Stephanie's Garden Blog

It's always satisfying when a technique you use in your own garden - in this case growing in guttering - is endorsed by one of the celebrity gardeners, and that's just what's happened in the February edition of Gardener's World magazine!

We all know that that proposals for the building of a huge amount of new homes countrywide puts allotments and other greenfield sites at risk - so growing our vegetables in containers may well become more and more popular.

I'm going to be a Master Composter! As you must be aware by now, I'm responsible for the one-third of an acre Harrod Horticultural Kitchen Garden - fed with our own compost - which of course is an absolutely invaluable resource for a horticultural mail order company.

Growing Organic Seed Potatoes Planting organic seed potatoes and harvesting armfuls of delicious fresh tubers is often the route into gardening and home vegetable growing in particular for many novice gardeners – and although we’ve got a bit more experience than that, we still enjoy the anticipation of digging up a real bumper yield of spuds!

Obtaining heirloom vegetable seed varieties is much easier now thanks to Garden Organic's Heritage Seed Library and if you're really into growing veg and have an interest in preserving the seed types of yesteryear, you'll jump at the chance of being a Seed Guardian!

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.