Good growing!

As the sun slips below that blue grid of sky between tall city blocks and trees cling to their remaining leaves, one thing is sure: autumn is well and truly upon us.

It's been a busy summer for the City Gardener, particularly on the growbox. Over the past five months, the raised bed I signed up for in the green oasis between grubby surface level car parks has really come into its own.

With a little TLC, peas sprawled up a tidy cane framework and I enjoyed harvest after harvest of succulent mangetout. (Nothing quite beats steaming freshly picked veg you've grown yourself!).

I had a good haul of runner beans (from the communal growbox) and a modest collection of radishes too...

But the real stars of the show were the flowers. Though difficult to tame, the dahlia I inherited from the growbox's previous 'tenant' has been a stunner, holding aloft profusions of scarlet fireworks and giving good height (if not stature!). 

I also packed the sides of the growbox with geraniums, fuchsias and carnations; carefully deadheading over summer, these gave a beautiful stream of pinks and reds amidst a sea of lush green. 

It's been good growing! 

That said, it's not been without its challenges. In Battlestar Galactica, they use the expression 'good hunting' as they go off to fight the Cylons, in a way which trivialises their difficulties. I'd like to capture something of that when I say it's been 'good growing'.

The least bad of these challenges has to be theft. Early on, a strawberry plant laden with juicy but unripe white strawberries went walkabouts in broad daylight, and recently a hole developed where a perky rosemary plant had been. It's frustrating, but it's the kind of thing you expect gardening in a public space. 

The issue is when it comes to litter. Sure, the council had to remove an abandoned fridge in June, and crisp packets and plastic bottles blow onto the growboxes (I've managed to fill a whole carrier bag of these in one go!). But the real problem is symptomatic of Manchester's greatest scourge. 

Not long after I'd started gardening the growbox I came across the first needle. You also find little broken glass vials, discarded wipes, protective syringe covers, and if you're really lucky (irony intended) a whole syringe. On a sorry walk I found a job lot of these dumped on the growbox and now can't safety garden without PPE. 

Being high-sided boxes and relatively secluded, the growboxes are occasionally used by the same people as a human litter tray (and it turns out my strap-like sweetcorn leaves make great toilet paper). 

I don't want to make light of these people's problems, which are clearly greater and more complex than the resulting problems I suffer on my little city centre raised bed. But there are things I'm starting to do to counter the worst of this. 

I've noticed that, compared to my well-kempt and spaciously planted growbox, those that are established or overgrown don't seem to attract the same issues. It seems there's a fine balance between being tidy enough to let plants thrive and planting in such a way that there is no space to abuse. 

But there's also something about encouraging greater presence at the growboxes, and developing more of a caring community around them. There's the real potential here to create a virtuous circle and improve the growboxes as a quality green space in the city centre and I'm not sure we've nailed it yet.

That said, in spite of their issues, the more I think about the growboxes, the more I realise how special they are, considering what they are and where they are. Manchester has other great greening projects where people can get their hands dirty - the pocket park at Tib St and the green roof on Stevenson Square are excellent examples. But as a city centre allotment and food growing project in Manchester, they're absolutely unique and should be cherished.