ROOF TOP VEG PLOT

The Pleasure of Winter Sunshine

Wisteria after its annual winter trim.

I woke up to another clear blue sky today.  It makes my heart sing to find such wonderful weather.  The sunlight must trigger some very subliminal switch in my brain.  Perhaps it is drummed into our DNA, by centuries of gardening, that sunshine means life.

This winter has been a sunny one so far. I’m still enjoying pottering around in the rooftopvegplot as if it is autumn.  For example, last Sunday I was able to make a leisurely survey of the wisteria and trim it neatly, all under a sky of perfect cerulean blue. How many years in the past have I left it too late because it was such bad weather?  

I usually put tubs onto the bench seat at this time of year; it is positioned to get the best of the sunshine. But on Christmas Day I cleared the bench off again, so that Mike and I could enjoy our Christmas morning coffee sitting on the seat, in blindingly low sunshine.  Since then, it has been warm enough on several occasions to put out a couple of cushions and snuggled on the bench with Rosa the mini Schnauzer acting as a muffler in order read a gardening book.  That is more the stuff of June that January.

 I know that we gardeners always like to discuss the weather, but it seems that at the moment we are experiencing very weird weather all over the world. And it is certainly worth talking about it. At one end of the globe Phyllis Martin, who runs an acre micro-farm in Melbourne is tweeting that the thermometer reads 42.5°. That’s 108.5F° in old money.  She’s having to hose down the chickens and drape shade screens over the strawberries.  (@phyl_martin)  At the other end of the world USA tweeters are sending out scary images of Niagara falls iced up and Lake Michigan looking for all the world like a witches cauldron. (@picturesearth) 

credit @picturesearth

I gather in the States the press are asking Obama, “Is this global warming?”   I think the jury has long since declared on that one.  Yes, it is global warming and we all ought to be doing something about it.  This week our prime minister Cameron has apparently declared that shale gas is green and sustainable. He’s all for it! Surely someone like him, who has children, ought to be a bit more conscientious about the future of our planet.  His kids will, after all, inherit the fallout of his foolishness.  And it would take a very stupid person not to put all these weather phenomena together and miss the message – OUR CLIMATE IS CHANGING.

Unfortunately in London the results of climate change are rather benign.  They probably don’t scare the policy makers enough. I’ve been tweeting with Janet Stewart (@tenajtiger) this morning about how wonderful this sunny weather is.  My sweet peas still think it is summer and continue to bud.  I haven’t recorded a frost yet this year, though surfaces are damp and cold first thing in the morning.  I've read that hardy plants continue to grow until the temperature drops below 6°.  For our Scottish cousins this growing season lasts only four months.  But down here, given the benefit of an urban situation, I rarely see the thermometer drop below 6°.  So theoretically, my plants should be growing all year round. 

From measurements I’ve been taking over the past two or three years, I can report that my plot, even though it is exposed to wind and on the fifth floor, is generally two degrees warmer than the forecast for Central London.  And the forecast for Central London is generally two degrees warmer than for the home counties. A few nights ago, as places as close and hardly rural as Ealing were experiencing a frost, our thermometers didn’t fall below 3.6°.  I guess that here, right in the heart of London W1 and surrounded by air conditioned offices belching warm air, that the urban heat island effect may be more than four degrees of difference. 

I apologise for stating the obvious, but micro-climate is such a local thing.  My plot is surrounded by brick walls that absorb the sunshine during the day and help to keep the plants warm at night.  I’m sheltered from strong winds by trellises and the sheer complexity of structures around me, that capture and confuse the gales.My plot is located above my house, so heat from our living room will percolate up to warm the raised beds as well.  (Conversely the raised beds also help to insulate my living room!)  And because I’m high up, the plot is not overshadowed.  If the sun is shining, we’ll get it somewhere in the garden. 

