Grow it, Eat it!
June has been a great month for our balcony garden; it’s where the mantra ‘grow it, cook it, eat it’ has really come to life – although sometimes we’ve even skipped the ‘cook it’ phase!
The sunshine and rain have accelerated the growth of our fruit and vegetables, so this month we’ve mainly been eating rocket (when we 
could pick it before it flowered!), spinach, various types of lettuce, strawberries (don’t tell my colleagues though, we’ve not had enough to go around yet!), and even some mangetout peas which were amazing!
I can’t pretend this is all I’ve eaten, but it has been refreshing to step out on to the balcony and while watering the insatiably thirsty growbags, pick off some salad and the odd vegetable, and add it to my lunch!
I mentioned back in April that I’m a novice to gardening, and that we’ve been inspired to take part in growing our own by the Cafédirect growers who often have ‘kitchen gardens’ on their smallholdings. Well, earlier this month we were lucky enough to be joined by Andrew Ethuru, a producer Director of Cafédirect, and Chairman of Michimikuru’s Fairtrade Premium committee Kenya, who was over for our Board Meeting. Their organisation has been working with Cafédirect in an innovative adaptation to climate change programme. 
One of the results was for Michimikuru to set up their own ‘multi-story veg gardens’, so he did have some good advice for us.
Apparently we had been neglecting our tomato plants and failing to pluck off the ‘suckers’ which are the side shoots between the vertical stem and the main shoot – these are distracting the plant from producing optimum tomatoes, but with Andrew’s help, we’re back on track and will hopefully have very fruitful plants shortly!
Check back next month - I’m hoping for potatoes (how do you know when they’re ready?! Please post any advice on our Facebook page), more spinach, courgettes and the tomatoes...
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