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The Harrod Horticultural ethos is global! Here's a little video clip for you which shows, I think, that biological pest control is worldwide!

One of the challenges of kitchen garden, allotment and vegetable plot growing is to overcome the army of garden pests with designs on your crops.

Have you been watching Alan Titchmarsh's latest offering on BBC TV - 'The Nature of Britain'?

Experts predict that this will be the worst ever year on record for the slimy garden pests due to a particularly warm winter, with above average temperatures recorded for December and January.

The warm spring weather is loved by the plants and unfortunately by the pests too - we have already had our first cabbage white in the kitchen garden!

An important job to start now is slug control because these greedy little creatures will quite happily munch through all your crop and leave you with a few stalks to cry over. I highly recommend Nemaslug as it is a natural biological slug killer you apply every 6 weeks until all the crops are harvested, I would also recommend applying it with the Nemasprayer as it distributes the product easily and evenly.

Pests and diseases account for a large percentage of plant failures in the kitchen garden and ornamental border so accurately diagnosing who and what is munching or afflicting your plants is essential - and that's where Harrod Horticultural, in league with pest expert Gavin Hatt can help.

The 2010 version of our pest control guide ran to reprints galore so we're expecting the 2011 tome - The Little Book of Least Wanted Pests - to be just as successful. The 24 pages are crammed with pest control solutions and advice from pest expert Julian Ives and you'll find the organic answers to problems from A (ants) to almost Z (whitefly), along with plenty of tips to make your plants stronger and more pest and disease resistant. It's a must-have guide to accompany you through the growing year

Root Aphids are one of the most common garden pests, appearing on leaves and stems of flowers and vegetables in vast quantities but it's not just the foliage they like to feed on...

As the garden prepares to burst into life, you can be sure that the local pest population is slowly stretching, stirring and sleepily emerging from winter hibernation too with rumbling stomachs and big plans on how to fill them - all involving your plants

It wasn't only our hands-on horticulturist and Master Composter Martin Fiddes who attended the Royal Norfolk Show this year as garden pest control expert Julian Ives occupied a slot on the Easton College stand - accompanied by around a hundred of his friends

It wasn't only our hands-on horticulturist and Master Composter Martin Fiddes who attended the Royal Norfolk Show this year as garden pest control expert Julian Ives occupied a slot on the Easton College stand - accompanied by around a hundred of his friends!

Hot on the heels of our announcement that pest control guru Julian Ives has joined the Harrod Horticultural team is the publication of a little book which is sure to get plenty of use in the kitchen garden, down at the allotment and in the vegetable patch this season – our Little Book of Pests.

There are two good reasons for East Anglian gardeners to make their way to the Royal Norfolk Show next week - both our very own horticulturist and photographer Martin Fiddes and pest control expert Julian Ives will be in attendance!

There are two good reasons for East Anglian gardeners to make their way to the Royal Norfolk Show next week - both our very own horticulturist and photographer Martin Fiddes and pest control expert Julian Ives will be in attendance

Here at Stephanie?s Kitchen Garden this week keeping our wild birds well fed through the worst of the winter weather. Whilst some birds are unwelcome in the kitchen garden, others are helpful when it comes to pest control.

The late summer can be a time when certain insects become more pests of humans than of plants! This can happen at the time we are using our gardens most for socialising and outdoor living but fear not, as Harrod Horticultural can provide you with safe and natural solutions for keeping these nuisance pests under control. Find out what damage ants and lawn pests can do to the garden on our latest informative seasonal summer press release - and more importantly, how to stop them!

Slugs and snails consistently feature in the top three of the Royal Horticultural Society's annual Garden Pest List, cementing their position as one of the gardener's arch-enemies.

In a recent survey, an incredible 88% of gardeners confessed to loathing slugs – and their partners in crime, snails – more than any other garden pest.

We've mentioned before just how many gardeners rate slugs as their biggest garden enemy - and now is the time to start your defence in earnest.

And now, the Biggest Pest of All...! In a recent survey, an incredible 88% of gardeners confessed to loathing slugs – and their partners in crime, snails – more than any other garden pest.

