Stephanie's Garden Blog

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.

A fruit press and fruit crusher are invaluable if you're faced with an orchard full of apples and pears that you want to turn into fresh fruit juice or make into cider. Even if you don't have an orchard many of you have more than one fruit tree in the garden and on a good year they can produce more apples and pears than your family can comfortably eat.

A garden arch can lend real drama and presence to a garden, whether you are looking to create a stunning focal point, frame a garden entrance or use to section the garden, they can be a beautiful addition to your outside space. But, choosing the perfect arch for your garden can be tricky with such a wide range of styles on the market, materials and prices to pick from.

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.

For many gardeners, a greenhouse is not just somewhere to grow your plants it is also a design statement. So if appearance is one of your main considerations then a Greenhouse would be top of your list. However, where simple practical covered growing space is required, you will be getting much more growing space for your money if you choose a polytunnel.

It has been an exciting week in the kitchen garden as we have been doing the photography for our upcoming catalogue. We have had our raised beds, obelisks and plant supports re-photographed and some new product ranges still to be announced.