Stephanie's Garden Blog

It's fair to say 2007 will not go down as a vintage year for potato crops, with blight and the unprecendented wet summer weather being the main culprits.

Organic gardening - in the Harrod Horticultural Kitchen Garden at least - doesn't just mean that chemical-based pest sprays, weedkillers and fertilisers are banned from the potting shed. It's about protecting the environment in general, and that's why you'll find water butts scattered around the garden.

With Christmas over, and the annual trawl through the seed catalogues almost complete, the thoughts of most gardeners turn to sowing and growing once again - and that means peat free seed compost.

If you're familiar with the Harrod Horticultural Kitchen Garden, you'll be well aware that I produce an update of just what Sharon and I have been sowing, growing harvesting and composting in the garden each month.

The waiting is finally over and the prizes have been dished out at the 2011 Royal Horticultural Society's Hampton Court Flower Show with Will Quarmby's Heathers in Harmony scooping the Best Small Garden - assisted by a few hundred Beepol bumblebees!

It wasn't only our hands-on horticulturist and Master Composter Martin Fiddes who attended the Royal Norfolk Show this year as garden pest control expert Julian Ives occupied a slot on the Easton College stand - accompanied by around a hundred of his friends!

There's a real buzz about Harrod Horticultural today as page 62 of the Daily Express carries an article on growing your own vegetables - and our very own horticulturist Martin Fiddes has his vegetable seed sowing tips in print too!

Why does my climbing hydrangea show a reluctance to flower...?

Composting is a great subject for the school curriculum. It embraces science, nature and really opens our eyes to the environment and the future - oh, and I forgot history as it's been around for quite a while!