Over the last week there seems to have been a surge in pests in the kitchen garden, with the calabrese plants being the worst hit by an unknown culprit!

It is a good idea to put weed control barriers in place in late winter or early spring, as they work better as a preventative method rather than when an existing problem requires suppression

Wireworms, and their potential to devastate potato crops and many other garden vegetables and plants, were in the forefront of one of our customer's minds recently - and here's the advice our horticulturist Martin Fiddes gave him...

Growing your own fruit and vegetables can have some real advantages over standard plots, our top 10 benefits will help you see why you should consider growing in raised beds this year...

It has been a challenging month weather wise; we have had heat, sunshine and thunder storms, the weather does really affect how the crops grow.

March has seen the Kitchen Garden emerge from the long winter into spring and the burst of growing activity that it brings. We have experienced a very dry month in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden with some lovely spells of sunshine. However the temperatures have struggled and it is only now, at the end of the month that the warmth of the sun is beginning to be felt.

After a warm, sunny and very dry month, the rain has arrived at last in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden. The warm weather has been enjoyed by plants and gardeners alike and brought the garden on in leaps and bounds, but the lack of rain at a crucial time in the growing calendar has led to copious watering at a busy time. The welcome rainfall will restock the waterbutts and give the irrigation and watering cans a rest for a while.

Autumn is an important time of year for taking care of your lawn. The effort you put in during autumn will improve the quality and health of your lawn right through into spring and beyond. Here's some tips on caring for your lawn in autumn from our friends at Rolawn.

The waiting is finally over and the prizes have been dished out at the 2011 Royal Horticultural Society's Hampton Court Flower Show with Will Quarmby's Heathers in Harmony scooping the Best Small Garden - assisted by a few hundred Beepol bumblebees!

So, this week I want to talk about companion planting in the kitchen garden, companion planting is a must for organic gardeners as it is the natural way to control pests and aids pollination, plus it looks really pretty

December has seen the garden emerge from the debris of autumn to the bare beauty of winter. The hard work of clearing fallen leaves and old summer crops is complete and the skeleton of the garden is now tidy and clear.

Unfortunately, it's a fact of gardening life that your vegetable crops are not only a source of food for you and your family, but for a whole host of pests and diseases as well.

Spring has finally sprung in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden. As I write this the sun is shining and the sowing season has begun in earnest. Whilst frosty weather still threatens, the days are getting longer and the darkest days of winter seem to be behind us.

The Royal Horticultural Society's Lawrence Hall in London was the place to be yesterday as the industry's journalists and press uncovered all the new products, trends and ideas for the coming gardening season at the 2011 Garden Press Event. Martin Fiddes reports...

The Royal Horticultural Society's Lawrence Hall in London was the place to be yesterday as the industry's journalists and press uncovered all the new products, trends and ideas for the coming gardening season at the 2011 Garden Press Event

The Royal Horticultural Society's Lawrence Hall in London was the venue for the 2012 Garden Press Event - an annual event which represents the perfect way to banish the winter gardening blues and get the lowdown on what's new in gardening. Our horticulturist Martin Fiddes sends this report...

Stephanies Kitchen Garden has been the subject of various articles and features in the gardening press over recent years and inviting a single gardening journalist to the garden takes plenty of planning, preparation and general tidying up – so imagine the effort involved when eight representatives of the country’s leading gardening publications and highbrow daily newspapers are due to drop in! Martin Fiddes was on hand to witness preparations...

Stephanie's Kitchen Garden has been in the grip of dark, freezing conditions this month, but in the greenhouse tiny green shoots are already emerging: a little glimpse of spring in the depths of winter.

A great many gardeners and allotment holders grow cabbages or other members of the brassica family each year, so will no doubt be familiar with a common garden pest – the mealy cabbage aphid.

There's a real buzz about Harrod Horticultural today as page 62 of the Daily Express carries an article on growing your own vegetables - and our very own horticulturist Martin Fiddes has his vegetable seed sowing tips in print too!

