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This week in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden we will be sowing parsnip seeds in our allotment raised beds. It's a little early in the season to sow them but with the mild conditions it is worth doing. We will make a successional sowing at the end of February. We always have great success with our parsnips in a raised bed. Year after year they reward us with big fat parsnips for our Christmas dinner. We will also be sowing broad beans, peas, chard, sweet peas and spinach under cover in the greenhouse.

Raised bed gardening is becoming more popular than ever before with increasing numbers of people opting to grow their own food and live a more sustainable lifestyle. With the variations in height, size, potential higher yield and aesthetic value, raised bed gardening should be on your mind for gardening success.

A busy week at Harrod Horticultural, with lots of orders and enquiries, but our customer services team still managed to find a bit of time to finish assembling the the new raised bed.

Exclusively available through Harrod Horticultural, this stylish and modern, modular Retro Steel Raised Bed can be conveniently arranged in four different configurations and is very simple to put together, whichever configuration you choose.

The weather was on our side this week as the Customer Services Team managed to spend a productive morning in the Harrod Horticultural HQ garden in glorious sunshine, the autovents on the greenhouse had even opened!!

It's always good to find out what the nation's gardeners are up to, and although not quite on the scale of a Gardener's World roadshow, I do occasionally get an insight into what plans others are drawing up.

Raised beds have had a boom in popularity recently and are a great way for gardeners at all levels to successfully grow their own fruit and vegetables in otherwise unsuitable soil or locations. Also popular as stylish flower planters, raised beds really can make gardening eaiser being at a more user friendly height and are less prone to soil borne diseases and pests.

Options to get involved in gardening really are endless from tending to large gardens or smaller urban spaces, even balconies, windowsills and indoors with houseplants. Often, no matter what size your space is, containers and raised beds are often part of a garden and can be a useful, convenient way to grow your own flowers and vegetables.

This week in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden, we are going to be installing a new raised bed in our greenhouse border. Over the past couple of years our tomatoes, grown in the border, have not performed as well as we would like.

The Customer Service Team were busy again at Harrod Horticultural HQ yesterday assembling some of our best selling Standard Raised Beds.

Crop rotation has been practiced in both agriculture and horticulture for centuries, but it doesn't hold the same importance in Raised Planters as it does in open soil beds,

My first experience with raised beds was also my first time growing veg, some twenty years ago. At the time I lived in Hertfordshire and the soil in my garden comprised a charming mixture of clay, lumps of sandstone, iron ore and more clay. In short, it was rubbish.

Growing in raised planters is a real boom area in gardening right now and it's little wonder when you realise just how easy it can be and how many delicious vegetables you can cram into such a small space. Let's take a look at how one of our attractive Manger Raised Planters - all 8ft of it - can transform a barren patio into a vegetable oasis.

It has been an exciting week in the kitchen garden, we have installed the new superior raised metal beds in the fruit cage. These are to be the new home of the autumn raspberries and the blueberries.

Raised Beds and Garden Planters offer a practical and stylish way to grow your own in the garden, allotment or on the patio - ideal if space is at a premium.

To help you price up and make the most of your raised beds - and most importantly enjoy growing in them - we've compiled a list of factors to consider when choosing, siting and filling your beds.

Raised beds are becoming ever more popular, and it is easy to see why: wooden raised beds are a great way to grow plants, vegetables and fruit right on your patio. They look great and allow you to create a simple, yet wonderful growing area - without the hassle of digging up plots in your garden.

We're giving you the chance to kick-start your 2024 garden plans with an opportunity to win one of our Which? Best Buy Wooden Raised Beds!

This week In Stephanie's Kitchen Garden we are harvesting the sweet potatoes. This is one of our favourite crops as it always looks so good. We like to grow them in a raised bed and train them up an obelisk to provide a real focal point.

This week in the Kitchen Garden, it is time to plant our early potatoes. These have been chitting for a couple of months now and are ready to go into the ground. The raised bed they are destined for has been covered in fleece for the past few weeks to warm the soil ready for planting.

