Decoration

A diary of a city rooftop garden part 1: spring

by Black Shadow January 31, 2021

A diary of a city rooftop garden part 1: spring

Horticulturist Charlie Harpur explains how he planted a flourishing rooftop garden at his London flat and cultivated it under lockdown

Getting Started

As a gardener (and a reluctant Londoner at times), having outdoor space was always going to be a priority when planning our living situation. When a friend offered my wife and me a small flat to rent with a few square metres of roof space to the north of the city, even though it was miles away from work, we jumped at the chance.

Studying at Kew, and growing vegetables in a 1.8x8m student vegetable plot, I was surprised at how much produce could be yielded from what felt like such an impossibly compact space. The first time I ever sowed vegetable seeds, I remember doubting that they would even germinate, let alone go on to feed us, our friends and family. But they did, and this gave me confidence that a similar result could be achieved in containers on our new roof.

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The experience has been a constant learning process where things haven’t always gone quite the way we would like, but the project has provided more than just edible produce. The garden we have created out of an assortment of homemade containers, salvaged pots, and other repurposed receptacles, has also given us a therapeutic lockdown distraction, as well as some much-needed breathing space.

The roof itself was a daunting 4m-long expanse of rough red tiles when we moved in in October. The first timid attempt at garden making was in November, with the planting of a mix of white Tulipa ‘Maureen’ and crimson ‘Abu Hassan’, interspersed with Allium sphaerocephalon in some galvanised tubs with holes drilled into their bases. These kept our Great Dixter-gifted Gunnera (‘It’s from Christo’s plant so try not to kill it’), and bedraggled jasmine and blueberry company. I made a few scribbled plans of what I thought would be possible on the vegetable front, but our lives had been busy in the dawning of the year, and we were well into February before we properly made a start. ‘Next weekend’, we would say, not knowing that a government enforced lockdown was on the horizon.

February

Next weekend came around, and the sudden appearance of my father-in-law in a large hired van was the kick start we needed. We returned from our bonding-time trip to the local DIY shop with some timber decking - grooves turned inwards - which we sawed to the calculated lengths and screwed together using square sections of timber as corner posts. The two large vegetable planters were born, just as the tulips were beginning to sing.

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Drainage had to be considered, as well as the overall weight of the planters. Could our roof take it? Our landlady thought that it ‘probably could’, although I suppose an engineer’s approval would have been preferable. We lined each planter with some perforated black plastic, and filled it with compost, ready for sowing.

March

The first sowing, however, wasn’t made until the third week of March. Getting hold of seed from inundated seed suppliers was the first big obstacle, as well as the first lesson learned: plan your seed order well in advance. After some pleading with friends and colleagues, we started to amass a motley collection of seeds. I wasn’t keen on growing the yellow Courgette ‘Soleil F1’ at first, but if we wanted courgettes, it would have to do.

By drawing a quick scale plan of our new planters, we were able to allocate appropriate space for the vegetables we wanted to grow, using the recommended spacings on the back of each seed packet for guidance. These spacings are great for open ground but feeling that there should be different rules when growing food crops on a roof, we optimistically reduced these spacings slightly to pack as much produce in as possible.

Using my finger to draw pleasingly straight drills through the top of the compost, the first seeds went in: Swiss Chard ‘Verde a Costa Bianca 2’, Wild Rocket, green Lettuce ‘Salad Bowl’ and the red ‘Lollo Rossa’, Spinach ‘Matador’, Beetroot ‘Detroit Globe’, Radish ‘Rapid Red’, as well as Broad Bean ‘Bunyard’s Exhibition’ sown individually. Climbing Bean ‘Cobra’ and Pea ‘Eddy’ were planted around the edges, giving them the attractive option of clinging to the rooftop balustrade when they finally emerged. Now all we had to do was water and wait…

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Late Spring

April

Two weeks after sowing our first crops, the first seedlings thrust their seed leaves above the surface, encouraged by the warmth of our roof and the brighter weather. In order to space out the harvest and avoid a glut, we repeated sowings at fortnightly intervals with the hope of a bountiful production line. Thinning each row of seedlings was now key to avoid over-competition, with the added benefit of the first rewarding home-grown addition to our salads.

The roof was now starting to get busy. As the days became longer, we sowed Carrot ‘Flakkee’, flowering Alyssum ‘Carpet of Snow’ and our first tomatoes, (the classic ‘Gardener’s Delight’) in assorted pots. A birthday-gifted lemon tree, some chitted potatoes of an unknown variety, and Sweet Pea ‘Old Fashioned Mixed’ amongst others added to the structure and foliage mix on the roof, making it start to look and feel like a garden.

A few final frosty nights meant that horticultural fleece became a necessary tool, with its covering of our precious seedlings becoming a nightly ritual. As we lacked any windowsill space, the courgette seeds we planted would be taken inside at night where the heat of our flat would beckon them on. A similar pre-bedtime routine would be the ever-important slug patrol. Being raised up on a first-floor roof may protect against carrot-fly, but the alluring scent of densely planted leafy greens seems to act as an irresistible and delicious challenge for molluscs.

The lockdown with its new working and living routine was testing, but we found that the green abundance on our city roof provided a calming effect. Looking up from the bleak headlines and out onto the garden that we had created from scratch, filled us with optimism when such positivity was in short supply. We had started an ongoing dialogue with the natural world on our small urban roof. The simple, observable process of growth in our pots and planters reminded us that life carries on, and that we were a part of something bigger. Then there was the produce: the first harvest of radishes and spinach rewarded us for our small efforts, reassuring us that even though space was tight, we wouldn’t go hungry.

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May

The weeks were warm, dry, and windy at times, pressing fast-forward on growth. Our pots were relatively exposed on the roof, and a lack of shade exposed them to full sun. The peas and beans were climbing over the balustrade railings with the help of some interwoven dogwood pea-sticks, but their coverage wasn’t providing an adequate windbreak just yet. This meant that our crops would dry out quickly, which wasn’t too much of a problem to address with a watering can, with one of us was working from home. The spinach, however, was clearly stressed (and who could blame it), showing its first signs of bolting. Once this starts to occur, it becomes a losing battle, but pinching out the flowers delays the inevitable. The leaves become slightly bitter after attempting to flower however, and so we learned that we must make the most of the young leaves in early spring, and then replace it with something more tolerant next time. Until then, we would combine it with chard to make the ultimate spinach lasagne.

Realising their in-kitchen demand, we made sowings of herbs, including Fennel ‘Sweet Florence’, Dill, curly-leaf parsley ‘Prezzemollo’ as well as Basil in pots and trays. The beans, peas and courgettes had started to flower, and beetroot tops became frequent salad bases with the relentless cut-and-come-again lettuce and rocket.

The next major lesson to learn from this, is to enjoy these times when everything seems healthy and productive, and not to despair when it seems to be on the back foot. Sometimes a feeling that ‘it won’t be good enough’ can prevent would-be gardeners. As much as Instagram-perfect garden photography is always inspiring, the garden we made would never be perfect. Our rooftop plot is not a show garden, or a provider of prize-winning produce. It is our home, making use of the space and conditions that we are lucky enough to have. Not panicking when things go wrong, and accepting that there will be aphids, seeds that fail to germinate, leaves that yellow, and plant combinations which don’t quite work, is all part of the process - and adjusting the angle of your camera lens accordingly is vital!

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