The second Harrod Horticultural Press Day was a resounding success with a mix of garden writers, magazine editors and journalists enjoying the spectacular surroundings of the recently refurbished Folly and Kitchen Garden. Martin Fiddes reports...

With the wet and windy conditions recently we have had to make a hasty retreat to the potting shed, but this gives us a chance to catch up on some other important jobs...

May has been a busy month in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden. Lots of sowing and planting out has been done and the garden has gradually transformed from brown to green as the month has gone on. We are still waiting for the hot sunny days of spring to arrive in our part of East Anglia and the cold nights have caused us some problems, but our crops look healthy and the new harvesting year has begun.

We have been enjoying a heatwave in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden this month. The vegetable beds have been basking in glorious summer sunshine and we have been working hard to make sure the crops haven't suffered by giving them lots of water and food. As a result everything in the garden is thriving - including the gardeners!

Our debut Customer Newsletter is jam-packed full of topical gardening ideas, hints, tips and discussion starters; it's perfect reading material after a hard early spring day of seed sowing and transplanting in the kitchen garden or down the allotment

There has only been one topic of conversation amongst gardens during July 2018 and it is the weather. When we finally arrived in Spring this year, after such an awful winter, we sighed with relief and looked forward to a summer of growing. But Mother Nature was obviously not through with trying to stretch our gardening skills and now we are battling with the Mediterranean Melt!

Update Cast your mind back all of 2 days to my article regarding organic fruit and veg and the benefits of eating food grown in this fashion.

This week we are going to be planting out broad beans for autumn harvesting. We have never grown them for autumn harvesting before and are very excited to see how they perform. We have a large space where our disastrous onions and garlic grew and that we had originally earmarked for our leeks. Given our white rot problems we couldn?t use it for leeks so decided to give autumn broad beans a try.

It has been a tricky time for us in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden this month. The weather has certainly been providing us with some interesting challenges! Tender crops have been slow to get going and have needed some extra care and attention. However, as the month draws to a close, it looks as though the summer may well have arrived here at last. Let's hope it's here to stay.

Crop protection is vital in any garden if you are to grow successful fruit and vegetables or your prized dahlias, whether you are protecting from pests and wildlife or from the cold weather both can be equally destructive if adequate protection is not put into place.

With the countdown clock showing only 49 days, the 2010 RHS Chelsea Flower Show is rapidly approaching – and Harrod Horticultural will be there to give our customers and other interested parties a chance to see our products, including a fruit cage, timber raised beds and Sneeboer tools, live and close up!

We had planned to be on our stand at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show this week and what glorious weather we would have had, but due to the Coronavirus pandemic the show had to be cancelled for the first time since World War 2.

The seasonality of gardening and understanding what needs to be done throughout the seasons is key to a successful garden.

I have been busy preparing the bed for our autumn carrots by sieving the top layer of soil to make it as light as possible and to remove all the debris. It was a very stony bed which is no good for carrots, this has delayed the sowing of the carrots but hopefully they won't mind to much.

July has certainly been a hot one and a great time to sit out and enjoy your garden. Here are my top product picks to keep your garden looking healthy this month!

It never rains but it pours! The word drought conjours up images of parched land and wilting crops but that's far from the case - and although the coldest, wettest April for decades delayed many of our Kitchen Garden planting plans, at least it topped up our numerous water butts. Find out how we've been coping with the 165% above average monthly rainfall and much more in our April edition of Stephanie's Kitchen Garden Diary...

Finally, some sun on our backs! Another busy month in the garden - find out about our new lodgers, how the potatoes are getting on, our slug-busting ideas and much more!

The endless, hot sunny days of July were soon washed away by the regular deluges of August, but although I was half-drowned most of the time, the plants loved it!

As I am writing this the heavens have opened and there is a roar or thunder accompanied by a crack of lightning and I am reluctant to say is this the end of summer? We certainly hope not here in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden as our plants have got plenty of life in them yet - we still need some much yearned for sunshine to ripen them off...

