Walnut Kitchen Garden

A blog about an ornamental walled kitchen garden makeover

Walnut Kitchen Garden
  • Intro
    • From lawn to kitchen garden
    • My Story
    • Welcome to my gardening blog
    • Remembering my Gardening Hero (Dad)
  • The Garden
    • Gardening Therapy
      • Gardening for your mental health
      • Gardening through a pandemic – Part 1 Spring
      • Gardening through a pandemic – Part 2 Summertime
      • Gardening through a pandemic – Part 3 Autumn
      • Gardening through a pandemic – Part 4 Winter
      • Gardening through a pandemic – Part 5 Spring 2021
    • Grow your own
      • Produce coming out of my ears!
      • The Kitchen Garden Produce is Ramping up!
      • Disaster in the Greenhouse
      • How to Grow Potatoes in a Container
      • Tomatoes in November!
      • 2022 – A Bumper Apple Season
      • Food from Flowers – With help from our little friends
      • Our Cherry Tree – It’s the cherry on the cake!
      • Now for something completely different – The Purple Potato Project
      • What’s growing in the kitchen garden 
      • The Greenhouse – My Happy Place
      • Growing Tomatoes from seed – Now is the time!
      • Growing Potatoes
      • Crop Rotation
      • Beans – French, Runner & Borlotti
      • Tomatoes – My first crop
      • Time to bring the chillies in!
      • Out with the Brussels, in with the beetroot
    • Present Day
      • Cosmos – Lost and Found
      • Dierama Plants – Fussy, but worth the trouble!
      • The First Week of July
      • Sentimental Plants – Plants that remind you of others
      • Last week of May
      • Rhododendrons and Azaleas
      • A Red, White & Blue Theme to celebrate the Coronation of King Charles lll
      • Dancing Under Falling Tree Blossom
      • Happy Easter from Walnut Kitchen Garden
      • It’s all go in the garden – Spring has Sprung!
      • Time to chop down Karl Foerster
      • So we did get snow this week!
      • Just as the garden is waking up from its winter slumber…
      • Pulmonaria – Perfect plant for a shady border
      • Demolition in the Garden
      • Another Late Holly Chop
      • First snow of the year – No Gardening this week!
      • The Garden Nurtures the sole
      • New years resolution? Get rid of the weeds!
      • Happy New Year 2023
      • Christmas Tree Celebration
      • Frosty Week – A Winter Wonderland
      • Time to put things to bed in the Winter Greenhouse
      • Gardening with Cats – The Original Stars of Gardeners World
      • Chilli Explosion
      • Heatwave – Monsoon. How the Flowers coped
      • The Big Lavender Chop
      • Wildflowers – My New Border
      • Mid-summer – Full Borders and lots to Harvest
      • Gardening in a Heatwave – Too much Watering!
      • Growing Dahlias – Why have I never grown Dahlias before?
      • Am I turning into a Flower Arranger?
      • Longest Day, Midsummer’s Day & Summer Solstice
      • Jubilee Garden Celebration
      • The Madness of May!
      • Sciatica Makes For A Frustrated Gardener!
      • Catching-Up With The White Garden – Part 2
      • Catching-up with the White Garden – Part 1
      • Muscari
      • Snakes Head Fritillary – ‘Fritillaria meleagris’
      • Early Spring 2022 – Let’s get back to the flowers!
      • Happy Birthday Walnut Kitchen Garden
      • Crocus – The First Vibrant Colour Of The Year
      • Discovering the Beauty of Hellebores
      • Snowdrops
      • When’s the most exciting time in the garden?
      • The Annual Holly Hedge Trim
      • Snow in the Garden. Love it or loathe it?
      • Making Compost
      • Gardening highlights of 2021
      • Late Autumn in the Garden – The big tidy-up
      • Early Autumn in the garden – Harvests, flowers & sunshine
      • Finally Growing Angelica ‘Gigas’
      • The Joys of June
      • Snowing in June?
      • Tulip’s – Rain stopped play!
      • Snow in April!
      • Springtime. The gardens bursting into colour!
