Stephanie's Garden Blog

Here at Stephanie?s Kitchen Garden this week we will be starting the war on slugs and snails. According to recent press reports, this year is predicted to be a bad one when it comes to our slimy enemies, so we will be taking steps to ensure they don?t get the upper hand in our garden.

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.

Here at Stephanie's Kitchen Garden this week we will be emptying our compost bins ready to begin filling them up again throughout the summer.

Here at Stephanie's Kitchen Garden this week we will be planting out our broad bean plants and our shallots. These have spent the past week in the cold frame acclimatising to the weather and are now ready to be planted in their final growing space. The ground has already been dug over and fertilised with fish, blood and bone.

The wonderful thing about gardening is garden tools can make it as labour intensive or relaxing as you wish. You may decide to dig your entire plot by hand, or you might choose to use machinery and then spend more time in the planning.

Here at Stephanie's Kitchen Garden this week we will be pricking out some of our new little seedlings in the greenhouse. The heated propagator is a hive of activity and some of the tomatoes, aubergines and peppers are ready to be transferred to small pots.

Growing in vegetable planters you'll be surprised how many delicious vegetables you can cram into a small space and an attractive Manger Vegetable Planter can transform a barren patio into a vegetable oasis.

Here at Stephanie's Kitchen Garden this week we will be turning our attention to our rhubarb patch. Last year at this time we divided some of our existing plants to extend our crop and these grew well throughout the year putting on plenty of growth. At this time of year, the plants benefit from a generous mulch of well rotted manure or garden compost.

If you live in an area where there is already snow and you've got a flat roof fruit cage in your garden, this might be a 'horse/bolted' alert - but you need to remove the roof netting off your fruit cages in the winter.