Nick’s windowbox allotment

About the garden: Nick's windowbox allotment is located in the centre of town in the North Laine. It consists of four thriving windowboxes growing a variety of edibles: there’s a herb box with mint, lemon balm, sage and rosemary, a box full of Jerusalem artichokes, and two boxes brimming with fruit and veg like alpine strawberries, fennel, kale, celeriac, black currants and gooseberries. His favourite thing to grow is blackcurrants as they’re his favourite fruit.

Nick started his ‘windowbox allotment’ in April 2009 soon after moving to Brighton. He built the windowboxes from old pallets and has stained them with wood stain to make them more durable.

Harvest's questions to Nick:

What inspires you to grow your own?
Nick has always liked gardening and seeing things grow. He loves growing from seed and being able to harvest his own fresh, organic crops. Besides, it looks beautiful and attracts wildlife.

Are you new to gardening?
This is Nick’s first windowbox garden, and first time growing in containers full stop. But he has had gardens and allotments before. In fact, he now has an allotment in Brighton in addition to his windowboxes.

What have been your main successes? Any failures?
Nick’s main successes in the windowboxes have been curly kale, alpine strawberries, fennel and celeriac. Things that haven’t worked out so well are Swiss chard and rhubarb. He reckons the soil wasn’t deep and moist enough to keep rhubarb happy.

What has been your greatest challenge?
Probably the constant watering. You have to water everyday so the soil doesn’t dry out.

What do you enjoy the most about your garden?
Having everything so close to hand – it’s so easy to walk outside and pick some alpine strawberries for your morning muesli. Besides that, the windowboxes are enjoyable to work on and they really brighten up the street.

What’s your top tip(s) for other gardeners?
Try experimenting – it is surprising what will work. Also, make sure to mulch your plants (with compost) as much as possible. This reduces the need to water quite so much and it also feeds the plants.

Is there any way that Harvest can do / has done to help you? Nick thinks it’s just great that there’s a project like Harvest here to inspire people to grow.

For tips on starting your own windowbox allotment, visit Nick’s website, www.windowallotment.co.uk, dedicated to helping you make the most of your windowboxes.