ROOF TOP VEG PLOT

This is good

I thought you might like to see a really ucky picture of aphid infestation on a stem of Russian kale.  I’ll pull it out in a few weeks’ time, but for the moment why am I leaving it?

My guess is that for some of you the very thought of leaving such an ugly shoot in the garden would cause you to cancel your subscription to this blog and erase me from your twitter list.  But please don’t do that!  Let me tell you why this is good.

Firstly let’s talk about the aphids. 

Aphids are Species Specific
You need to know that aphids don’t cross from species to species.  The aphids infecting my kale are Russian Kale aphids.  They won’t bother the lettuces or the tomatoes.  If you look closely you will see that they have evolved in just the right shade of reddish green to disguise themselves perfectly. 

Aphids are food for ladybird larvae
The seven spotted ladybird can eat 5,000 aphids during its life span.  If you don’t have aphids in your garden you won’t have ladybirds.

Parasitic wasps use aphids to hatch their eggs
These wasps, which are solitary and good pollinators, lay their eggs in aphid carcasses.  If you've ever seen the white carcasses on foliage, you can bet that the wasps have been incubating here. 

Don’t spray the aphids, you’ll kill the good guys too
Some people might turn to the pest spray, but they’d be doing themselves and their gardens a bad turn.  If I were to kill aphids on sacrificial plants like these, I would also be killing the young ladybirds and wasp hatcheries that use them.  I would reduce the potential for ladybirds to control pests elsewhere in my garden.  I’d also be reducing the population of pollinators, not only killing the wasps, but bees, hover flies and other beneficial insects that make a massive difference in the harvest I will get from crops like beans and peas.

Preserve the bottom on the food chain and the top will prosper too
Ladybirds eat aphids, spiders eat ladybirds, flies eat spiders, birds eat flies and birds eat slugs.  If I can encourage the natural hierarchy of insects into the garden birds will follow. As I write this a Robin is rooting about in the undergrowth. This new visitor is a first for the rooftopvegplot, six stories up in Central London.  I directly attribute the Robin to my organic gardening methods, and my laxness with aphids.

But if all that wasn't good enough, leaving the Russian Kale has brought other benefits.  The bright yellow flowers and lush foliage look wonderful in early spring, when the vegplot tends to be a little bare.  And all those early flowers provide high grade pollen for the solitary bees and wasps that I’m busy trying to attract to the garden.  This is a real symbiosis between humans, plants and insects that I love to be a part of.

The Farthing Pie House

Today, for the first time the garden looks really wintry.  Leaves have been falling and now only stems remain on most of the climbers.  The constant rain of recent days has caused everything to sag and drip, as if the plants are tired of summer, tired of growing.

The rooftopvegplot is, fundamentally, a summer exercise.  Even though I extend the season with herbs and perennials and even though the greenhouse soldiers on, there is less reason to sit up here now – and on a cold, wet day, only a hardy soul would do so. But there is always some bounty in the winter months; I could pick sage, or parsley, wild celery or thyme. Even the odd Russian kale and chicory are soldiering on.

In the greenhouse lettuces and tomatoes are still cropping.  But some of my autumn crops have been devastated by slugs. And I, distracted by family matters, did nothing.

The beauty of the winter garden is an acquired taste.  It requires one to remember what summers past have been like and to imagine what next spring might bring.

Summer was always a lovely time in this part of London.  The clay marshland in this area was long left undeveloped while the area around, more stable ground, soon disappeared under stone and brick.  Accounts from the early 18th Century confirm that the market gardens that had developed during medieval times, still endured.  But like all edge of city gardens, many had succumbed to the pressure of commerce.  The area was scattered with pleasure gardens, public houses, eateries and tea rooms.  The focus of all this trade was a burgeoning middle class with money and free time to spend on Sunday rambles into the ‘countryside.’  Development was creeping ever closer. 

Mr. J. T. Smith, in his "Book for a Rainy Day," under date of 1772, gives us the following graphic sketch of this locality at that period:

 

