Stephanie's Garden Blog

It's been a week of tidying in the kitchen garden, we have cleared out all the plants that have stopped producing and relegated them to the compost bin and started our Autumn planting of perpetual spinach, Pak choi, early sprouting broccoli and kale.

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.

It has been a hive of activity in the garden this week as we've had a photo shoot for our new garden furniture range, it looks so very stylish in the late summer sunshine. We are all very proud to see the end product now in situ and how beautiful it looks in the garden.

This week has been a short one as we have enjoyed the last bank holiday before, dare I say it, Christmas. But there has been no let up in the warm weather if anything we suffered 4 days of constant hot dry conditions and 3 days of temperatures getting up to 30 degrees.

It is starting to feel very autumnal in the kitchen garden this week and its only August! The weather has cooled down and the plants are starting to come to the end of their productive period so the kitchen garden has had a really good tidy up.

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.

The box hedging in the kitchen garden has become infected with box blight, brown patches and leaves dying, so all of the hedging has been sprayed with fungus fighter. The box in the kitchen garden has suffered with blight before, the disease can remain in the plant for up to 6 years and with the right conditions the spores can become active again.

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.

The weather has been extremely hot here with glorious sunshine, which has meant I have been doing lots and lots of watering. But the vegetables have loved it and are growing really well and getting big especially the sweetcorn which has now got kernels, not quite ready for picking yet but I think it is going to be a very good year for sweetcorn.