The Edible Balcony

Alex Mitchell's book The Edible Balcony has just been published in the United Kingdom, and features 66 Square Feet in a double page spread. If you live on that side of the pond, please pick up a copy and tell me! It will be published by Rodale in the US; stay tuned for details.

These are the years of edible garden books: urban edible, cheap edible, easy edible, small edible, recycled edible, edible gutters, edible rooftops, edible pets. Some are better than others. I am drawn to books that actually know about plants, as well as to ones that are simply beautiful. My favourite gardening books remain the ones that make me want to lick the page. Instant inspiration.

My terrace does not look perfect at the moment! I have brushed aside the gravel and am tacking the drainage mats beneath it in place again after they curled up at the edges and poked up above the stones, so it is a muddy mess. When the poisonous, pressure-treated wood deck beneath the gravel was installed the builders, (and I use the term loosely) failed to include any access to the drain in the terrace floor - a terrible, terrible mistake on a roof or terrace, and I live in fear of floods.  I found that the filter fabric that I used to keep the gravel in place clogged over time to allow no drainage, so I replaced a key area with good old fly screen, which has wide open pores for water to run through. I have not seen the drain in years and don't like that one bit. The glories of renting.

In the meantime, strawberries have been divided and planted in more pots, some have been cleaned and shipped off to a gardener who needs them, the blueberry's flowers are looking rather tiny and odd, the black raspberry has leaves, the tomato seedlings have turned bright yellow, the peas are perfect though small, the radishes have drowned and the fig has at last put out some green shoots. Phew. Every year I think it is dead.

But this edible garden will keep on trucking. Day in, day out.