The recent warmer temperatures have really helped our sweet potatoes which are now ready to be planted out in our metal raised bed.

Here at Stephanie?s Kitchen Garden this week we are going to be planting out our leeks. The seeds were sown into a raised bed back in March and are now a good size to be transplanted into the ground.

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...

In a recent blog post by the Hip Horticulturist they discussed 5 ways to cheer up a garden shed this summer and talked about how our wooden raised beds can transform the look of any garden.

In Stephanie's Kitchen Garden, moving our pots into the shade of a north facing fence and standing them in trays to keep water at their feet has proved very effective. We have mulched raised beds with strulch and the plants certainly seem to be happier for it. This week we will be continuing to strulch around the tops of larger pots that cannot be moved, as well as other beds.

Lots to do in the Kitchen Garden this week as the season really gets into gear. Sunshine and showers over the last week has been great for the plants, but meant more work to keep everything under control, especially the weeds!

2023 has been a really rough growing season. Everything started off really well with my early sweet peas being the star of the show but then that extreme couple of weeks of heat that blasted my allotment in June...

At last we have passed the Spring Equinox and this weekend will put the clocks forward which will give us all a precious extra hour of light at the end of the day to spend in the garden. The ground has been dug over, all of our structures have been cleaned and the garden is ready for growing. A whole new season lies before us and we can't wait!

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.

At last we have had a taste of spring in the Kitchen Garden, with a few days of warm sunny weather arriving in East Anglia. It has been warm enough to leave the greenhouse door open allowing vital ventilation around the plants. The autovents on the greenhouse windows have even nudged the windows open in the warmth of the winter sunshine.

As we have not experienced any really hard weather here this year, the apricot tree 'Tomcot' is now in flower which is a lovely sight to see on a cold grey day. The peach and nectarine trees are also now in bud but no flowers yet. Once they start to flower they will be given a helping hand by pollinating with a paintbrush.

April has flown by in a blur of activity in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden. As always there is much to be getting on with at this time of year and the typical April weather of sunshine and showers has encouraged green shoots all around the garden. As I write this, we have just experienced two days of wintry showers and freezing winds which proves that it isn't time to cast the clout just yet.

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.

Asparagus is a favourite crop in Stephanie's kitchen garden. It is such a delicious crop and is available for such a short period of time that it is a real treat. If you have the space, grow it!

Our 9th Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show sees us unveil our new Garden Arches along with displaying plenty of old favourites including our exclusive and traditional Sneeboer Tools

Despite the return of warm weather over the weekend, the cold nights we have had over the past week or so have had a definite autumnal effect on our summer crops. The tomato plants grown outside have finished their productive lives. They, along with their counterparts in the greenhouse which have also ceased fruiting, will be consigned to the compost bins this week.

Beetroot is a favourite with us at Stephanie's Kitchen Garden and we enjoy experimenting with different recipes. It has had bad press in the past and is often not very popular however it is one of the easiest vegetables to grow and ideal for anyone new to vegetable gardening

Here are Ben Thornton's top tips for your allotment this month!

We caught up with Grow Your Own's Best Gardening Influencer of 2021, Ben Thornton to get some allotment advice for this month!

The Cabbage is an extremely versatile vegetable and a valuable addition to any healthy diet being packed full of anti-oxidants and Vitamin C. There are so many varieties that it is possible to harvest cabbages in every season of the year. They also look amazingly ornamental, particularly in the Winter. Where space is limited they can be grown in raised beds.

By far the nation's favourite grow your own vegetable. Carrots come in all different shapes, sizes and colours, from orange to the more unusual red, yellow and purple. By regular sowing you can have fresh carrots from mid May to March.

We have had some windy days this week with more challenging weather forecast for us for the weekend which will mean we will have a lot of debris to clean up next week.

Removing weeds from the vegetable patch is easily the least glamorous and time consuming job of the lot. It's not all bad news as there are plenty of ways to make it easy on yourself so you can spend more time on the fun bits of growing your own!