A bi-monthly offering from Stephanie's Kitchen Garden this time around but with good reason! We've had a film crew on site producing more informative video clips for our website, the unseasonable summer weather to contend with and all the associated problems this brings so the keyboard's been gathering dust! Read on to find out what summer 2011 has brought us...

We're still waiting for winter to arrive in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden! Although it's nice to work in this unseasonably mild weather, there's a nagging suspicision that something nasty weatherwise is lurking around the corner. We'll worry about that when it happens though and in the meantime, you can find out how our plans for 2012 are progressing and plenty more

Pricking out tomatoes is one job that seems to take such a long time, I try to save such jobs for more the more inclement days, those frosty mornings just keep coming

Finally, the worst winter for 30 years draws to a close. We celebrate with news from the greenhouse, our plans for peas this year and how to chit your potatoes...

It's the calm before the seed sowing storm in the Kitchen Garden this month with preparations for arguably the busiest gardening month of the year well underway. Lynn's been busy grappling with bags of horse manure, we've had frozen seed potatoes to deal with and the greenhouse is starting to fill up already. Find out more about February in the Kitchen Garden along with what we've got planned for March below

This must be the worst time of year, with slate grey skies day after day and the garden practically devoid of colour. It really seems like nature has packed up and gone away for a couple of weeks just after Christmas!

A look back at the early days of the Kitchen Garden, a welcome delivery of manure and what's likely to be growing in 2008...

Just because it's snowing doesn't mean the garden stops! We've got horse manure to spread and a greenhouse to clean - and how's that rhubarb coming on...?

January quiet in the garden? I don't think so! Read what trainee horticulturist Courtney has been up to this past month, including results of her Christmas crops

The start of a new year is an exciting time and that's very much the case in the Kitchen Garden. We've got big plans for 2012 and although we're busy making improvements to the garden during January, it won't be long before the seed sowing season is here. Find out more about how tree surgeons are improving the light levels in our garden, how our sweet peas and spuds are progressing and what we intend to do in February - it's all here

Phew! What with a Customer Focus Group meeting, a Press Day event and all the preparation both these days entail, it's been a busy July in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden. We've also been harvesting blackcurrants (and putting them to good use!), avoiding snakes but catching mice and lamenting the sad demise of our bees...

It feels like deja vu reading July 2011's kitchen garden update - rain, rain and more rain. Our English summers seem to be having a common theme these days and the lack of sunshine is affecting our crops but as the saying goes England in this 'green and pleasant land', us gardeners will carry on gardening and we will get a good crop of vegetables this summer!

It's been another distinctly underwhelming month weatherwise in the Kitchen Garden although the beans and potatoes in particular have defied the weather and are looking good! Unfortunately we will have to insist on some sun for our squashes and the wet and windy spring has left its legacy too - find out why and more...

A bi-monthly update this time around as I'm out and about, hunting down new products - but that hasn't stopped me developing a solution to mice, raising my vegetable cage and creating a support frame for my Stephanie's Kitchen Garden tomatoes ...

I always thought that it was hares that went mad in March, but this year it seems to be the weather! March is always a busy month in the Kitchen Garden

Spring is here - no it's not! What is happening with our weather? Unperturbed, March sees potatoes planted, strawberries given a trim and some new additions to Stephanie's Kitchen Garden...

Spring strolls into the Kitchen Garden armed with the deadly combination of warm, sunny days and cold, frosty nights - just the kind of extremes of conditions the trays and trays of seedlings in the greenhouse don't want. And it's the greenhouse where 90% of our March garden time has been spent, with a few trips outside to weed, feed and plant. Find out more about how we've coped with spring in the Kitchen Garden below...

This month, I've got the feedback from Chelsea and another RHS show date for your diary; aphids are proving a pest and I'll tell you why my runner beans are sure to be a success this year - all in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden Diary ...

Arguably the busiest month of the gardening year, May in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden is no exception. Dropped in at the vegetable growing deep end is Lynn, our new horticultural advisor and you can read about what she's been up to in her first couple of weeks at the helm! And with aubergine-keen slugs and snails to battle with and the preparations for the RHS Chelsea Show, there's never a dull moment...

