Kitchen Garden Blog

Happy September! It takes a bit of admitting but even fanatical gardeners can find they hit the doldrums in August. It’s my least favourite gardening month: all your spring optimism has been replaced by this year’s glaring failures: even the joy of picking beans starts to lose its sheen when you’re filling your 20th bag [...]

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It’s no good: I can’t resist. This happens every year in February. There’s something about the turn of the month that makes your gardening brain go into “spring” mode. Whatever the weather outside – and let’s face it, we’ve had some pretty horrific weather this year – I just want to get growing. If I were [...]

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I was rootling about in the garden the other day and turned over a plank of wood – and look what I found. Sorry if you’re eating while reading this: but you knew it wasn’t going to be long before the slimy things turned up. This has to be the most hated creature in the [...]

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These little lumps of cork might look a bit unpromising, but come October they’ll be big, beefy leafy plants which I hope will keep me in greens for most of the winter. I’m sowing a white-stemmed Swiss chard (sturdy-growing and with a good spinachey flavour) and a ruby chard, which has gorgeous stems the colour [...]

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Today found me reaching for the seed packets again. I tend to spend May and June ever-so-slightly panicking about how I’m going to get everything I sowed earlier in the year out and in the ground - but by July I’m done and raring to go with some new sowing for late-season crops. Salad leaves are [...]

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