Innehållsförteckning för August 2025 från Kitchen Garden

A new chapter You may have seen in the July issue that I'd be taking over as editor – and I'm delighted to be writing to you now in my first issue. I've worked on several gardening and seasonal titles over the years, and it's a real pleasure to join the Kitchen Garden team. I'd like to take a moment to thank Steve for his time leading the magazine, and for helping to ensure such a smooth handover. His passion for growing came through in every issue, and set a high bar to follow. Emma and Tony are also moving on after this issue, and I want to thank them for the knowledge, enthusiasm and personality they've brought to the magazine over the years. They'll be greatly missed by everyone…

MAGNIFICENT MALVERN The RHS Malvern Show takes place this year as usual at the Three Counties Showground, Malvern, from Friday September 26 to Sunday September 28. This very popular event celebrates country living in all its variety, with vintage vehicles, harvest competitions, rural crafts and local artisan food and drink. On top of that you can expect fantastic displays of fruit, veg and flowers, talks and demonstrations from the experts, plus live music. The Malvern show also holds the annual CANNA UK National Giant Vegetables Championship where you will see some impressive, eye-catching specimens. Last year Ian Paton's mammoth pumpkin, weighing in at 1198.2kg/2,641lb, set a British record. CHILDREN MISSING OUT ON FRUIT AND VEG The most recent National Diet and Nutrition government survey has found that most respondents did…

There's nothing nicer than a bowl of ripe, sweet strawberries picked straight from the garden. Not only are they easy to grow in the garden or containers, they produce their first fruits just months after planting. Of all the fruits we grow, strawberries are probably one of the easiest and I think they are a great starter plant for getting children interested in gardening. Our young grandchildren all love strawberries and enjoy being able to pick them fresh from the garden. STRETCHING THE SEASON Strawberries are naturally summer-fruiting, and the traditional time to harvest from the garden is June until late July, depending on the variety being grown and where you live. On the other hand, commercial UK growers can harvest tasty strawberries from April to November as a result…

We're now looking for the UK's most inspiring veg growers to feature in the magazine throughout 2026. Whether your plot is a neat allotment, a bustling garden patch or a container jungle, we want to see it! The top three winners will receive a bundle of fantastic prizes and a feature in Kitchen Garden, while nine runners-up will also receive a prize, and appear in the magazine over the course of 2026. YOU COULD WIN… FIRST PRIZE Strulch 12 x 13.5kg bags £204* Gardening Naturally 1.2m x 1.2m x 3m cage with Veggiemesh insect netting £101 Kent & Stowe ultimate garden bundle: watering can, gloves, secateurs, Capability trowel, Capability digging spade £100 One box of 12 x 500g Shaker tubes of Premium Grade Pro-Grow Rockdust £59.88 Nemasys Biological Fruit &…

What gave you the idea to turn your alleyway into a green community space? Our alleyway was so full of flytipping, waste and rubbish that we knew something had to change. When we walked out of our back gate we were met with mattresses, dozens of bin bags, glass, furniture, and more. We wanted the space to at least feel safe and tidy, but as we got on with the tidying we realised it was the perfect outdoor garden space and that we could utilise it even more. How easy was it to convince neighbours of the idea, and was it welcomed? There were only a couple of us involved early on – but people were really grateful for the work we were doing. People, of course, have so much…

Summer pruning is often overlooked – after all, it's a time of year when there are many more exciting tasks in the fruit garden. However, there are several reasons why we should keep our secateurs handy all through the long summer months and prune top fruit trees to ensure healthy trees and bigger crops to come. Before the 1890s, summer pruning of fruit trees was unheard of. All pruning was carried out in the winter months. However, around 1898 a young man called Louis Lorette noticed that trained trees that had been pruned each winter produced a lot less fruit than standard trees that had been left unpruned. He started a series of experiments at the Practical School of Agriculture in Wagonville, France, and proved that apple and pear tree…

This year marks a significant milestone: 25 years since we first began the restoration of this once-forgotten Georgian gem. Looking out across the vibrant beds, full of colour and life, it is almost hard to believe that this place was once little more than a wilderness of brambles and ruin. Since the official unveiling of the new water garden by Harriett Baldwin MP in May, the gardens have welcomed a record number of visitors, and we are deeply moved by their interest and encouragement. Guests have travelled from near and far to experience the transformation for themselves, taking in the peaceful water features, abundant planting, and the enduring beauty of a landscape that continues to reveal its secrets. The new water garden is already becoming a visitor favourite. It feels…

PICK BEANS Keep picking beans, checking the plants every three or four days. This encourages the bean plants to keep producing more pods over a longer period of time HARVEST SWEETCORN Sweetcorn is ready to harvest when the silks turn brown. Make sure by pulling back a little of the husk and pushing a nail into a kernel. If a milky liquid emerges, then the cob is ready to eat SOW ONIONS Sow over-wintering onions such as ‘Augusta’ mid-month. They'll remain quite small until February next year, when they'll start growing with enthusiasm CHECK MELONS Check whether melons are ripe by smelling them! If they have a sweet, fruity aroma, then the fruit is ready to pick. If you're growing watermelons, after eating the flesh use the skins to make…

EMBRACING LIFE I had an allotment for 10 years in the early 1990s but gave it up due to ill health. After two hip replacements at 72, I got another allotment last year and have treasured every minute. It was in a sorrowful state. There was a frame up for a polytunnel and two helpful people built it for me. Yesterday I picked my first cucumber and beetroot. Even now I'm sat in my poly embracing life, even though it's heavy rain! Ann Ward, Manchester STAR LETTER WINS £25 VOUCHER PERENNIAL PEBBLES In our allotment we have built wooden boxes, and this year planted a large number of perennial plants. We wanted to have a constant flowering display, including fresh cut flowers from spring through to autumn. Hopefully the plants…

