Stephanie's Garden Blog

It is certainly becoming an unusual growing season this year, with the serious lack of spring rain and the late cold temperatures. Mother Nature is challenging the Kitchen Gardener and it will be interesting to see what effect it has on our harvests.

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!

Now that we are well into May, we will be starting the Big Plant Out in Stephanie's Kitchen Garden. Our greenhouse and cold frame are crammed with tender crops such as runner beans, courgettes, squash, climbing french beans, sweetcorn, celery and celeriac all waiting to spread their roots into deep fertile soil.

As we head into May, in our part of the world we would normally expect to be planting out some of our tender crops such as beans, courgettes and squash plants. However we are in the middle of a very cold snap and planting out now would be a disaster for these tender plants.

We've finally treated to some significant rainfall in our part of the world. This was a big relief for us gardeners, giving us some respite from the watering can; albeit for only a few days. The garden seemed to sigh with relief too and plants in every part of the garden seemed to shoot up overnight after their welcome drink.

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.

A great guest blog from Elementa Design using a 5 step guide to prepare your garden for Summer. Nick Dickinson, a much sought after plantsman and garden designer and offers some great advice in the article.

We seem to have permanent sunshine at the moment, with no rain on the immediate forecast. Consequently, we are busy with the watering can making sure our crops are well watered at a crucial time in the growing calendar.

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.