The real boon of this January has been the sunshine.  I checked the records and the difference is striking.  This week the intensity and the duration of sunshine is greatly increased compared to the same week last year.  My observations indicate that it is the presence of sunlight as well as warmer temperatures that really jolts plants into action.  If you think about how they grow, it’s not such a mystery to discover that sunlight is so important. Plants use photosynthesis to produce sugars, that in turn create leaves and stems. We gardeners always go on about frost, and there is no doubt that frost will zap tender plants. But if we can keep the frosts at bay (which is quite easy with cloches or fleece) then it’s the sunlight that gives growth. 

Already, at this time of year, we have thirty more minutes of daylight than we did at the winter solstice. We only have to wait one more month, until 14^th February, before another milestone in the year is reached. Valentine’s Day is, for Londoners at least, the day when plants start to grow.  Is it a coincidence that the birds traditionally start to nest on the very day of the year that the extent of daylight first exceeds ten hours?  Assuming that we do continue to get lovely sunshine and slight frosts, I will be able to start sowing very soon.

For the first week or so seeds don’t photosynthesise.  The goodness in the seed will keep them going until the first true leaves appear.  (That’s why we can sprout seeds at any time of year – they just need warmth and water, not sunlight.) I’m making a list of seeds that I will start into growth in a week or two.  That list includes early peas, broad beans, annual flowers, lettuces and radishes.  These should all weather a late frost as long as I protect them.  But these seeds are all a bit like me. What they must have is sunlight.   

A trip back in time.

Lucullus Swiss Chard. www.sustainableseedco.com

I’m still perfecting my planting plan and hoping to get my seed orders off today.  But before I got down to leafing through all that minuscule type, I decided to take my husband Mike and Rosa, the Mini Schnauzer, on a longer than normal morning walk.  For the first time this week the early morning sky was blue and what clouds I could see, were puffy and white.

I had historical research in mind.  I wanted to measure just how close we are to Oxford Street and thus how close our house is to old Roman London.   I can report that we live exactly 600 Wendy-steps away. My guess is that’s approximately 1,500 Roman feet.

Oxford Street is one of the most ancient of the streets of London. In those days it was called the Via Trinobantina. It linked the West Gates of the Roman fort of Londoninium(situated in the modern day City of London) with the west country.   So phalanxes of legions, Saxon traders, Roman dignitaries and commoners would all have trudged by.  Perhaps even one of the emperors passed this way, with pomp and ceremony pulled in a chariot by nimble Italian horses? Several of them came to Britain to inspect their damp northern territory, though few of them remained here long.

The shops don’t open early on a Sunday morning, so for once we had almost the whole street to ourselves.  It was possible to imagine what it must have been like, setting out for the West Country or South Wales along this route.  I wondered if, in Roman times, it would have been this quiet.

Excavations at the nearby Crossrail site at Tottenham Court Road Station have provided new evidence of Roman settlement along Via Trinobantina. Even though we are a mile or two from Londinium’s Roman wall, it would not have been completely rural round here. I like to fancy that there were farms built close to the road, selling produce grown on the very plot we occupy and where I grow today. There is still a tradition of producing round here and selling on Oxford Street.  Today it is the fashion shops that sell clothes made in our local rag-trade factories.

On these rare occasions when I find myself almost alone on Oxford Street, it is not so hard to imagine that local farmers might have set up stalls along the street, offering travellers vittles for their journey.  This part of London might well have had market gardens. We are just south of Regent’s Park that even then was boggy and clayey ground.  The park would have been useless for agriculture. It remained heavily forested until much later and because people left it alone it became a good hunting ground. But round where we live the London clay is lighter and mixed with river gravels and silt.  Our lands would have been sheltered by the hills of Hampstead above us and the forest of Regents Park close by.

Springs, issuing from the escarpments of modern day Primrose Hill and Parliament Hill, criss-crossed our fertile land with streams that still exist in mysterious culverts beneath our streets.  The eccentrically laid out Marylebone Lane twists and turns in order to follow the route of the Tyburn river.  Fleet Street is said to have the River Fleet still coursing beneath its paving slabs.  These rivers ran with some force as they raced down from the chalk and sandstone hills that surround the Thames Valley. Westminster is renowned for its artesian wells.  Eros in Piccadilly Circus used to be fed by a naturally turbulent artesian fountain.  When we excavated our own basement, a few years ago, we found an old well beneath the slab.  Peering down into the brick chasm, we could see murky, muddy water only a few feet below the level of our basement floor. 

