Stephanie's Garden Blog

It is a good idea to put weed control barriers in place in late winter or early spring, as they work better as a preventative method rather than when an existing problem requires suppression

Here at Stephanie's Kitchen Garden this week we will be completing our garden plan for 2015. Since the garden was first built, we have kept a plan of what is grown where in the garden. This allows us to maintain crop rotation as well as keeping a record of what has grown where in the past. We keep it hung on the wall in the potting shed and use it to refer to when we are completing our seed order

Here at Stephanie's Kitchen Garden this week we will be harvesting our sweet potatoes. This is always an event greeted with trepidation and excitement and I must to confess to having already felt down into the soil to see what size tubers might be waiting for us.

Here at Stephanie's Kitchen Garden this week we will be planting strawberries. Our existing plants are 3 years old and this year our crop was not as good as previously. Strawberries need renewing every three years to maintain a vigorous healthy crop.

My first experience with raised beds was also my first time growing veg, some twenty years ago. At the time I lived in Hertfordshire and the soil in my garden comprised a charming mixture of clay, lumps of sandstone, iron ore and more clay. In short, it was rubbish.

Here at Stephanie's Kitchen Garden this week we will be planting garlic. This is one of our favourite crops and this year we are growing Picardy Wight and Carcassone Wight.

Our greenhouse crops are coming to the end of their lives. The tomatoes have all been harvested and we will be clearing the old plants and consigning them to the compost heap. The pots, tomato towers, plant halos and slot and lock frame and will be brushed clean and set aside for scrubbing and cleaning during the winter months.

Crushing and pressing fruit to extract juice is a process rich in history, with the production of apple juice and cider stretching back to Norman times. Things have moved on a bit since then, and today, pressing your own home-grown fruit could not be easier.

Here at Stephanie's Kitchen Garden this week we will be harvesting the pears from our pear arch. After they have been picked the pears will be put through a fruit press to be turned into delicious organic pear juice. A real treat!