'Four Seasons in One Day' sang 80's-90's Antipodean pop stars Crowded House and that's not a bad way to describe May 2012! A start to the month which seemed more akin to February was in complete contrast to a scorching finale which saw our Kitchen Garden plants - and the weeds - go mad! The weather aside, it's been a great month with the culmination an RHS Chelsea Flower Show award double! Find out more below...

With even more products appearing in the horticultural marketplace, it's been decided to boost the staff numbers in the Kitchen Garden too

Winter has well and truly arrived at the Kitchen Garden but as all good gardeners know, there's still plenty to keep us occupied through the bleakest months of the year. Leaf clearing continues apace, we've compost to tend to and mice to battle with as well as harvesting and preparing all those lovely winter root veg - find out more below...

A bit like Romeo and Juliet, or perhaps oil and water. Fire and ice even. And to that list you can add gardening and a broken ankle!

October sees the Kitchen Garden - and me - recovering after a frantic summer, so it's back to a monthly report. There's still loads going on; I'm harvesting the last of the summer fruit, planting garlic and cleaning down the greenhouse - and that's just for starters...

It's the season of leaves in the Kitchen Garden but our vegetable growing activities run alongside sweeping up; we've been building a carrot clamp, unearthing our parsnips and trying to coax our sprouts into a pre-Xmas growth spurt. With garlic to plant and beans and peas popping into rootrainers under glass for an early 2012 crop, October has been another busy month in the Kitchen Garden...

Those heavy August rains certainly had an effect on the Kitchen Garden plants as they spent most of September producing fruit of fantastic shapes and colours

You can certainly feel the chill of the autumnal air now and the leaves on the trees are starting to change colour and fall, you could begin to think that there is not much to do in the kitchen now but don't be fooled by the change of season as September was a busy month in the garden with a flurry of seed sowing, harvesting and general jobs to do before the chilly weather sets in. Read on to see what Lynn has been up to this month in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden.

At last Spring has arrived here in the Kitchen Garden. The sunshine has arrived in force and, despite some chilly nights lingering on, everything is starting to grow. With the first half of April being so cold, the Kitchen Garden is behind on where we would normally expect our vegetables to be at this time of year, but the recent warm weather has given us the chance to start growing in earnest.

It has been all systems go in Stephanie's kitchen garden this April. The mild weather has got everything putting on lots of growth and is keeping us busy. The greenhouse has been a hive of industry and is currently packed with lovely healthy plants and seedlings. Outside, the pear arch is dripping with beautiful blossom and the apple trees are covered with pink buds ready to burst into flower. The growing season is well and truly underway.

As I write this, the sun is beating down on yet another hot and sunny day. August has been a month of beautiful summer weather, but dare I say we are praying for some rain in the Harrod Kitchen Garden. The crops are revelling in the lovely warm conditions, but our water butts are now empty and we are using mains water for all our watering. A good rainfall would soon have the water butts full again...

August has been a month of extremes, beginning with hot sunny weather and ending with chilly autumn nights and plenty of rain. This has brought its share of challenges and kept us on our toes. It's been a month of successes and failures.

We've had our first snowfall of the Winter in the Kitchen Garden this month. A beautiful white, festive blanket covering everything in sight. Jo quickly took the netting off our vegetable cage to prevent the snow from weighing the net down and causing it to sag. She also shook the snow off our Slot and Lock portable cages. Luckily we had all our tender plants fleeced and ready for a cold snap.

December in the Kitchen Garden is all about planning for the New Year ahead. As the garden is cleared of last season's crops and prepared for the coming year, it is a good time to look back on our successes and failures of the past year. I have been drawing up my plan of the garden for 2014 and placing my seed orders. My next rainy day task is to peruse the latest Harrod brochure. There are some new Harrod Wire Obelisks that will look lovely with sweet peas growing up them...

