Stephanie's Garden Blog

With much of the Autumn Harvest now in, many of the kitchen gardens beds are revealing bare soil. These will be allowed to rest for a while then, manure will be added to them and they will be dug over in the Spring ready for the new season crops.

The temperatures have dropped, the days are getting shorter, and the lawn is covered by a blanket of golden yellow and rich orange hues. Autumn has arrived. Now is the perfect time to prepare your garden for the cold, dark weather that lies ahead. Here's everything you should do to ensure your garden remains in tip-top condition ready for a vibrant spring

There is something deeply evocative surrounding the traditional hand forging of tools. The heat of the forge, the smell of the coal furnace and the sound of molten steel being hammered into shape all take us back to a time long past, when tools were hand-made and lasted for decades. But are these wonderful noises and smells resigned to history? In most places yes, but in a small corner of Holland they are very much alive.

A fruit press and fruit crusher are invaluable if you're faced with an orchard full of apples and pears that you want to turn into fresh fruit juice or make into cider. Even if you don't have an orchard many of you have more than one fruit tree in the garden and on a good year they can produce more apples and pears than your family can comfortably eat.

It has been another week where the heat has built up, peaking on Friday in the 30's, and still no decent rainfall. The water butts are empty again. So, it was more days of what seemed like endless watering!

The week began with the photo shoot in the kitchen garden and we were very fortunate with the weather with plenty of sunshine, no rain and a gentle wind.

Over the last week there seems to have been a surge in pests in the kitchen garden, with the calabrese plants being the worst hit by an unknown culprit!

We got some much needed rain over the last week at the Kitchen Garden, unfortunately forcing the photo shoot to be cancelled, but still lots to do to make sure the garden is looking its best.

The weeds have loved the recent weather and it was time to have a blitz in the kitchen garden with lots of weeding to make the garden look at its best for the upcoming photo shoots.