"My dear mother's declining state of health," he writes, "urged my father to consult Dr. Armstrong, who recommended her to rise early and take milk at the cow-house. I was her companion then; and I well remember that, after we had passed Portland Chapel, there were fields all the way on either side. The highway was irregular, with here and there a bank of separation; and that when we had crossed the New Road, there was a turnstile (fn. 3) at the entrance of a meadow, leading to a little old public-house, the sign of the 'Queen's Head and Artichoke;' it was much weather-beaten, though, perhaps, once a tolerably good portrait of Queen Elizabeth. . . . A little beyond a nest of small houses contiguous was another turnstile, opening also into fields, over which we walked to the 'Jew's Harp House Tavern and Tea-Gardens.' It consisted of a large upper room, ascended by an outside staircase, for the accommodation of the company on ball nights; and in this room large parties dined. At the south front of these premises was a large semi-circular enclosure with boxes for tea and ale-drinkers, guarded by deal-board soldiers between every box, painted in proper colours. In the centre of this opening were tables and seats placed for the smokers. On the eastern side of the house there was a trapball-ground; the western side served for a tennis-hall; there were also public and private skittle-grounds. Behind this tavern were several small tenements, with a pretty good portion of ground to each. On the south of the teagardens a number of summer-houses and gardens, fitted up in the truest cockney taste; for on many of these castellated edifices wooden cannons were placed; and at the entrance of each domain, of about the twentieth part of an acre, the old inscription of 'Steel-traps and spring-guns all over these grounds,' with an 'N.B.—Dogs trespassing, will be shot.' In these rural retreats the tenant was usually seen on Sunday evening in a bright scarlet waistcoat, ruffled shirt, and silver shoebuckles, comfortably taking his tea with his family, honouring a Seven-Dial friend with a nod on his peregrination to the famed Wells of Kilburn. William's Farm, the extent of my mother's walk, stood at about a quarter of a mile south; and I remember that the room in which she sat to take the milk was called 'Queen Elizabeth's Kitchen,' and that there was some stained glass in the windows."

In 1720 this area was described as ’green fields and babbling brooks’.  A popular retreat was The Queens Head and Artichoke.  (Perhaps the Queen Elizabeth Kitchen, referred to above.)  The licence itself dates from the time of Queen Elizabeth 1st reign, after whom the pub is named. The origin of its name is attributed to Daniel Clark, Master Cook & Head Gardener to both Elizabeth 1st & James 1st.  Originally it was a hunting lodge, from where the monarch would ride out into Regents Park to hunt wild boar.  But by the 18th Century its attractions chiefly consisted in a long skittle and 'bumble-puppy' ground, shadowy bowers, perfect for asignations, and abundance of cream, tea, cakes, and other creature comforts.  It is mentioned in the Crew’s Survey in 1753 as ‘a ramshackle old tavern’. There is still a pub of that name, but in a slightly different location to the original. Its current building only dates back to the 19^th Century.

The Queen and Artichoke

Even closer by was the Farthing Pie House, now the Green Man at the top of Great Portland Street.  It is one of the earliest watering holes in this part of the city and renowned as an excellent place to eat mutton pie, or cured bacon.  It seems to have been one of the first local hostelries with a reputation for attracting the literary set.  The poet William Blake describes the pub as a place that he walked to as a young man and Henry Carey wrote a song about a girl who visited the pub and enjoyed

“a collection of cheesecakes, gammon of bacon, stuffed beef and bottled ale”. 

There is also records of Daniel Defoe and Alexander Dumas supping there.  Perhaps then, as now, this slightly more affordable part of London attracted those who liked the buzz of the city, but who couldn’t afford to purchase a town house in the fancy new Georgian Squares that were appearing all around us.

The Farthing Pie House. Wash drawing by Hieronymus Grimm 1733-1794

Looking at the old prints today, it is easy to see that anyone with a romantic imagination would surely love to frequent these old hostelries.  Even by the mid 18^th Century they had acquired antique qualities.  Today, if I want the pleasures of a country pub I have to drive off into the Chilterns, or at the very least walk up to Hampstead Heath, where a few pubs still maintain something of a country feel.

View of the Farthing Pie House in 1724 by Thomas Hosmer Shepherd. Image property of Westminster City Archives

In fact the more I think about it the more I’m drawn to rigging some Christmas lights up on the roof, stocking the tiny fridge up there with good beers and lighting a brazier.  Even veggie sausages taste better by verdure.

If you are interested in a present day pub crawl round here, below I list are a few locals to be recommended.

The Queen and Artichoke

The Green Man (Formerly the Farthing Pie House)

The Albany

The Crown and Sceptre (my local)

 

The Surge of Spring

Chelsea Flower Show is upon us, and as always it seems to coincide with a flurry of growth in the garden.  Is this the surge of spring, or the beginning of summer?  Whichever it is, it makes me feel glad.

I planted some more sweet-peas in the greenhouse two days ago and they are already pushing shoots up above the soil.  The radishes I planted outside on Sunday are already showing.  The row I planted a fortnight ago are now visibly growing each day and starting to heart up.  Even the basil, that had been very slow to germinate, has got a move on and is finally surfacing.  I was so encouraged, that I planted two more pots of basil seeds that I had been given by Jemma (@J3mma1983) in a seed swop.  These are Greek basil and purple basil.  I’ve always avoided purple basil.  Whenever I see it in big kitchen garden displays it looks weedier than the green basil.  But that’s what seed swopping is all about.  It’s about trying things you would not ordinarily risk planting.   So far the purple basil has outgrown the green!