Powdery Mildew has struck our courgettes in the Harrod Horticultural HQ garden...

The Courgettes planted in the self watering propagator have grown so quickly we are already having to pot them on. We have also been busy sowing squash and tomatoes - the greenhouse is looking full!

To increase the success of your garden and vegetable growing it is important to protect your plants from adverse weather and wildlife.

Practising crop rotation can be of great benefit to your allotment or kitchen garden helping to reduce disease and increase yields.

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.

What a month we have had weather wise. It felt as if we had skipped spring and gone straight into summer. We had the hottest Valentines day in 21 years and on Thursday Kew Gardens recorded 21c. Because of this flowers and plants are growing when they should be dormant. It's lovely to see the bobbing heads of daffodils mingled amongst the snowdrops.

We have finally had some rain not lots but enough to give the ground some much needed moisture and us a day off of watering. However, it has also given the slugs something to smile about so the aggressive slug control has commenced,

Finally, we have had rain and everywhere is looking so much better for it, with the kitchen garden really bursting into life over the last few days.

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

Garden Vegetables You can sometimes get a suprise when lifting root crops - there might be a record breaker lurking under the soil surface or alternatively, you might unearth something you didn't quite expect!

The Ultimate Guide to Wildlife Gardening - a guest blog from Green Gardens about the benefits of attracting wildlife to your garden and advice on planning a wildlife friendly garden

The long bank holiday may have been a welcome break for us, but many of our plants in the Harrod Horticultural HQ Greenhouse didn't have quite so much fun...

This week we have given the greenhouse a good clean and tidy so it's ready for the less hardy plants to be overwintered and for some autumn seed sowing.

If you want to make the most of your outdoor space, vertical growing could be the solution you’ve been searching for. If you’re still gathering ideas for your 2023 growing plan, vertical growing could be something worth considering to maximise your produce and minimise the space it traditionally takes to do so!

Despite the imminent onset of winter, we are still growing vegetables in the Kitchen Garden. Our overwintering broad bean plants have just been planted out alongside the onions, garlic, spring cabbage, broccoli, and turnips and we will be sowing carrots and peas in the greenhouse this week.

We've just harvested our first strawberries and there are many more ripening. This week we?ll make sure we have some organic cream ready in the fridge to enjoy them at their best.

A mini heatwave hit the Kitchen Garden this week so the focus has been on trying to keep the plants happy - especially the leafy crops which can succumb to the heat!

I have a metal obelisk in my Victorian Kitchen Garden and I am looking for advice on how to grow vegetables up an obelisk and which vegetables would be best suited to growing up obelisks

In July, we were lucky enough to be involved with the inspiring ‘Get Up and Grow’ garden designed Lucy Hutchings and Instagram Star 'She Grows Veg' at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival. Inspired by her new book, Get up and Grow – the garden was a dream come true for Lucy.

It never ceases to amaze me just how much and how quickly the kitchen garden changes at this time of year. Crops seem to grow at an incredible rate, whilst we gardeners are too busy with the many little jobs that need to doing, to notice. It's not until the occasional lull in activity that I stand, coffee in hand, and marvel at the wonders that nature provides.

Flaming June is living up to its reputation this year with wall-to-wall sunshine for most of the month. As I write we have had no rainfall for four weeks and the scorching sun and drying winds of a heatwave are causing challenges all around the garden. 2018 has certainly been a year of extreme weather so far!

A lot of tidying in the Kitchen Garden this week, lots of leaves thanks to the high winds, a Greenhouse to clean and lots of tools that need some cleaning.

This week In Stephanie's Kitchen Garden we will be harvesting our blackcurrants in the fruit cage. This is such a low maintenance crop, with the bushes needing very little attention through the year.

This week in Stephanie?s Kitchen Garden we have been pruning our asparagus plants down to the ground. The fronds have begun turning yellow and dying off so it is the perfect time to tidy up.

Every year we spend a lot of time deciding on the planting plan for the Kitchen Garden and this year we have brought this to life with colourful illustrations of how we hope the garden will look when everything is in full growth.

