Eleven floors above a Rotterdam street, an accountant is producing a modest but very respectable crop of tomatoes, and hosting a surprising number of bees.
This month in the garden
November is a month for tidying less than you would like. Leave the seed heads standing for the birds, and let leaves lie on the borders where they will feed the soil and shelter the things you never see. The urge to clear everything is strong, and it is very nearly always wrong.
Bees are not fussy about postcodes.
Plant now
Bulbs can still go in, and tulips actually prefer a cold soil. Plant them deeper than the packet suggests and more thickly than seems sensible. Come April you will be grateful to the person who did this in the rain, and you will wonder why they did not put in more.
Leave well alone
Gardeners are learning to plan for extremes: long dry summers, then warm wet winters. Mediterranean herbs and deep-rooted perennials are winning places in the borders that thirsty bedding once held. Good drainage has become as important as water, and mulch is, quite honestly, the closest thing to a miracle.
A pond is the single best thing you could add, even if it is only a washing-up bowl sunk into the ground. Within weeks, things will find it. There is no greater pleasure than discovering a frog in a place where, last month, you had nothing but some bad grass.
