Artificial Grass: Beautiful Turf for Minimal Effort

A lot of my friends tell me that they wish they could have a beautiful garden, but they don’t want to have to work tirelessly to get the results!  Well, although blood, sweat and hard graft results in a rewarding garden, there are also many ways to achieve a beautiful, simple garden that is also low-maintenance.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing some tips and advice on how to achieve a beautifully simple garden that requires minimal maintenance.  But this week, we start with the basics: grass.

A beautiful, fresh lawn, like the one displayed below, is often the starting point for an attractive garden:

However, the grass shown here is actually artificial grass!  

Artificial grass has come a long way since the days of old astro-turf football pitches and glaringly bright ‘fake’ grass.  Namgrass is fast becoming the number one choice for artificial grass in the UK and it’s not hard to see why.

Namgrass design and manufacture a wide range of artificial grass suitable for a wide variety of garden, domestic and home uses.  Featuring ultra-soft friendly fibres and natural green tones, along with unrivalled quality and pricing, Namgrass products are manufactured to the highest standards.  Benefiting from heavy duty latex backing, Namgrass’s unique Tuftlock system and grass fibres (yarns) are of only the highest quality, enabling them to offer a 10 year Manufacturer’s Guarantee with all products.

From Green Meadow and Green Touch, to Green Mirage and Green Oasis, Namgrass offers a wide range of artificial grass to suit every need, whether you’re looking for a durable play area for the children, or a designer lawn that looks beautiful all year round.

So if you’re looking for a beautiful garden with minimal effort, Namgrass can provide you with a range of superb artificial grass options to create a great look in your garden.  Take a look at their website today!

Luscious Lawns: Grass as the Plant we Always Forget!

When gardening, it is so easy to get wrapped up in various flowers, plants and vegetables, that gardeners can often forget the plants beneath their very feet: grass!

From lush lawns to wild gardens, the turf beneath our feet contributes to the overall aesthetic appeal of our gardens much more than we give it credit for.  

If you’re looking for some turf-based inspiration, the London Lawn Turf company is the perfect place to start.   The leading turf suppliers in London and the Home Counties, this business specialises in providing high quality turf that will help you to achieve a professional finish in your garden or at your commercial premises.

And it’s not only grass that the London Lawn Turf company provides: top dressing, compost, bark and even lawn fertiliser can be purchased on the company’s website, allowing you to create a superb garden lawn and a wonderful outside space for your home.

And if like me, you’re a novice when it comes to laying grass, fear not!  The London Lawn Turf company has a range of really handy videos on its website that provide useful hints, tips and practical advice, from how to lay turf properly, to aftercare and keeping your lawn turf fresh and beautiful!

The regular blog posts and articles on seasonal care are also a truly invaluable resource for all of your grass-related gardening needs, covering everything from water retention to top design trends.  

In addition to all of this superb content, the London Lawn Turf company provides a range of competitive prices, superb products and experienced know-how.  If you’re looking to spruce up your turf, take a look at the London Lawn Turf company today.

Grow Your Gardening Skills With a Gardening Course This Summer!

I’ve been running the London Vegetable Garden blog since 2009, with the express aim of not only chronicling my own organic odyssey, but hopefully demonstrating along the way that growing your own is simple, easy to pick up and most of all, enjoyable!

However, if you’re still feeling nervous or unsure about gardening, but really want to give it a go, there is a wide range of different courses available, suitable for budding gardeners of all ages and abilities. 

UK

There are literally hundreds of gardening courses in the UK, designed for all people of all ages and abilities, as well as for all interests!  Whether you’re interesting in learning the traditional art of rural hedgelaying, ‘garden skills with a design edge’, or even something as exotic as a course on mushroom growing, there literally is something for everyone! 

What I really love about these gardening courses is that there is so much to enjoy!  I’ve long championed the ability to grow your own plants and vegetables no matter where you live or what your space; however these gardening courses in the UK allow you to explore the pleasures of gardening in fun and natural environments and ‘give it a go’!

London

For those of you based in the Capital, there are many gardening courses in London that you can do, from flower arranging courses to the fascinating ‘introduction to Japanese architecture, gardens and tea culture.  Again, these gardening courses in London allow you to explore an element of gardening that interests you, from practical skills, to wider social and cultural courses about gardening.

Learning Online

And if you are not based in London, or near any of the courses listed above, then the wide range of online gardening courses offered through the ‘lovemycourse’ website allows you to take in and enjoy a wide range of gardening courses, all from the comfort of your own home.

The range of online gardening courses available range from diplomas in gardening and horticulture to interior plant care: from Japanese garden design and bonsai courses to garden landscaping courses.  There truly is a fantastic range of online gardening courses available to suit the needs, interests and abilities of any budding amateur gardener!

So if you’re keen to brush up on your knowledge of the garden and learn new skills, or even if you’re afraid of getting started and fancy having a go in a fun environment first, a gardening course could be the perfect way to help you enjoy your garden even more this summer.

Good luck!!

Watering: Plants That Are Irrigated, Not Irritated!

As any gardener knows, ensuring your plants and vegetables get sufficient water is vital, especially during the summer months.  But did you know, it’s equally important to ensure that plants aren’t over-watered, or left in water-clogged soil and drowned: something that the wet confines of my Peak District vegetable garden knows only too well!

Maybe you’re going on holiday this summer too: what happens if you don’t have a friendly neighbour to hand to help you water your plants?  Well, plant watering and irrigation solutions can help vegetable gardeners to ensure plants get well watered, as well as ensuring that plants are watered constantly rather than drowned.

