Steve’s rooftop garden

About the garden: This small rooftop garden is located on Compton Road and is maintained by Steve, who is an artist. He grows tomatoes, strawberries, rocket and a bit of lettuce on the roof. He’s also planted some festuca glauca (a beautiful blue grass), which looks lovely and serves as a wind break to shield the tomatoes. The garden is not only wonderfully productive, but boasts stunning views in every direction too.  

Steve’s been gardening on his roof for two years now. He also grows veg in his back garden. His favourite thing to grow is tomatoes for their fantastic flavour.

Harvest's questions to Steve

What inspires you to grow your own?
Simply the enjoyment of gardening, but he also loves the flavour of home-grown produce and being able to step outside and pick fresh produce. He feels it just makes sense to grow his own: the tomatoes taste so much better than those bought at the shops, and it’s cheaper and tastier to grow things like salad. It also means healthy snacks for his daughter – she eats the tomatoes like sweets straight off the vine.

Is this your first garden or have you had others?
Steve loves gardening and the headspace it gives him. He’s always had a garden, and even previously had an allotment which he and his family shared with two other families. The allotment didn’t work out in the end – it was difficult for everyone to find the time to get there and maintain the allotment. Growing at home works much better for him as it is so much more accessible being only a few steps away rather than a trip in the car.

What have been your main successes? Any failures?
Strawberries have been great this year, and the tomatoes are coming along really well too. Steve has noticed that the tomatoes on the roof do better than those in the back garden – last year he was harvesting the roof-grown tomatoes into November! He’s not had any major failures, although he’s noticed that lettuces grown on the roof aren’t as tasty and delicate as those grown in the back garden. The leaves become a bit leathery - he reckons they toughen up in the windy roof-top environment.


What has been your greatest challenge?
The sea gulls were a bit of a challenge at first because they were a little too interested in the garden. But Steve is up there frequently and the sea gulls have adapted and moved down a few rooftops.

What do you enjoy the most about your garden?
Steve enjoys the peacefulness of being up so high and taking in the views. He finds that gardening makes the pressures of life seem to drift away, similar to going out for a walk. He also finds it inspiring when he is trying to be creative.

What’s your top tips for other gardeners?
Gardening doesn’t have to be expensive. Steve grows most of his veg in containers and has found a horticultural supplier in West Sussex where you can get good value containers and compost for really low prices. Ask us if you want to know where!

Steve’s also got some good tips for roof-top gardening: he finds that low growing or rambling plants work well on the roof as they aren’t as affected by the wind. He starts the tomatoes off downstairs and brings them up when they’re stronger so they have less chance of being damaged by the wind.

He’s not had any problems with plants flying off the roof in strong winds. The weight of the soil in the growbags keeps the plants in place, and he has connected all the containers to give them a heavier collective weight. He’ll remove the pots during the winter but keeps the growbags up there.

What next?
Next year Steve plans on trying a wider variety of plants in his roof garden. He’s going to try some hardier herbs that can tolerate windy conditions, such as thyme. He also is keen to try growing raspberries but plans to train them to grow horizontally or on a low arch so they are less likely to be affected by the wind.