Every year we spend a lot of time deciding on the planting plan for Stephanie's Kitchen Garden and this year we have brought it to life with colourful illustrations of how we hope the garden will look when everything is in full growth.

This week in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden, we will be trying to make some much needed space in our cold frame. At the moment it is bursting at the seams with shallots, broad beans and peas to name but a few

With the soaring popularity in growing your own vegetables and gardening in general, it's hardly suprising that manure is a most sought after commodity!

We have veered from extreme arctic weather and deep snow to gardening in our shirtsleeves in the sunshine. Gardeners and garden have both been exposed to some interesting conditions for the time of year - and survived!

May is always the busiest month in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden, and sometimes I have to force myself to stop and just look at how beautiful it looks. The apple blossom on the espaliers is here for such a brief time, that it's easy to miss it when you are focussed on the many jobs that need to be done. May, for me, is when the Kitchen Garden is at its most beautiful - full of lush green growth, blossom and the promise of what is to come.

Sunday March 18th is Mother's Day and although it might seem a good few weeks away, thinking of a present suitable to the lady you call mum isn't a five minute task! But it gets a whole lot easier if Mum likes her garden and we've got load of ideas to make Mother's Day 2012 a bit special. Engraved tools, Sophie Conran garden gear and plenty of top quality food preparation equipment for when the produce makes it into the kitchen are all featured in our press release along with plenty more mum-friendly gifts - 2012 is the year to really treat your mum!

The air of mystique which sometimes surrounds allotments will be lifted for 7 days in August this year, when National Allotments Week takes place across the UK. The event will run from Monday 12th August until the 18th August.

Throughout November the kitchen garden has witnessed an array of weather conditions. Much like every other UK November, rain featured heavily. Not enough to put a stop to my monthly tasks, but enough to warrant several layers and a waterproof!

One of our team is a keen gardener and we love seeing the updates from the garden - obviously a few Harrod Horticultural products dotted about the garden too!

We wanted to share these pictures from one of our team, a keen gardener who has had lots of success growing her own this year - with loads of vegetables and flowers we think it looks great!

We have just had one of the driest Aprils I can remember in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden. At one of the busiest months of the growing calendar, the dry spell has added to our workload with many hours spent watering our crops.

Our apple and pear trees are positively smothered in tiny fruits and, so far, there is no sign of the June drop, where nature thins out the excess fruits on the trees. In the next week or so we will emulate mother nature by picking off fruits to leave the largest two on any spur. As painful as this is, it is necessary if we are to get good sized fruits and to protect the branches from breaking under the weight.

The week started with building a larger net cage for the brassicas. Building the frame was the easy part, shaping and cutting the net to fit took its time but finally it was built.

The clocks are going back this weekend leaving us with less working daylight hours and the first air frost has chilled the garden. Our newly planted winter crops are snuggled under fleece and cloches and our tender plants have already been moved into the greenhouse where the heater is keeping them safe from the cold nights ahead.

"Our schools Budding Gardeners programme supports school gardening across the country at grass roots level. This is important to us as a company as children are the gardeners of tomorrow" says Stephanie Harrod, Managing Director of Harrod Horticultural.

The Harrod Horticultural garden is really starting to flourish, the sunshine and showers over the last week really seem to have helped and we are starting to pick our first peas of the season.

Finally, the temperatures have improved enough to start planting in the kitchen garden, this week I have planted out the sweet potatoes, Dwarf French green beans, Runner beans Enorma, Peas Norli and Kelvendon wonder, sweet peas, Dill and Parsley.

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.

November has been a beautiful month, with sharp frosts and blue skies creating some stunning autumn scenes all around the garden.

It has been another busy week in the kitchen garden planting out all the brassicas in our newly built cage, with sprouts, broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower all being planted out.

It's our 14th year at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and we thought it was a great time to look back at our stand over the years - things have really changed!

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!

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show celebrated its Centenary this year, and here at Harrod Horticultural we are celebrating too having received the 'Certificate of Merit' for the outstanding presentation of our stand!

