After a summer of high temperatures and little rain, gardening magazines, blogs and posts are full of recommendations for drought-tolerant plants. But are drought tolerant plants the answer? Looking around my garden, its clear that the classic drought-tolerant perennials have survived well – my eryngiums, rubeckias, heleniums, euphorbias and salvias have fared well. And all…
Kim Stoddart gets up and close and personal with this important enabler of veg patch life and explains how to keep it fertile and simply fantastic all year round… It may not look very glamorous but this earthy substance is the key to the success of your food growing efforts. Treat it well and make…
This blog was published on 4 June 2019 and a similar pattern has emerged in 2020, except this time the months of March, April and May have been hot and dry …. Hurrah, some rain is forecast. I know, it’s June, and we all want to be outside enjoying the sun and the last thing…
A garden or allotment can look a complete mess after surging floodwaters have passed through. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just rainwater, but most flood water carries with it all sorts of contaminants – plastic, sewage, manure, slurry and chemicals, such as oil and pesticides, and much more besides. So, if you…
Kim Stoddart explains why not meticulously tidying away every crop on your veg patch at the end of the season will reap you multiple marvellous rewards…. Traditional advice dictates that once your crop is ready, or your harvest spent, every remaining plant should be plucked immediately from the ground. It’s all part of this mindset…
The environment, climate change, water and plastic waste were common themes running through this year’s show gardens. Having just written a book on climate change gardening, I was keen to see what the designers had done on these topics. The garden that really got to grips with water and climate change was Thames Water Flourishing…
Kim Stoddart looks at some of the easiest and most rewarding ways to boost your eco-gardener credentials, whilst having fun in the process… I gardened entirely for free a few years back for my writing in the Guardian. What started out as a ‘can I really do this?’ experiment turned into one of the most…
Kim outlines some additional ingredients for the best ever all-in-one natural soil improver for the veg patch… Your soil is the key ingredient in the success of your resilient produce growing efforts so it’s essential to treat it well. Building fertility can be done in a number of ways, and once you have this there…
Kim explains how to help counter the hungry gap by expanding your salad horizons with leaves from other plants currently growing. If you looked at the average bag of unexciting supermarket salad mix, you’d be forgiven for assuming that all leaves had to look like this. Yet, you’re really missing a trick if that’s how…
How you can be in good company with a more free-spirited approach to planting on your plot… Most gardening books will tell you about the importance of crop rotation ‘blah, blah, brassicas after legumes”… “waffle, waffle, potatoes first…” It’s a planting system that is undoubtedly sensible if a) you’re a market gardener and will be growing…