The Romans, who themselves imported the idea of the garden from Persia, are generally credited with bringing garden design to the British Isles.  Excavations of Roman villas in Britain have revealed that the central courtyard or peristyle was planted with herbs, vegetables and sweet smelling flowers as abundant as any found in Rome.  Italians still garden like this today, mixing edibles with flowers, making the most of any sheltered space they have.   

In Rome the gardens of Lucullus were renowned. His villa, built just outside Rome, was legendary for the beauty of its extensive gardens and planted courtyards.  Lucullus even has a strain of Swiss chard named after him, implying to me that his garden was as productive as it was decorative.

The Romans certainly had a refined taste in vegetables and many of the things we grow today were imported by them. For example, grapes and figs would have been commonly grown in Britain in those days, even as far north as Hadrian’s Wall. And many of our perennial herbs like rosemary would have been imported by Romans, as an indispensable garnish for meat dishes. The climate might have been a little bit more hospitable then.  Where we live, the confluence of fertile alluvial soils, a ready water supply and sheltered fields, would have given a Roman market gardener just the right conditions in which to raise Mediterranean varieties that would tempt even the most homesick Roman Legionary.    

Seeds of Italy made a lovely Roman garden at Hampton Court Flower Show last summer.  You can still download the planting list from Emma Copper’s website and watch the video here.

 

And I’ve discovered that you can still get Lucullus’ chard.  It is so vigorous that it has been awarded the RHS Award of Garden Merit. Now that has to be a definite for next summer. It is available from Thompson and Morgan. Lucullus chard is larger than the normal Swiss chard. It has a more elongated white stem that is cooked separately to the more delicate leaf parts.

I have been trying to concentrate on rather mundane seeds, like chards, kales, carrots and peas.  These are all vegetables that Romans would have cultivated.  But my mind keeps straying towards the more exotic grape vines, pomegranates and figs.  If I were a Roman citizen of London it might takes weeks or months for precious seeds to be sent to me from south of the Alps.  Today I can order anything and it will be with me in a few days’ time. I hope my walk, tripping back into history, will at least ensure that I value the extraordinary variety available to me today. 

...and then the rain came.

Cy Twonbly Quattro Stagioni Inverno Tate Gallery

The first of January should be a time for renewed vigour, for getting out and getting on, for new resolutions and new ideas.  But weighed down as we all are by Christmas indulgences, it certainly doesn’t take much to destroy my resolve.  Mid-winter seems to me to be a time for pragmatism, not for ambition.  This week I’ve been trapped inside by a bout of wintry storms, so all the gardening has gone on in my head, rather than on the plot. 

Circled around my armchair there is an untidy pile of seed catalogues and gardening books.  I’m trying to conjure up a theme for 2014 in my Central London fifth floor roof garden/vegetable plot. In search of inspiration Mike and I took ourselves off to the British Library yesterday to drool over a display of Georgian gardening books.

I was struck by how modern some of the gardening advice seemed.  I came across this book, (see below) all about the London garden, by Thomas Fairchild, that would not look out of place in a gardening bookshop today. 

 

Thomas Fairchild, The City Gardener, 1722

I itched to read it, but it lay behind plate glass in the exhibition.  Imagine my delight when I came home to discover that it can be read on the internet at The University of Chemnitz 

 

Fairchild’s delightful book, with advice on urban gardening that still holds true today, was another timely reminder to take the common-or-garden approach to planting.  Why go for something exotic, when we are blessed with such a wonderful array of native plants?

