Stephanie's Garden Blog

It's the horticultural event of the year - and next week sees the gates of the Royal Hospital in Chelsea swing open once again as the 87th RHS Chelsea Flower Show takes place. Martin Fiddes sets the scene...

The majority of grow your own vegetables grown on allotments and vegetable plots are raised from seed - but if you've ever tried to locate a long forgotten, traditional variety you'll know how difficult it can be!

Home composting is one of the real growth areas in grow your own gardening, and as a result there's an absolute myriad of composting products on the market - more than enough to baffle any would-be composter!

Imagine growing a tomato variety in your own back garden, packed full of antioxidants helping to prevent cancer and coloured a glorious shade of purple. Sounds to good to be true...? Martin Fiddes finds out if this is the case!

I've been putting my Master Composter knowledge to good use recently with a visit to Sir John Leman High School in Beccles, Suffolk - where I extolled the virtues of composting in schools to 15 interested (at least I think they were interested!) teachers.

Who would of thought that a delivery of contaminated manure to an allotment site in Wakefield would hit the national headlines?

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!

Can you remember those early days of vegetable growing when you couldn't tell a spade from a shovel, a cucumber from a courgette and thought a propagator was a kind of crocodile? Martin Fiddes looks back...

The Consumer Council for Water has produced a checklist of water saving ideas following predictions of another long, hot - and dry - summer.