Who would have thought that I would get into gardening? Particularly when the only outside space we have is a tiny roof terrace! Well there must be something in the air in Crouch End as I’m getting more and more into it every day.
After the success we had in the garden last year, we’ve decided to ‘branch out’ a bit (sorry for the pun!) and be a bit more adventurous – what’s the worst that can happen?
Around two weeks ago our balcony looked more like a stall in Homebase than it did a roof terrace, but slowly and surely we’ve potted everything and the garden is now in full bloom. At my request all of our new additions this year are edible – I just can’t get excited about flowers. When Susie first mentioned growing sweet pea’s I was momentarily excited…. until I realised!
So, the first of our new entries this year are radishes. I was really surprised to hear that you can grow them in pots, and even more surprised to see them grow so quickly. Not only do they look great, but they tasted pretty damn good too. We will certainly be growing these next year too.
I’ve always really wanted to grow fruit, but heard on the grapevine (sorry again!) that you need lots of space and patience if you’re going to get anything like a decent sized yield. That may be the case, but that didn’t curb my excitement at picking (and eating) my first raspberry! I’m not sure why but there wasn’t a great deal of taste to it despite it looking pretty impressive – perhaps it needed a little bit more sun. Any ideas?
If the raspberries were slightly disappointing, the strawberries couldn’t of been more of a contrast. Quite literally I don’t think I’ve ever tasted a nicer strawberry in my fire. The variety is called Elam and they come highly recommended.
In fact writing this has brought back a funny story from when my parents tried to grow strawberries in one of those special strawberry pots a few years back. Strawberries would start to grow, just turn red and then magically disappear – no one could understand it. That was until we were watching the dogs playing in the garden one day and noticed that Alfie the Chihuahua was nowhere to be seen. Obviously worried we went out to try and find him, only to catch him red handed with two half strawberries and a bright red face – a bit of a give away when you’ve got an all white coat!
Tags: Crouch End, Garden, Gardening, Growing, Radish, Radishes, Raspberries, Raspberry, Roof Terrace, Strawberries, Strawberry