I know it is time to plant because weeds are starting with a vengeance.  But my closed system of composting, recycling spent soil via the compost heap, is having a strange and rather wonderful effect on the weeds.  All my weeds are vegetables!  Instead of being plagued by mare’s-tail and couch grass I’m favoured with giant red mustard and Russian kale.  These both make excellent micro-veg, so none of them are wasted. 

Giant red mustard, nasturtium, Ipomea, Russian kale. All volunteers.

The weeds tell us that the soil is warming up and that now is the time to sow outdoors.  Like everyone else, I feel that I can’t keep up.  There is so much to do.  If I miss this window of weather, we’ll be into summer and the soil will be too dry to give tender seedlings a good start in life. 

How wonderful this season must have been for the early mediaeval serfs who worked their land around here.  The Doomsday Book records that Westminster Abbey (the owner of the land) had 19 villains and 42 cottars.   At first, when I read this, I imagined a village.  But the cottages, or more likely hovels, that these indentured farm-hands lived in must have been more spread out that a village implies. 

It was the serfs, rather than the monks, who worked the land.  In return for quite a large smallholding of between 1-5 hectares, villains would pledge a certain amount of time to working in the monastery farm. The rest of the time they worked their own land, selling the produce in local markets. The cottars would only have enough land for their own family needs.  They were the lowest of the low in the farming hierarchy, but still expected to help with the monastery lands.

So while the monastery owned the cattle, the orchards, the wheat fields and the vineyards, as well as the bakery and the brew-house, peasants would have tended and profited from much of the arable land around me.

The orchards at St George de Boscherville in Normandy

It is dangerous to romanticise the very hard life that they must have led, but on a spring day, if I had a few hectares to call my own, I think I could be happy.  Ironically, because it was the peasants who tended the vegetable plots, the myth developed that vegetables were not as healthy as meat.   

I got out my battered ‘O’level copy of Chaucer’s, Nun’s Priests Tale from the Canterbury Tales to provide a glimpse of what a cottar’s life might have been like.  The poem was written in 1387, but in describing the poor widow, Chaucer describes a feudal system that had endured, unchanged for 200 years, since the Norman Conquest. 

It is clear from the text that by the 14^th Century, the link between rich diet and illness had already been made.  The Nun’s Priest explains that the widow was healthy despite her poverty:

Overeating never was the cause of any sickness; her only treatment was a temperate diet, with exercise and heart's content. The gout never kept her from dancing, nor did the apoplexy bother her head. She drank neither red wine nor white; her table was served for the most part with white and black - milk and brown bread, of which she found no lack, with broiled bacon and at times an egg or two…

Translation Gerard NeCastro's

Other parts of the tale tell us that the widow has a sow, a milk-cow, some chickens and a proud cock called Chanticleer, who was partial to crowing among the cabbages.  From the vegetables in her plot, surrounding her cottage, she would have made a pottage every day. Pottage is a stew, or something like a modern stock-pot.  For the poor window it would contain a mixture of vegetables and perhaps a bone or two for flavour.  The French word potage, meaning a rich vegetable soup, comes from the same root.  I call my garden a potager which is today still a common France term for a vegetable garden.  For me the term describes a garden used to feed us, rather than the English cottage garden, which has come to imply a rather more decorative affair.    My garden, like that of Chaucer’s widow, is there to sustain us.  I can imagine that she too would have relished the fresh young weeds springing up at this time of year, ready to enliven her diet.   She would not have rooted out any edible volunteers, I’m sure.

Now which did I sow and which are weeds?

The variety in a cottar garden would have been very limited. Many of the plants I grow, like tomatoes and peppers had not been discovered.  The fine lettuces would not yet have been bred.  Instead, poor people may well have harvested their seeds from weeds amongst the hedgerows.   Even today, as I walked the dog through Regent’s Park, I noticed that all the native weeds at this time of year are edible.  This morning I saw daisies. Their leaf rosettes are the forerunners of our lamb’s lettuce.  The park is heavy with the down of dandelion seeds as they float through the air and there are nettles of every type.   These are the direct descendants of the rural pottage that people could collect. Chaucer’s widow would have needed to concentrate on growing vegetables that would keep through the long winter, such as onions, turnips, marrowfat peas and beans.  These are not wild plants in London. The seeds would have been saved from year to year, handed down from generation to generation.  But she would not have been indifferent to flowers.  The link between edible crops, flowers and their seeds had not been broken in those days.  I think this is why, when we think of a cottage garden we think of flowers as well as vegetables.

Runner beans, Desiree (Chiltern seeds) and marrowfat peas waiting to be planted out. Both these strains provide good keeping peas and beans for winter stews.