December has been a very productive month in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden. The weather has been very cold, but also dry allowing us to crack on with lots of structural and maintenance jobs. It's an ideal time of year to make changes to the garden whilst most of it is in its winter dormancy and less likely to be damaged or disturbed.

It has felt more like Easter than Christmas this month, as the weather has been incredibly mild. Unfortunately the sun has been conspicuous by its absence and we have lots of grey days and plenty of rain. No sign of a white Christmas in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden this year.

It now feels like it has been Winter forever, and that Spring will never arrive. Sunny days have been few and far between in the Kitchen Garden. Most of February has been cloudy, dark and very cold. Inside our greenhouse, however, Spring has already arrived in force.

Spring has well and truly sprung in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden this month. We've been enjoying some mild temperatures and the sun has come out at last. We've had very few frosts and the garden is beginning to awaken from its winter sleep. The birds have been enjoying the new feeding stations and, on sunny days, they are showing their appreciation by filling the air with birdsong. We've even seen our first bee!

Wow! What a month it's been. As the New Year came in we were basking in mild weather and now, as I write this, we have eight inches of snow! One minute we are opening the greenhouse door to ventilate it and then next we are covering everything in fleece to protect it from the extreme low temperatures. It's certainly a month for keeping an eye on the weather forecast.

It is hard to believe that this time last year the Kitchen Garden was covered with a thick blanket of snow. The weather has certainly been milder this winter and it shows. The overwintering crops are enjoying the conditions and are well forward on last year. However, as all kitchen gardeners know only too well, the weather can change in a heartbeat, so the fleece and cloches are on hand just in case....

Phew! What a scorcher July has been. Here in the Kitchen Garden temperatures have been soaring. Our crops have been thriving with so much sun and warmth and we have been harvesting aplenty. With the all watering, feeding and harvesting, it's been busy, busy, busy!

We are now well into the main harvesting season in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden this month with trugs full of beautiful fruit and vegetables being delivered to the kitchen on a regular basis. The weather has been a healthy combination of hot, sunny and showers providing perfect growing conditions for all our crops.

At last the harvest has begun in earnest in the Kitchen Garden. It feels like it's been a long time coming as we are obviously delayed this year due to the weather. This month we have been harvesting kale, sprouting broccoli, cucumbers, tomatoes, strawberries, salad leaves, spring onions, rocket, rhubarb and new potatoes. Picking lots of delicious organic produce is so satisfying and the very best part of kitchen gardening.

The growing season is in full swing here in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden. The garden and greenhouse are packed with crops and we have been harvesting lots of lovely fruit and vegetables all month. June is one of the busiest months of the growing year and I sometimes have to remind myself to stop for a moment and take some time to simply admire how lovely the garden is looking. These moments don't last for long, however, as the urge to grab a spade or secateurs is often too much for me to resist!

As I am writing this, the sun has briefly peeped through the clouds, an uncommon sight in the Kitchen Garden recently. We have been lucky enough to have escaped the latest load of snow, but a biting fierce easterly wind is dragging the temperatures down and we are suffering harsh night time frosts. Cloches and fleece have been our best friends in the Kitchen Garden, protecting our precious crops from the awful weather.

What a difference a year makes. Last year in March we still had snow and freezing temperatures and spring was nowhere in sight. This year, the garden is enjoying warm, sunny days and the crops are much further forward. We are harvesting broccoli, rhubarb, chard, spinach and kale and our broad beans are flowering and covered in bees. Our parsnip seedlings are already appearing through the soil.

The late Spring has certainly proved to be a challenge to vegetable growers this year, but despite the slow start, the Kitchen Garden is filling out with lush green growth all around. We've harvested our first cucumbers this month and tomatoes are rapidly appearing on the plants in the greenhouse, waiting hopefully for some warm sunshine to ripen them ready for eating.

We have had the perfect growing weather in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden this month. It's been a mixture of warm sunshine and steady rain and the crops are really thriving. Unfortunately so are the weeds! And the pests are beginning to arrive as well....

