Author: Steve Ott

Steve Ott is editor of Kitchen Garden magazine and started his career as a professional grower, producing everything from cut flowers to vegetables. He has been growing fruit and veg all his life and spends most of his spare time in his garden in the East Midlands. He loves to experiment with crops and varieties he has never grown before and when he isn’t gardening is to be found out in the countryside bird watching and walking his dog Ted.

Real Men Sow (and write about it)

Blog, Features
Blog reveals veggy goings on in Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex If you could use some inspiration for the coming season, take a look at Real Men Sow, ‘a cheery allotment blog’ chronicling author Jono’s adventures in veg growing. “Taking on an allotment has actually been the best thing I’ve ever done,” he says. “A steady stream of incredibly tasty fruit and veg…
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Growing your own couldn’t be simpler!

Advertising Features, Reviews, Tips and Advice
NEW Miracle-Gro Gro-ables Seeds Pods makes growing easy! ADVERTISING FEATURE: Why grow your own vegetables? Well, there’s the practical advantage that growing your own vegetables is often cheaper than shop-bought produce, but for most of us the real benefits are far greater than this. Anyone that has had a go at growing their own will tell you about the delicious…
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Growathon Under Starter's Orders

Growathon Under Starter’s Orders

News
New initiative aims to get young Londoners growing A new initiative has been launched by the Food Growing Schools: London partnership with the aim of encouraging 10,000 London students to grow their own food this year. The new Growathon website enables schools, students and growing organisations to share their food-growing activities on the Growathon Carrot Totaliser and watch as the…
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15-year offers from Plants With Purpose

15-year offers from Plants With Purpose

News
Plants with Purpose, which specialises in unusual edibles and forest garden plants, is celebrating 15 years of growing Plants with Purpose, which specialises in unusual edibles and forest garden plants, is celebrating 15 years of growing. Its 2016 catalogue is just out, with a selection of bonus offers for anyone who buys 15 plants in either 7cm or one-litre pots.…
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Pea Sprout & Parsley Risotto

Pea Sprout & Parsley Risotto

Recipes
Try this simple recipe using your own home-grown pea sprouts at any time of year! Pea sprouts – expensively available from the better supermarkets – are extremely easy to grow; just sow the seed thickly in a tray, put it on a sunny windowsill, keep it watered, and harvest the sprouts with scissors two weeks later. Cut them just above…
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Sprouting Seed Packets

Sprouting Seed Packets

Reviews
Old seeds prove they are not past their sow by date Suffolk seedsman Mr Fothergill’s prides itself on the quality of its seeds – though not, normally, to the extent of running germination trials on unopened, out-of-date packets. Perhaps it should: an eagle-eyed member of staff recently noticed that amongst a few out-of-date and slightly damaged-by-damp packets of sweet pea…
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New Microgreens To Try

New Microgreens To Try

Reviews
 The selection of fast-growing microgreens just got even bigger with these new introductions for 2016 If your forward planning for spring 2016 wasn’t all it might have been, seedling salad crops offer a quick way of closing the ‘hungry gap’. Alongside the wide range of leaf crops that you can grow as microgreens, there are some intriguing new contenders to…
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Grow Heathrow Celebrates Sixth Anniversary

Grow Heathrow Celebrates Sixth Anniversary

News
The squatted community garden in Sipson, West London celebrates it’s sixth anniversary over the weekend of March 4-6 Grow Heathrow, the squatted community garden in Sipson, West London, which occupies land threatened by plans for a third airport runway, was under imminent threat of eviction when we featured the project in KG last April. As we went to press with…
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Keep Nest Boxes Simple

Keep Nest Boxes Simple

News
Wildlife charity warns against novelty nest boxes for garden birds If you’re planning to put up a nest box in time for the bird breeding season, the RSPB has a message for you: please keep it simple. A basic wooden box is a much better bet than some of the novelty boxes currently on the market; the RSPB has spotted…
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Cherry Blossom Ice Cream

Blog, Recipes
There are few sights more cheering than the first blossom of Spring. Lucy Burton shares her tips for baking with these delicate flowers March brings with it the start of Spring, the end of Lent, and a glimmer of warmer days to come. Few sights herald the demise of winter more beautifully than pearly pink cherry blossom, which is in…
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