This summer for the first time in years I thought I'd have a go at growing some vegetables. I've not had much luck at this before, a few potatoes in pots, quite exciting but not exactly food production but after cutting back some rather rangy red-currant bushes I've some spaces in between that asked to be used for something and I had seeds so it seemed worth a try. 
Some time back I saw carrots being grown in terracotta drainpipes in John Ruskin's garden in the Lake district, it seemed like a brilliant idea. So I am doing a pauper's version with some plastic drainpipe that I've had kicking about for a while. I bought two little tomato plants for 50p each and they are now planted in compost sacks. I'll just nod to the radishes and spring onions I have put in pots because the blackbirds keep pulling out all the compost and so they may come to nothing but I'm enjoying the anticipation if nothing else. I have a feeling that if they have survived the blackbirds, the slugs and snails may do for them. But hope tastes sweet and so at the moment I am letting myself hope that my petit trianon will give me a small crop.