I love November. The first light frosts have arrived, but still there are days warm enough to garden in your shirt sleeves. This month has been all about finishing the clearing and tidying of the garden and preparing for Winter. This is one of my favourite jobs of the year. The clear, freshly dug ground is oozing with the promise of what's to come next year. I already have it all planned in my head!

November has been a cold and miserable month in the Kitchen Garden. The sun has put in a few brief appearances, but on the whole it has been damp and grey. However, whatever the weather, there is always plenty of work to be done. When the rain is pouring down, I head into the greenhouse and shed to catch up with the Big Winter Tidy Up.

We have had some really wild weather in the Kitchen Garden in November - high winds, storms, torrential downpours and generally wet, mild days. The winds have brought the leaves down off the trees in abundance, with plenty more still to come. As regular readers will know, I am not a lover of clearing leaves and wet ones are even worse! I am hoping that December will bring us some calmer, brighter days.....

Happy Halloween everyone! Congratulations if you have grown some great pumpkins this year, with the weather we've had to contend with this summer you have done very well! Now Autumn is upon us or maybe Winter has arrived early? The shorter and darker days are here too so less gardening time for all those keen gardeners out there. All I know is that it's been very chilly of late and everything is looking decidedly messy in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden, all the rain and the falling leaves have kick started our Autumn clean up with a vengeance. Read on to see what else we've been up to this month in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden we hope you will find some inspiration to get out there and get stuck in!

The harvest has been gathered and stored and the big tidy up has begun in earnest in the Kitchen Garden this month.

The clocks have gone back, the days are growing shorter and the big autumn tidy up is well under way. However the weather has been unseasonably mild which has meant some plants are still producing a crop at a time when they would normally have been consigned to the compost bin. We are still harvesting courgettes at the end of October in Stephanie?s Kitchen Garden.

The harvest is in and our larder is now well stocked with squashes, potatoes and sweet potatoes. The freezer is full of French beans, runner beans, raspberries and blackberries. They should keep us going through the long winter ahead, along with the sprouts, leeks, celeriac, parsnips and broccoli still to be harvested.

September has been a busy month with the harvest in full swing in the Kitchen Garden. We've also had a taste of Winter weather which was quite a shock after the long hot summer. But at last some rain, so our waterbutts are full again and the garden is looking refreshed.

We've been enjoying an Indian summer in the Kitchen Garden this month. We have seen the longest dry spell of the summer and the irrigation all around the garden has been working hard to keep our crops happy. The warm temperatures have meant that many summer crops are still being harvested well into the autumn. It's certainly been a bumper harvest this year.

September has seen Autumn sneak slowly in to Stephanie's Kitchen Garden. The days have still been warm and sunny, but the nights have turned cold and the effects are being shown all around the garden. Leaves are beginning to change colour and it won't be long before the Great British Rake Off begins!

Although it has been a beautiful start to September, we’re already starting to see the misty mornings and darker nights creeping in.

The aim of growing vegetables is, ultimately, to enjoy the harvested end product. Unfortunately, this is also the main objective of most other creatures in the garden who are dead set on eating their fair share, and often more, of the crops before you!

Whether it's slugs, aphids, carrot root fly, rabbits or birds causing you sleepless nights, we have compiled a rogue's gallery of the top 10 grow your own garden pests. Often identification is the most difficult part of the conundrum and getting to the root of the problem is easy once you know which pest you are tackling.

August has been a month of successes and struggles in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden. It has certainly been a busy month for the watering cans as the weather has been really kind to us and we have enjoyed hot sunny conditions for most of the month.

With no decent rainfall and higher than average temperatures across the last week, the main job has been watering, watering and more watering!

Here at Stephanie's Kitchen Garden this week we will be planting out our broad bean plants and our shallots. These have spent the past week in the cold frame acclimatising to the weather and are now ready to be planted in their final growing space. The ground has already been dug over and fertilised with fish, blood and bone.

Here at Stephanie?s Kitchen Garden this week we will begin the winter clean of all our pots and tools. Last year I treated myself to a Sneeboer tool maintenance kit and gave all our tools some thorough care and attention.