What to grow

With things starting to heat up, I can announce barbeque season officially open! So this month I am planting lots of greens for salads and summer smoothies. Rocket, lettuce, cress and mizuna are all favourites of mine.

They are so easy to grow and are the perfect ‘cut and come again crop’ – meaning you can carefully cut off what you want to eat, when you want it and the vegetables will then sprout again. A brilliant way to ensure you do not have a glut in leaves, providing you with multiple salad harvests over the whole summer. To make sure you have an on-going supply of salad, I recommend you sow new batches of seed every 10-14 days throughout the summer. Continue sowing up until the end of August and you’ll be enjoying salad until early October.

How to grow

Because my salad crops always seem to be irresistible to slugs and snails, I opt to grow them in containers and put a heavy layer of copper tape around the top of my pots, as well as wrapping them in netting to keep the trouble makers out!

I start by growing the seeds thinly, in small seed trays, using peat free, multi-purpose compost. Salad seeds are very small, so I only place them around 0.5cm below the soil. With the warm weather we have been having, they’re fine outdoors. Once the seeds germinate and they’re around 5cm tall, I transfer them into the bigger containers, positioning the larger leafed greens in rows 10cm apart, again I use peat free, multi- purpose compost. They thrive in sunshine, so find a sunny spot and be sure to keep them well watered.

These salad crops are swift growers, so expect to see more leaves appearing in a few weeks. When the salad leaves are ready for harvesting, carefully cut them at around 2.5cm from the base of the plant – this will ensure the plant continues to grow and produces more leaves. You should get around four cuts from each plant before growing slows.

Green escape: Stratford Park

Perhaps overlooked due to its location – sandwiched in between the Olympic Park and West Ham Park – Stratford Park maybe hasn’t always had the attention it deserves, but this green space is worth a look.

As you come in through the main gated entrance, you’re greeted with a pretty fountain – a lovely focal point, enjoyed by ducks and pigeons alike. The park has a little sensory garden, which proves a cosy spot to relax in. It hosts a fabulous array of colourful plants and lush foliage. The rest of the park and green space itself isn’t huge, but is well maintained and provides a great little spot to soak up nature.

That’s not all – if you have kids, there is a great playground, if you like tennis, there are excellent, floodlit courts enabling you to play well into the evening and if you like basketball, you guessed it, the park has a great outdoor, covered court. It also has a couple of table tennis tables and for those less active, it is well furnished with benches throughout, so you can sit, relax and watch the world go by.

The park also houses ‘Newham Poetry Group’. Established in 2016, the group offers a series of free poetry workshops, readings, performances, open mic sessions, book swap events and more. Open to all ages and abilities, it’s a brilliant creative community initiative. Find out more at www.newhampoetrygroup.com.

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