London Road Station Partnership Blog

We like a bit of bling on our blog and who better to provide it than Brighton & Hove’s Mayor, Bill Randall, who has visited our garden in full bling on several occasions.

On Monday 22nd April, we met up with him again at the launch of City in Bloom. Now independent of the Council, Brighton & Hove City in Bloom will be preparing to participate in the RHS ‘In Bloom’ competition in 2014 and for 2013, is launching a number of local competitions and encouraging local groups to get involved in the RHS’ ‘It’s Your Neighbourhood’ scheme.

At Monday’s launch, the lovely new logo, designed by a visiting Colombian student, was unveiled. The Evening Argus was on hand to capture the moment, with Bill and his bling slightly upstaged by the blooms.

There are some great ideas for blooming up neighbourhoods on the City in Bloom website: planting around trees (yeah!) and planting up some colourful planters to enliven areas. Our Preston Circus planters project is warming up now and we hope to be out there at the weekend, realising the colourful planting schemes we planned back in cold, grey March.

We’ve finally installed our public herb planters at the front of London Road Station, supported by a small grant from Harvest … took a bit of doing to sort out the flat packs.

Once the plants get established,  the herbs are available for you – anyone – to pick and use. The idea has been mentioned by several visitors to the garden, and it’s our first real step in the spirit of Incredible Edible Todmorden: growing things that passers-by can sample freely.

Rich and moist planter

Mediterranean herb planter

The two planters accommodate slightly different planting conditions. The left side has the herbs that prefer richer and moist soil: flat leaf and curly parsely and chives. We’ve also got  French tarragon and hope to add basil and coriander that we’re growing from seed. We might also add some mint, restricted in a pot. These herbs like rich soil, so we’ll probably need to feed them throughout the growing season. Quite a few of them will tolerate a bit of shade.

On the right side are the Mediterranean herbs that like poorer, grittier soil and full sun. We’ve added horticultural sand and grit to try to recreate their preferred conditions. There’s thyme, sage, rosemary and oregano. Just noticed on one of our photos, though, that the tree in front casts shadow – something to check later, when the tree’s in leaf.

Herbs can grow fast and furious, and, as I’ve just discovered from my own herb pots, can soon become root bound in containers. But if they get used regularly, they should be kept in check. We’ll be checking regularly to see how they are growing and will probably replace/divide plants annually.

Herbs are easy to propagate: we’ve got thyme, sage, basil, dill, fennel and parsley seeds coming up already, oregano and thyme are easy to divide and rosemary can be propagated from cuttings.

We’ve already had several people looking and commenting on the planters. Give the plants a month or so to settle in, and then the herbs should be ready for cutting: inspiration at the end of the working day for cooking your evening meal.

It’s our Seed-Sowing Sunday on 14th April, thanks to the RHS 2013 Britain in Bloom ‘It’s Your Neighbourhood’ scheme whose theme this year is ‘Edible Britain’.

To mark the beginning of National Gardening Week, we’ll be sowing the fifteen free packs of seeds for easy edible plants – herbs, radishes, beetroot, carrots – which we’ve received from the RHS. There will also be seeds – and probably seedlings – to give away. Please come along and join us at the edible growing garden, London Road Station (south side by bridge)! 

We’ll be showing how to sow seeds in different receptacles, from the classic oblong seed tray to plastic cups, toilet rolls, window boxes and guttering. And we’ll also be demonstrating potting on the seedlings when they’ve grown a bit, again using a range of ‘pots’, from the traditional 9cm plastic pots to pots made from newspaper. There’ll be lots to do and hopefully, lots to see! We just need the weather to collaborate.

AND … we hope to inaugurate our public herb planters on Sunday 14th too …

These are two stylish wooden planters which we plan to plant up with popular herbs so that you can pick up your herbs for a tasty supper on your way back from work! Hope to see you on Sunday 14th!

Our raised beds have filled up quickly. The Harvest raspberries have taken over the sun-shade middle bed, our sunny bed is occupied with leeks and onions, leaving only a small space for climbing beans this summer.

Strawberries have established in our mini-orchard, in front of the fruit trees, and we’ve got three different kinds of garlic underplanting the fruit trees too!

So where do we put sun-loving courgettes? Great vegetables, easy to crow, fairly reliable croppers, not susceptible to too many pests and delicious. One solution looks like Thomson & Morgan’s ‘Black Forest’, a courgette that is happy growing upwards, not outwards. We have walls (OK, there are fruit trees there, but they’re young and should tolerate the presence of an annual vegetable). Another experiment for growing in a small space.

How come we’ve neglected carrots?

The Raised Bed Gardener says carrots are ideal for containers and raised beds, they suit cooler climates, seed can be sown in containers at least 20cm deep  or raised beds in early March, they can be planted close together and they can be harvested in 12 weeks: what’s not to like? He also says that they can be intercropped (planted between other plants) and will tolerate a bit of shade. A perfect plant – yet I’ve never grown them and don’t think any of our group have.

OK, so here’s the downside, it seems. Carrot fly: the seedlings need to be carefully protected with horticultural fleece or you can try and distract the fly with the overpowering smell of onions. Container grown carrots sound a bit like tomatoes, though more tolerant of cold: they need lots of water and feeding with potassium-rich tomato feed. And of course, they require a crumbly not a clay or stony soil as otherwise you get forked carrots. So we need

• a container at least 20cm deep
• planting compost mixed with vermiculite and some BFB (blood fish and bone)
• to construct a ‘cage’ over our container and tightly attach horticultural flee
• to raise the container at least 50cm above the ground if possible
• to water well and feed regularly

http://www.vegetable-garden-guide.com

The small, early varieties – Amsterdam carrots – seem to be most suitable for containers. We’ve been donated two packets of Amsterdam 3 carrots, one via the RHS The Garden magazine. Definitely time to try! The BBC weather forecast for Brighton promised sun this afternoon – no sign so far, but at least no snow (last week), no wind, no rain.

There’s masses of guidance on growing container carrots:

• http://www.vegetable-garden-guide.com/growing-carrots.html
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL0Kqn8Vq3E
• http://www.thompson-morgan.com/how-to-grow-carrots
• http://www.rhs.org.uk/Gardening/Grow-Your-Own/Veg-A-to-Z/Carrots