Last year I smothered my new trellises with so many runner beans that by September Mike, was begging me not to feed him anymore! So I left October’s pods on the bushes, and now we have a storage jar full of those very distinctive purple and black beans.  I know they will go grey when cooked, but it has given me the idea to grow runner beans; Czar next year.  They make a tasty pod bean and the seeds are white, so much nicer for preserving.  There is also a rumour that the birds don’t eat the white flowers as much as the red ones.  We shall see…

I set up a rooftopvegplot twitter account this week, (@rooftopvegplot).  I’ve been delighted by the welcome I’ve received from other urban gardeners and allotmenteers all over the country. The great thing about twitter is that it can lead my thoughts in unexpected directions. I was reminded by the Greedy Gardener that we take too little notice of how beautiful our native plants can look at this time of year. She (I think she’s a she) blogged a lovely image of the wild clematis or Clematis vitalba

 

Clematis vitalba, old man's beard

 

This rampant climber has beautiful starry white, bee friendly, flowers in the summer.  By the time the first frosts appear, the flower heads have dried into the distinctive fur-like jumble that gives the plant its common name, old man’s beard.   Even though it is invasive and seeds like wildfire, it is certainly beautiful enough to add winter interest to my trellises.  Clematis may not be particularly useful as a crop, but it is an excellent bee attractor and a quick internet trawl indicates that the stems could make a serviceable twine.

I’m planning next winter’s crops first this year. That may sound perverse, but in my defence I can look around now and see what is still looking good in other people's gardens. I’ve decided to select one bed to look gorgeous in winter time.  It will be the first bed that I come to at the top of the stairs, so even if it is cold and rainy, I can look out of the glass door and admire a wintry display.  My inspirational image is a quartet of paintings by Cy Twombly entitled Quattro Stagioni.  There isn’t much colour in the winter image.  You can see it at the top of this blog. It is a predominantly black and white painting, with a hint of fresh green. But I’m already imagining how lovely this collection of colours could look on cold moonlit nights, in the dead of winter, as I tiptoe out to the plot to cut vegetables for supper. 

I’ve thought of including late fruiting black skinned tomatoes, the black and white trailing squash; Delicata, silvery leaves of Swiss chard and the papery pods of the Czar runner bean. 

The piece de resistance, planted against the red brick wall of the house, will be a fan trained black elder; Sambucus nigra.  The white elderflowers look wonderful in summer and this lovely bushy plant will have delicious glossy black berries around Christmas-time.  They will surely come in handy for some festive culinary use. Taking a leaf out of the Greedy Gardener’s book, I realise that this is a native, so it should be able to withstand our winter weather.

I always plant a few complementary flowers in the rooftopvegplot too.  I was thinking of black or white violas (edible of course), white umbels of wild celery, black centred Chrysanthemum; Pole Star (apparently the tubers are edible?).  Then as fodder for late flying bees I was wondering about a stick or two of the the magical looking Rudbeckia; Green Wizard. A few of those delicious white narcissi I saw on Cally Smith’s blog Countrygate yesterday would carry the scheme right through to the early spring. 

Pippa Greenwood tweeted on Monday that she is still planting bargain ‘daffs.  That got me out of my reveries.  I'm off to the garden centre today to see if I can find some suitable narcissi to start the whole thing off right away.

It’s never too cold, or too late, to plant a few bulbs!

 

Clockwise: Narcissi, squash; Delicata, Rudbeckia; Green Wizzard, runner beans;Czar, Sambucus nigra, flowers and berries. See picture credits below.

This is the first of, what I hope, will become a regular column about the rooftopvegplot.  Do stay a while and look through my library of plants and knowhow, that I’ve written about in preceding years. I welcome your comments and suggestions.  Can you think of any black or white veg I’ve missed for the winter plot?  And if I can help you with your raised beds or container grown veg - do ask a question.

 

Credits for composite image above.

Narcissi   http://countrygate.wordpress.com/2013/12/31/new-year-new-moon-new-adventures/
Squash; Delicata  http://carletongarden.blogspot.co.uk
Rudbeckia; Green Wizzard   http://www.thompson-morgan.com/flowers/flower-seeds/perennial-and-biennial-seeds/rudbeckia-occidentalis-green-wizard/8605TM
Runner beans; Czar  http://www.suttonelms.org.uk/runner%20bean%20czar.jpg
Sambucus nigra http://www.permaculture.co.uk/readers-solutions/homemade-elderflower-wine-1