Garden Grub!

It’s time now to start collecting all the fruits of your labour and what better way to bring them in than in the bag included in the Vegetable Garden Gift Set.

A nice hessian sack so much more stylish than the old ice cream carton you diligently washed out!! And if you are looking for a recipe for the glut of tomatoes, courgettes or beans take a look at this Gardener’s Recipe Book – “Taste the Flavours, Sow the Seeds”

Put them both together and what have you got but the Garden Divas Grub to Grow Set - a perfect present for the allotment or kitchen garden owner.
All this talk of food makes me peckish so am off to pick the dwarf beans, dig up the spuds, maybe collect a courgette or two and cook my tea. Any recipes gratefully received!!

Are you one of the 41% that grows your own? If not why not?!

Why not start the New Year as you mean to go on and join the 41% of family stage consumers that are already growing their own produce or planning to in 2010. New Year is all about fresh starts so why not make this one of yours and ensure your vegetables are a lot fresher!

The Horticultural Trades Association has published a recent Garden Industry Monitor Consumer Insight investigating the trends in the gardening World. We are pleased to see that the population are not only growing more but spending a lot more time in their home and garden, though we doubt many of you have been recently pottering around the flower beds in this snowy weather!

To support this growing trend we want the percentage of people growing their own to rise to over 50%! Every little bit counts so in amongst our grow your own range you will find The Girl’s Guide To Growing- perfect for the beginner lady gardener who wants to get started! We know we’ve raved about this book in our previous blog so we won’t repeat ourselves but...it is now available at a Seasonal Offer Price! You can order the book online for £10.95 (was £12.95) for a limited time only so be quick. You may not be able to get outside right now but you can enjoy reading all these hints and tips by the fire with a hot cuppa tea until the ice melts and then get gardening!

Holiday/ Returning to Veg!!!

Well we all went off on our hols to Spain and we have now returned to Hertfordshire. The weather was beautiful and it was lovely to take a well deserved rest! Here are a few snaps showing the glorious sunshine we could only wish for at the moment.

Since we've been back the rain has been a bit of a hinderence for getting out in the garden but we were thrilled to return to some tasty veg from the garden and since then we've been feasting like Kings :-). Going to get out in the garden this weekend and get some snaps of all our produce which I will put on here asap. Anyone else have any successes/ troubles with growing veggies?

Easter Wash Out Waters Garden Divas’ Willow Planter!

Well the Easter break is truely over and what a wash out it was here!!! Despite the rain, potatoes were planted along with onion sets, carrots, and lettuce in the Garden Divas garden. (I am experimenting by planting just one seed potato into the attractive willow planter http://www.gardendivas.co.uk/details.php?prodId=230&category=5 using just compost from the compost bin to see how many new potatoes it will crop – will let you know in due course. )

The cucumbers (Marketmore) and tomatoes (Gardener’s Delight and Berry F1 ) are all growing strongly in the greenhouse; the courgettes are up as are the tagetes which will help ward off fly infestation on the roses in the summer, and I have also set some chilli seeds free with Gardener’s World magazine, so thank you to them for those!!! The small Haws watering can http://www.gardendivas.co.uk/details.php?prodId=174&category has proved to be perfect for watering delicate seedlings and, as with all Haws watering cans, looks set to last and last.

The first shoots of asparagus from the garden were enjoyed on Easter Sunday together with a rather large amount of chocolate so it is a good thing that there will be lots to do in the garden to work off all those calories!!!

I have to confess though that I managed to bend my favourite Burgon and Ball hand trowel http://www.gardendivas.co.uk/details.php?prodId=37&category -unheard of in over 30 years of gardening) which just goes to prove that you should always use the right tool for the job and that snowdrop bulbs firmly embedded deep within a bank need something a little more than a trowel to shift them!!! Oh well I will just have to choose another - now which colour shall I have?