In contrast, Westminster Abbey records reveal that the monks ate a breakfast of bread and ale very early in the morning.  Dinner was served between 11.00-11.30am and supper served late in the afternoon.  Both meals would have consisted of meat, eggs, bread, cheese, pottage and wine or beer.   A monastery pottage might include more meat and eggs stirred in at the last minute. The cook reckoned on each monk eating five eggs a day.  It makes me wonder what their cholesterol levels must have been like!

As time went on the pottage was dropped by the monastery.  It was poor man’s fare.  By the 13^th Century it doesn’t seem that the monks ate anything like their five a day.  The monastery garden would have been reserved for physic plants, grown to cure agues and maladies. And though the monastery owned orchards and nut trees, fresh fruit was a delicacy, reserved for feast days. The strict rules of Saint Benedict required the monks to abstain from meat on Fridays and fast days. But over the years it was agreed that offal and fish could be eaten on fast days – so a Westminster Monk might well have been as large and rotund as the mythical Little John in Robin Hood. 

It seems that the wealthier you were in early medieval times, the more rich food you ate, and ironically the worse your diet became.  No wonder the physic garden became such a mainstay of the religious life.

Even Chaucer, who was a courtier, far removed from the land, recognised this springtime feeling that I have today.  The opening lines of the Canterbury Tales describe the effect that springtime brings to all creatures.  (I’ve left this passage in the original Middle English, because it seems to sound so much better than in any of the translations. If you read it aloud to yourself, it will not be difficult to get the gist of what he’s talking about.)

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages)

shoures soote sweet showers, flour flowers, Ram the sign of Aries,
ye eye, hir courages  their hearts
I’ve been enjoying the dawn chorus these last few days; small fowls making melody. I’ve been relishing this time of year and I’m sure that my feelings have been shared by gardeners in England, unchanged since farming began.    Enjoy Chelsea week.

July Knowhow Autumn Planting

Some time at the beginning of July thing change in the veg plot.  However hard the winter has been, however chilly the spring and however much May and June have been a wash out, we are almost guaranteed that July will be hot.  As I sit writing this today (8^th July 2013) the mercury reads 29•.   

After the summer solstice temperatures begin to build up, but day length slowly starts to shrink.  This seems to trigger everything into flower and fruit.  Baby tomatoes suddenly appear, peas start to thicken, beans are on the climb and courgette suddenly begins to look strong and healthy.  It is as if they all know that in the midst of this lovely warmth end of summer is already heralded.

  This is a lovely time of year in the garden.  It is time to enjoy the fruits of our labour and for savouring high summer's rich harvest. At the moment I am cropping lettuces, spring cabbage, potatoes, peas, carrots, kale, camomile, mint, fennel and all the herbs.   Nasturtium, roses, Ipomoea, marigold, pinks, lily and snap dragons are all flowering in a glorious profusion of colours.  Hollyhocks, lavender and Allium show bursting buds.   The courgette and cucumbers are in flower and the first tiny tomatoes can be spotted in the growhouse.  

 Everything had been planted out and I'm starting to copiously feed and water this happy profusion.   

But, in the midst of summer we must start thinking about winter crops.  Pak choi, Russian kale, mustard greens and lettuce; Rouge d'Hivers have all set seed.  That is a sure sign that planting time is just around the corner.   Winter crops don't grow very fast.  But seeds sewn in the next month or two will have plenty of time to develop into sturdy plants before cold weather is upon us.  

The list is long.  Autumn radish and carrots, Chinese vegetables, cabbages, brassica  and calabrese of all sorts can be sewn now.  The problem is - there is nowhere to put everything! 

Try to find a semi-shaded spot somewhere, possibly where lettuces have been harvested and plant a few seeds as soon as possible. They don't need a lot of space.  A plot 30cm square will produce a lot of seedlings.   As long as they are regularly watered and sheltered from very hot sun, they will love the warm weather and the still long days.  Alternatively, plant up a few seed trays.  These can be transplanted as crops start to run over.

Autumn planting is, in many ways, far easier than spring planting.  The soil is warm, there are cooler spots to be found and by August we often get enough rain to make hand watering a relatively infrequent requirement. Seeds sewn now are far less likely to run to flowers.  The cool weather crops* will do much better now, putting on leaf and not flowers.   *(this is a bit of a misnomer in our constantly cool climate.  But received wisdom is that warm weather crops, like courgette and tomatoes are best planted in early spring, while the cool weather crops do best planted in late summer/early autumn. )  

But just like all the weather windows we have in Britain, this one will close before long.  Gales and squally rainstorms can damage delicate crops in September, soil temperatures tend to plummet come October, and frosts become more and more likely once November has broken. So make the most of this month and you wont regret it come winter.

By planting in trays I can preserve crops into the winter. By September outdoor lettuces are spent, but inside the growhouse lambs lettuce and American land cress is flourishing