Look at my garden

As city dwellers we find ourselves with a severe lack of garden or any outdoor space whatsoever to call our own, only made worse recently to discover a neighbouring flat on the opposite side of the building have a lovely outdoor roofspace!!  This situation, I am sure is one which many of you find familiar.

However…

We will not be beaten by the restraints living two stories up.  Last year we managed to construct a platform within the gutter to house our planters, sadly we were not the most faithful of farmers, this alongside the fierce winds that hit our building, left our mini garden looking rather sad.  This year we are much better prepared and committed and dare I say, our very modest crop seems to be thriving.

This is a beautiful purple spinach plant, with windbreak constructed from an old duvet case & bamboo cane.

Obviously we would not be able to live off our ‘land’ but there is such a wonderful satisfaction in grabbing a handfull of leaves and herbs for your salad from the window ledge, or picking some fresh mint for a summer Mojito.  More so than anything it is another example of reinforcing those old fashioned values that are coming back into, well fashion.

More and more people are shopping in Vintage and second hand stores, re-styling and re-working old outfits.  The balcony gardening trend seems to be following suit, so many shops and websites are stocking easy to sow seeds, that are ideal for window box and grow bag allotments.  I am seeing an increasing number of cookery books, designed to cook from your crop, focussed on ingredients you can grow on your windowsil.  The balcony Gardener have such a great variety of seeds and the packets are so pretty too.

The french bean plant is beginning to sprout, taken on Easter Sunday

This year saw a re-make of the classic 70′s television show, ‘The Good Life’, this time around starring Sue Perkins and Giles Coren.  The couple filmed a sort of comedy docu-sitcom and actually attempted the things Tom and Barbara did in the original; re planting their garden as a veg plot, raising livestock, even making their own goat’s cheese.  Obviously this is not a realistic lifestyle for those of us aiming to afford to live in a City, but with allotment share schemes and the growing popularity of farmer’s market trade, it seems we are inching closer to a collective self sufficient way of living.  Hopefully I will have some more pictures to update you with in the coming weeks, watch this space

Some wild flowers I scooped up from Brockwell park