Greenhouse watering is especially important, given the hot temperatures that vegetable plants are exposed to inside.  A range of different watering and irrigation systems exist to help you water vegetables in your greenhouse, including drip and spray kits, as well as timer systems, ensuring that your plants are watered automatically when you are not around to do it yourself.  Click on this link to take a look at some suitable products.

On the London Vegetable Garden blog, I have been a long-term champion of ‘growing your own’ indoors.  However, busy lifestyles, coupled with hot summer days, can often dry out small pots of plants on windowsills very quickly.  In this instance, I would recommend looking at a product such as these self-watering trays, mats and systems.

Finally, I love anything that is natural, organic and great for the environment: and although not a particularly ‘high-tech’ solution, harvesting natural rainwater remains one of the best ways to keep your plants watered and happy!  A water butt should be a staple in any environmentally-friendly garden.

If you have enjoyed reading about the variety of garden watering systems in this blog post, why not look to see how these handy pieces of kit can keep your plants happy and irrigated rather than sad and irritated!

Vegetable Plants Update: 15th June 2013

First of all, apologies for the lack of updates on the blog: a very busy work schedule has left me with relatively little free time over the past few weeks.  However, I have managed to post the odd update on my Facebook page as well as on Twitter, so make sure that you come and ‘like’ or follow me there!

Over the past few weeks, I have been busy nurturing the vegetable seedlings indoors under the skylight in the attic and also on spare windowsills around the house.  However, a few weeks ago, we reached crunch point, with many seedlings growing too big for the propagating trays and growing into full-blown vegetable plants!

The weather has definitely turned warmer in the Peak District and although summer is still acting very temperamentally, the time has come to brave some of the plants outside.  Runner beans are a hardy plant, but also a vegetable plant that grows incredibly quickly: as you can see from the photograph below, I have put some cane supports up and planted these out.

These are actually the second batch of runner beans I have planted out: the first crop was decimated very quickly.  How and by whom?  I noticed that the big leaves near the soil were being attacked and pulled apart, which then killed the rest of the plant – and this was being done by pigeons!  With this second batch, I stripped the plant of its bottommost leaves and stalks, being careful not to damage the main stalk of the plant.  This left a gap of a good few hands between soil and leaves, so that pigeons could no longer peck these easily and so far (touch wood) it seems to be working.

Aware of the Peak District’s temperamental temperatures and the fact that the garden is very shaded, I have also been keen to utilise my miniature greenhouse this summer: and it’s clearly paying dividends, as illustrated in the photograph below.

Although the temperature outside has not been overly hot, the sunlight does heat the greenhouse up nicely and these vegetable plants have subsequently been doing well.  I was also delighted this afternoon, upon noticing a few tiny cucumbers starting to form:

Hopefully these will continue to grow and do well in the sunny spot I have placed them in!

In other news, the tomato plants seem to be growing away nicely.  I have tomato plants in the greenhouse, outside in pots, planted in the vegetable garden and also inside on a windowsill.  Some seem to be doing better than others, but there seems to be no logic or reason to it!  The tomatoes in the photo below will soon be ready to start pinching out.

So, the vegetable plants are all doing well so far: I will keep you all updated with their progress over the coming weeks!  And remember, if you have any questions, queries or comments, please do leave a comment here, or get involved on our Facebook page or on Twitter.   

The Sweet Sight of Success: Sweet Pepper Seedlings!

They may not look like much, especially in comparison to the thriving vegetable seedlings that have been growing rapidly over the past 3 weeks, but believe it or not, these tiny sprouts have got me very excited indeed.

Last year, I planted several chilli and sweet pepper seeds with absolutely no success whatsoever.  I'm not sure whether the conditions had not been right, whether I had a bad batch of seeds, or whether the weather had simply been too cold, but 2012's attempts at chillis and peppers was a non-starter.  This year, I have been determined to have another bash at sweet peppers and utilise hot, sunny spaces, such as my mini greenhouse and the sunlight in my attic.

As you can see, these tiny seedlings have germinated and I currently have about a dozen that I am hoping to grow into fully-fledged plants ready for a summer crop of delicious sweet peppers. 

As a novice growing sweet pepper, I'd be delighted to hear from all of you with experience growing these plants, with the findings and comments turned into a blog post to share that knowledge with the entire London Vegetable Garden community.

Comment in the box below, tweet me @londonveggarden or come and leave a comment on the wall of our Facebook page, Urban Gardeners!

I look forward to hearing from you all!

Chelsea Flower Show Book Competition: Results!

Back in the middle of April, I reviewed the fantastic new book, 'RHS Chelsea Flower Show: A Centenary Celebration'.  As well as an exclusive 20% discount for readers of the London Vegetable Garden, I was also offering one reader the chance to win a copy of this fascinating book.

To win this book, I asked entrants to comment on the Facebook photograph and tell us what gardening means to them.  In the end, there was only one clear winner: congratulations Sandra Laing!

Sandra's comment was beautiful, heartfelt and, I feel, really sums up the spirit of gardening:

“My father in law was a professional gardener and my dad was a passionate amateur horticulturist.  I loved them both dearly and sadly both are now deceased but when I am in my garden or on my allotment I feel so close to them both.

I like to imagine them standing shoulder to shoulder watching their daughter planting and weeding and knowing they would be nodding in approval or tut tutting as I plant something in the wrong way or place, like my loganberry I planted last year with no support and so it grew all over my allotment on the ground!

Gardening makes me feel connected to the earth and eternally grateful for the provision that Mother Nature provides for us.  It is the most natural occupation for a human, to have dirt under our nails and a big smile on our face and peace in our souls.”

What a wonderful, wonderful statement of what gardening means.  Congratulations Sandra – your book is winging its way to you.  Enjoy!