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show is the pinnacle of the gardening year taking over a small corner of London for a week every May and this is the 14th year that Harrod Horticultural have been a part of this fantastic spectacle!

September has seen the garden transform from the lush green opulence of summer to the soft golden decay of autumn. It never ceases to amaze me how the seasons change in a blink of an eye. One day we are experiencing gloriously hot sunny days and the next we are reaching for jumpers and wellingtons and reaching for cloches and fleece.

All good things come in threes and that's certainly the case here as an early summer awards frenzy saw us scoop a trio of prizes at prestigious gardening shows the length and breadth of the country

April has seen spring arrive in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden at last, although the last few days of the month winter has returned with cold north winds and gales, just a week after the hottest April days on record!

Easter is traditionally the time of year when gardens - and gardeners - spring into life as warmer weather, longer days and a couple of bank holidays all combine to point us in the direction of the outdoors; and with 116 pages of top quality and incredibly diverse gardening products in the form of the Harrod Horticultural Spring Catalogue on hand to help, spring 2012 promises to be a gardening season to remember

June started with a bit of a heatwave and ended with much more unsettled weather, but everything in the kitchen garden has continued to flourish, including the weeds!

You've got to take your hat off to Mother Nature she laid on the perfect conditions for slugs and snails to procreate during the wet months of June and July

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...

An Oasis of green in the Kitchen Garden

A review of February's garden activities including a visit from a tree pruning expert, a look in the greenhouse, some early strawberry planting and much more

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

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

Now the Chelsea Show is over I can get back to tending the garden - can anyone remind me how to get there?

The Harrod Horticultural Kitchen Garden is usually a hectic place to be, but this last month has really taken the frantic biscuit

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 ...

March in the kitchen garden has been a meterelogical puzzle; find out how we coped with inclement weather, started planting potatoes, took care of our early crops

There's been a seed sowing frenzy in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden this month as our horticultural trainee Courtney gets set for the season. She's taken a break from her seed trays, propagator and vermiculite to plant out potatoes and set some horseradish roots

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...

Lady May arrives in the garden, whirling her skirts in mischievous east coast winds. Contrary she blows hot and cold, catching unfortunate gardeners unawares. This is the time to be on your guard; armed with fleece, cloche and hoe we try to tame her. With plant food, string and supports we struggle to keep up with her.

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...

November in the Kitchen Garden and there is that familiar sound again, the soft rustle of a million leaves just waiting to fall

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 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.

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.

Typical - we develop a water saving irrigation plan for Stephanie's Kitchen Garden and it finally pours with rain! In this month's update you can find out from new Kitchen Gardener Lynn how the extensive new watering system will benefit the garden; there's a pest update and you can find out what we're picking too! All in all, another busy month in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden...

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.

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!

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.....

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.

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!

It has been a month of storms, strong winds and rain, but still not as cold as it should be at this time of year. In the kitchen garden it has all been about tidying up and preparation for the upcoming growing season.

Whilst over half of the country was being hit by gale force winds and rain, here on the East coast we have seen temperatures reaching 17c, with wasps and bluebottles still flying around and even a Red Admiral butterfly flew past me on Tuesday, what strange weather we are having!

What a change in the weather this last week - from lots of much needed rain last week to beautiful sunshine this week, the Kitchen Garden has really burst into life!

Time to harvest one of our favourite crops in the garden, sweet potato, not only do we love the tasty tubers but the plant always looks fantastic trained up an obelisk in one of the raised beds.

The last few days of February are at last drawing to a close and we enter my absolute favourite time of the year. The days are getting ever longer and the sun has some real warmth to it now. The promise of the growing season stretches out ahead of us as the green shoots of spring begin to emerge.

It has been another warm and dry week in the Kitchen Garden so once again watering has become a priority. Its a big job trying to keep the plants hydrated through this particularly dry spell.

