Kitchen Garden Forum

I noticed this in the September News. and followed it up on the National Trust site.

Now, as a lifelong "woolly liberal", I have always been prepared to support any new idea in vegetable growing. However, this one strains my tolerance too far

I wonder who calculated the national window ledge area as 600 acres.
I know (as the promoters apparently don't) that window ledges are - or should be - sloping. They are usually also fairly shallow from back to front.
I would steer clear of flats with outside vegetable containers. I wonder how the insurance companies will handle claims for death/injury by salad
What do others think?

Alan, imagine if you will a standard windowsill trough, of about 2'Lx8"Wx10"D with two Brussell Sprout plants in it.

Never mind the injury potential, just think about the loss of light.

I think it's pretty impractical to try and grow any vegetables on window sills unless you're fortunate enough to have wide window ledges which have metal railings on the edges to prevent containers falling off. And the higher up the building your window ledges are, the more the plants are exposed to the wind. I guess low growing things like lettuces or salads might work as well as herbs, but generally I don't find it a practical idea. However, if the world population continues to grow, food might become some short that we're all growing lambs lettuce on our roofs and shinning up ladders to pick our daily dose of Vitamin C.

I should have thought of this when I converted the barn. With stone walls lined out with cavity batts and Thermalite blocks our walls are over two feet thick. With the windows in the normal place, about six inches from the outside, we have massive almost two feet wide internal window ledges. If we'd designed with the windows on the inside edge we could have sheeted over the outside and had a series of mini-greenhouses all round the house.

Geoff - that would have been a good idea. You would have been able to check how all your seedlings were doing without bothering to step outside in the rain. And just think how frustrating it would have been for all those slugs with plants too high above ground level.

Regarding future food shortages, just cease "set aside".

The EU payments to farmers NOT to grow a crop.

peter wrote:Regarding future food shortages, just cease "set aside".

The EU payments to farmers NOT to grow a crop.

Before they do I must get a set aside payment for my unproductive window sills

And that part of our lawn which is not yet ploughed up as a vegetable patch !

Our windows also open outwards so no fresh air during the growing season!!!