If there's one harvest that feels like summer, it's got to be soft fruit. Strawberries warm from the sun, blackberries picked from bramble-lined paths, the tart sweetness of raspberries, or the inky richness of elderberries, these are the jewels of the season. Thankfully, they don't need to be eaten all at once, and with a couple of ingredients and a little time they can be enjoyed through the darker months. You don't need an orchard to grow berries. Strawberries tuck neatly into raised beds or even hanging baskets. Raspberries and blackberries thrive along fences or in a corner of the plot, especially if you grow thornless types, and elder is often found growing wild or can be kept pruned as a manageable shrub. Best of all, they're generous once they…

WORTH OVER £1,038 HAPPY HARVESTING Bring home the harvest in style this year with this bundle of harvest essentials from Burgon & Ball. When it comes to enjoying the fruits of your labour, your produce will taste even better when you carry it from plot to plate in the Traditional Wooden Trug. The classic garden accessory, this trug will come in handy all year round, at planting time, for weeding and, of course, at harvest time. For precise, clean cutting as you gather, our prize also includes a selection of Burgon & Ball's RHS-endorsed cutting tools. There's the Professional Compact Bypass Secateur with high-carbon steel precision-ground blades. The Flower and Fruit Snip has stainless steel blades for rust resistance, and the superbly comfortable Ergo Deadheader completes the line-up. Like all…

(AGM is the RHS Award of Garden Merit. Under RHS garden trials these varieties performed particularly well) SAVE OVER £13 SAVE ON KINGS SEEDS! 20% OFF GREEN MANURES Kings Seeds are offering KG readers the exclusive chance to save 20% on all their green manure seeds To take advantage of this offer, simply visit kingsseeds.com/kitchen-garden and enter the code KGAUG25 at the checkout. Offer ends August 25, 2025. MULCH MATS Mulch mats help to retain moisture and warmth in the soil and protect crops from soil and rain splashes. They keep lower leaves clean and dry – which in turn deters slugs – and are ideal for use with strawberry plants to keep the fruits off the soil. Another good thing about them is that they can be used year after…

Get in touch by post, email or via our Facebook page: Facebook.com/kitchengardenmag BAFFLING BEANS I normally grow ‘Ferrari’ French beans with no problems, but this year for a change I decided on ‘Boston’. I started these off in 9cm pots in the greenhouse with a little bottom heat before transferring to larger pots/planting direct into the ground. The pots in the greenhouse give me an earlier crop before the ones outside become established. This year, growth was slow and many of the leaves turned yellow, with some turning upside down showing the leaf veins. Do you think they became too hot, or maybe I used poor compost? Only some of the plants were affected. When I planted my ‘Bolotto’ seeds in the same way, there was a problem with rotting…

ENTER THIS YEAR'S COMPETITION SEE PAGE 30 HELEN WESTWOOD'S SCOTTISH PLOT Helen loves to grow organically and encourages wildlife to her plot in Ayr as well as growing a wide range of vegetables and flowers in containers and beds. She shares her plotting experiences with her husband, David. How big is your veg plot and how long have you been growing? It's approximately 50 square metres and I have been growing veg for six years. Do you grow any veg in containers? I grow in tubs, troughs and raised beds, and I use home-made and shop-bought compost. We feed with veg plant food. How do you grow one particular named crop? Tomatoes from seeds. Some are bought seeds and some are from seeds harvested from our ripe tomatoes. After sowing,…

The summer weather has finally arrived – and while the sunshine has given our crops a welcome boost, it's also triggered a surge in slug activity. After the driest spring on record, a spell of heat and patchy rain has created perfect conditions for these pests to thrive. Just when your lettuces, cabbages and courgettes are beginning to get going, the tell-tale signs of slug damage can suddenly appear overnight. Slugs thrive in damp conditions, but it's the return of warmth after rain that really brings them out. They've been quietly reproducing underground, and now that soil temperatures have risen both adults and freshly hatched juveniles are on the move – and hungry. Gardeners tend to fall into one of two camps – those who accept a little nibbling as…

In our image-saturated, influencerfuelled times, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that a good garden needs to be full of new things and the latest gadgets. The expensive tools, the trendiest containers, the latest ‘solutions’ to all your gardening problems. But the truth is, most of us don't need more stuff – we do, however, need more imagination! Some of the most exciting gardens and allotments I've seen are not the make-youreyes-water-at-the-thought-of-the-price glossy, catalogue-perfect ones. They're the ones cobbled together over years with a bit of ingenuity and a lot of heart. Repurposed, recycled, thoughtful and creative, where often nothing matches but, somehow, everything sings. Repurposing and upcycling in the garden isn't just about saving money – although that's a welcome side effect. It's about celebrating resourcefulness,…

SPICY GRILLED SUMMER SQUASH WITH BASIL AND FETA RICE I love cooking outdoors – there's something extra tasty about it! Courgettes are one of my favourite vegetables to grill, soaking up flavour and turning beautifully tender with just a little heat and seasoning SERVES 4 Preparation time: 20 mins Cooking time: 20 mins FOR THE GRILLED VEGETABLES 2 medium summer squash or courgettes, sliced 2 red bell peppers, deseeded and quartered 2-3 tbsp olive oil 1 tsp smoked paprika ½ tsp chilli flakes (or to taste) 1 garlic clove, minced Salt and pepper, to taste FOR THE FETA RICE SALAD 200g (7oz) cooked basmati or long-grain rice (cold or room temperature) 100g (3½oz) feta cheese, crumbled 75g (2½oz) red onion, finely chopped (about 1 small) 2 tbsp chopped fresh basil…