The long Easter weekend has given us plenty of opportunity to tend to the maintenance of the garden and we have been busy jet washing paving and oiling decking. The grime and algae of the winter has been washed away. Necessary and satisfying work, but time spent away from the main task of growing.

It has been another week of tidying in the kitchen garden especially in the greenhouse. The long sweet peppers and bell peppers have been harvested and all the plants removed along with the aubergines and we have harvested an amazing crop of sweet potatoes.

Our tomato plants, sown back in February are now about 6 inches tall and lifting the lid on their propagator. They were started off in a heated propagator and then moved to an unheated propagator to free up some space. Outside in the kitchen garden we are now ready to apply Nemaslug nematodes to the soil.

Gardening with children is a great way to get some fresh air, exercise and have fun together. As the summer holidays approach, all parents and grandparents are probably looking for ideas to stave off the inevitable 'I am bored' statement for as long as possible.

Since planting up the self watering propagators in the greenhouse we are already seeing so great results...

Arguably the busiest week in the Harrod Horticultural Calendar is rounded off when the latest set of informative website video clips are shot in the stunning grounds of the Kitchen Garden...

With lots of activity over the last couple of weeks the Harrod Horticultural HQ greenhouse and raised beds are coming along really well, helped by the sun finally making an appearance!

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.

All our crops are enjoying the current late spring heatwave, but the soil is drying out and there is no rain forecast for the next few days at least. Many of our young plants have only just been planted out and need a good supply of water to help their roots spread.

Despite meteorological spring being only days away, we are still very much in the throes of winter in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden. As I write, heavy snow is falling and the temperature is -1C. A blast of arctic weather is keeping the garden chilled and covered in snow. It has been a long winter in the garden and it's not over yet.

Here at Stephanie's Kitchen Garden this week we will be completing our garden plan for 2015. Since the garden was first built, we have kept a plan of what is grown where in the garden. This allows us to maintain crop rotation as well as keeping a record of what has grown where in the past. We keep it hung on the wall in the potting shed and use it to refer to when we are completing our seed order

Here at Stephanie's Kitchen Garden this week we will be harvesting our sweet potatoes. This is always an event greeted with trepidation and excitement and I must to confess to having already felt down into the soil to see what size tubers might be waiting for us.

This week In Stephanie's Kitchen Garden we will be planting out our leeks. It's a little later than we would normally like to plant them, but they always follow our new potatoes into the ground and these are a little late being harvested due to the cold spring. The leeks are good size plants though, so should have plenty of time to get to a good size before the winter.

Here at Stephanie's Kitchen Garden this week we will be planting strawberries. Our existing plants are 3 years old and this year our crop was not as good as previously. Strawberries need renewing every three years to maintain a vigorous healthy crop.

Here at Stephanie?s Kitchen Garden this week we will be setting up our irrigation ready for the coming season. We are currently experiencing a dry spell in East Anglia and haven?t had significant rainfall for a couple of weeks. Pots and beds are looking dry and we have already had to water our onion and garlic crops to try and prevent rust setting in later on.

We have been working hard to prepare a raised bed for our sweet potato crop - they looked so good last year on our pyramid obelisk we just had to do it again.

Guest Blog Post by Sophie van Gerwen of Old House in the Shires - Spring is always a busy time in the garden but I think the lockdown in the UK has increased everyones connection to their garden or outdoor space.

We are great obelisk gardeners and have a number of competitor obelisks going strong, some a bit flaky by now. However when you introduced your obelisks we had two and then two more as they are far superior to the competitor ones and are sturdier and easier to erect ! We have David Austin hybrid roses trained up them and they are now in flower.

Apart from the occasional sharp frost, the winter is now a distant memory and the growing season is in full swing in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden. Everywhere you look green shoots are emerging and we are working at full speed to keep up with the sowing, pricking out and planting.

We have had some lovely winter sunshine this week in the kitchen garden, and some very active squirrels who have been busy burying the horse chestnuts that are now falling from the trees.

The espalier apple trees and trained pear trees have at last shed all their leaves in the Kitchen Garden, which means that it's now the perfect time to give them a bit of attention.