whole lot prettier.

I have been getting increasing interested/excited about the edible side of things, and can report that the perpetual spinach is both thriving and delicious. And seems to grow enormous new leaves every day! It has graced salads, stir fries, stews and soups, and the best thing about it is the utter lack of that funny gritty raw-toothed thing you sometimes get with cooked spinach. (I'm intrigued about the science of that - anyone?)

Having been told by books/seed packets/parents/strangers that I must wait to plant out my tomatoes until "all risk of frost is past" (This exact phrase, from everyone. Weird.) I'm hoping it's safe to assume the time has come. The hanging basket which has been dwelling sad and skeletal in the corner is now hung and proudly stuffed with 'tumbling toms'. Which look confusingly upright so far, but shall hopefully start on their artful tumbling soon...

I've added a few new herbs too, one is which is this amazing Vietnamese coriander. Which looks nothing like 'normal' coriander. I think its beautiful, with a sinuous sprawl so different to my other herbs, and snake like markings to match.

I'm finding growing vegetables and herbs ridiculously exciting! I want to do so much more. My rocket seedlings are sprouting, and the pepper plants are entering adolescence. I have a seed potato potted up (literally only one - space issues!) and have packets of courgette and pak choi seeds ready to be sown. It's going to be a delicious summer in every way!

Vegetables - the early days

I have had some spinach plugs sitting outside for a couple of weeks now. I think the deal with these guys is that you plant them straightaway, but that was not to be. I've been procrastinating a while, partly as I'd planned to build a wooden planter for them (last weeks weather thwarted me). I took one look at their squished little faces this afternoon and realised that today should be the day. The sooner they're potted up the sooner we can eat them! They are now happily stretching their legs...

I hope they have enough space in there. One of the things about growing veg in pots is that if you were to follow the spacing advice, well, you'd just have 12 pots of spinach and not much else. And tasty though it is, that'd make for a fairly monochromatic scheme... My mum reckoned I could squeeze a few into this pot, especially if I cut leaves before they're huge. Which is when they're nicest. A win-win spinach situation!

On the other side of the window, there's been some serious excitement in the tomato department. Serious. Two (two!) seeds have sprouted.

Out of a possible fifteen, but I have hope. Those two Toms might just be quick off the mark. The seeds are out of date (does that really matter?) and I've rarely grown much from seed so didn't quite trust the magic to happen. But it has. (YAY!!) The packet suggested a propagator but it seems my little-pots-in-a-big-tray-with-clingfilm version has done the job. Fingers crossed the other seed siblings will crawl their way to the surface and a fruity life.

I've got some rocket seeds to plant up too. The excitement of the tomato babies has definitely inspired me to plant more seeds. Also, it would obviously be amazing to have a greenhouse, but I kind of like having my version on the living room table - I get to see it all happen, clock the changes, and (crucially!) it prompts me to remember to look after them...

In other news, I had a visit from Monsieur Nutkins the other day. Balcony gardening renders me exempt from lots of wildlife damage (slugs are thankfully rare) but its nice to have visitors sometimes. I'm growing flowers for the bees (the poor bees!) and I might get a bird feeder. Nutkins hasn't wreaked any destruction yet, so he's fine by me.

Hello my bushy tailed friend. Don't you go nibbling my veggies!

Raindrops on roses

Rain is not one of my favourite things, but after the unseasonal dearth of it lately, its hard to resent. Though I've luxuriated in all this sunshine, it's been hard to ignore the drought warnings that have appeared. It's April! Drought? Here, now? Bonkers.

No-one could deny the smell of happy relieved plants when the heavens opened yesterday.

Trembling pearls of water caught in the curves of my aquilegia, soon to roll off.

Raindrops on roses. (Don't it give you that Maria feeling..?) Rain really freshens the colours of the leaves. I love their softly winestained edges.

The first buds on these freesias have only just burst into bloom. They were all I could smell out there!

I've lost more plants to the sun than I should have since living here. Going away without arranging a waterer or just being lazily forgetful over consecutive scorching days, I've felt horribly guilty discovering them wilting, parched and sometimes unrescuable.

I've been careful to water religiously through the recent dry spell, and have also been adding water retention granules into pots old and new as a backup. Pots are very vulnerable, they don't have the option of plunging their roots deeper to quench their thirst. I've trapped them 3 floors up and have a responsibility to keep them alive. Even when it does rain, some plants by walls miss out due to angle issues... I must be vigilant!

I remember my geography teacher talking about the drought of 1976, and how her father had collected the family's bathwater for weeks to keep his garden alive. We should all do that. There's so much waste. It'll be a serious jug relay though!

I feel sad for people with bigger gardens than mine for whom this hosepipe ban will spell disaster. (I will think of them happily whenever it rains!) At the same time I understand that all resources are finite and we need to be more mindful of this. There's some really useful advice on the RHS website about dealing with drought.

And check out the amazing dry garden at Hyde Hall - apparently they don't water it at all!

Progress!

Friday was long and hot and I was off work. I spent literally all day on the balcony, from my first cup of tea to sweeping it down at dusk. It's the longest stint I've had for quite a while. Ever, even! It's rare to have a completely free day that coincides with decent weather, at least at this time of year.

People look at how small my balcony is and can't conceive how I manage to find so much to do out there! But it's deceptive. Pots are fairly high maintenance and dry out fast, and then there's my plant buying habits - newbies have to be potted up, and I end up rearranging loads of pots to find them the right placement... Weeding and pruning too, and trying to remember to feed things occasionally. Because I love to be out there, I do go looking for jobs to do sometimes, tiny trims, bits of sweeping. Turning pots a few degrees... Or just looking at it all living, breathing, growing. All the little miracles.

At the moment there is no time for such leisurely pursuits, there's too much to do! It seems like in a matter of weeks its all gone from an almost-graveyard to full of fresh life. One of the major jobs on Friday was repotting my jasmine. It was desperately in need of a move and some more legroom, and has now had both. I've moved it to the end wall where we have our table. I've decided to focus on making that end nice first so we have a green and flowering bit to sit in. I've struggled to make clematis happy against that wall for years - I had visions of a generous frothing tangle of it but the reality has been a few tragic straggling vines that succumbed to mould and didn't come within a mile of my imaginings. So to hell with them! If the trusty jasmine survived it's old spot then hopefully it will thrive now its more sheltered and secure. As you can see in the picture above (jasmine in pride of place) we also have an ugly satellite dish that I'm determined to camouflage as much as possible, hopefully with lots of fast growing jasmine fronds...

I've also moved the big rose into that corner, and fashioned a raiser out of an old palette to hold up a couple of other pots. One of the things I want to really work on this year is having varied levels, not just a bunch of sad little pots sitting on the floor.

I also went plant shopping. (Again!) I'll introduce them properly soon but here's a sneak preview:

That smorgasbord of loveliness includes some vegetables. Very excited about them! Looking forward to my first homegrown meal.