    • Transformation
      • The Pizza & Olive Patios
      • Making a Mediterranean Bed
      • Planting the Magnolia border
      • Digging up the lawn
      • Creating a Woodland border
      • Creating the Pathways
      • Gardening on an Ice-Age Glacier
      • The White garden
      • Dreaming of a pond
      • The Fruit trees
      • Greenhouse – take two
      • The Holly and The Ivy
      • The Majestic Walnut Tree
      • Bamboo and Hosta raised beds
      • Creating a walled garden from scratch – The Great Wall
      • Creating a walled garden from scratch – The Shady Wall
      • Lady bricklayer ?
      • Building the raised vegetable beds
      • New garden, new cat!
      • Let’s get stuck into the garden makeover!
    • Weekly Garden Diary
      • Garden Diary – The white borders turned into a white garden!
      • Garden Diary – Beautiful sunsets & blue skies calling!
      • Garden Diary – A week of Remembrance & feeling grateful
      • Garden Diary – Halloween spiders & goodbye Tomatoes
      • Garden Diary – Say goodbye to the lighter nights!
      • Garden Diary – Pink for Girls? Not for this little girl!
      • Garden Diary – Another bizarre weather week
      • Garden Diary – A Week of Highs and Lows
      • Garden Diary – Rain, rain go away, we must be due a sunny day?
      • Garden Diary – Started in the pink, ended with thunder bolts!
      • Garden Diary – Two new Cat Faces in the garden!
      • Garden Diary – Finger Licking Raspberries hands, wave goodbye to the Rhubarb
      • Garden Diary – Tomato bonanza, there’s even enough for soup!
      • Garden Diary – Alfresco cooking with aliens lurking
      • Garden Diary – Insects and harvests
      • Garden Diary – Blue skies at last – but dragons on the horizon!
      • Garden Diary – All the B’s, Bees, Butterflies & Blueberry cake
      • Garden Diary – Figs, Blueberries & Tomatoes, not necessarily together!
      • Garden Diary – Rain, rain, the produce is liking it, but the bees are not!
      • Garden Diary – The Bounty begins and a Moth rescue!
      • Garden Diary – Let’s get you up to date!
    • Wildlife
      • My Wildlife Pond – Dragonflies, Frogs & so much more!
      • The garden is full of life
      • The Frogs have spawned at last – But there’s a problem!
      • The Geese are back in town! – Autumn is around the corner!
      • Hurrah, hurrah, it’s Damselfly Day!
      • The Frogs have Spawned!
      • Outdoor Wildlife Camera
      • Rare White Sparrow
      • Wildlife Finds the Pond
      • Ladybird plague? Hopefully not quite that many!
      • The bees are back in abundance
  • Outings
    • Carpet of Snowdrops at St. Mary’s Coddington
    • Christmas Tree Festival
    • Garden Visits
      • Visiting the Gardens at Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons – Part 1
      • Visiting the Gardens at Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons. Part 2 – Ponds, Herbs, & Saving Our Heritage
      • Visiting the Gardens at Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons. Part 3 – Polytunnels, Compost, The Orchard & Tasting
      • Hodnet Hall Gardens
      • Wollerton Old Hall Garden
      • Dorothy Clive Garden
    • Garden Shows
      • RHS Chelsea Flower Show
        • Visit to The RHS Chelsea flower show 2021 – Part 1
        • RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2021 Part 2 – The Great Pavilion
        • RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2021 Part 3 – Smaller Gardens & Shopping!
  • Reviews
    • Gardeners World, an inspiration!
  • Contact
  • Recipes
    • Fragrant Summer Bean Curry
    • Salmon Pasta with Broad Beans, Soy & Honey
    • Stewed Rhubarb & Yogurt – Breakfast of Gods!
    • Rhubarb Fool – A speedy pudd when unexpected guests turn up
    • Bramley Apple & Calvados Cake
    • Polly’s Simple, Mild Chilli Sauce
    • Super, Simple, Hot Habanero Chilli Sauce
    • Pear & Raspberry Cake – Gluten Free
    • Courgette & Cauliflower Cheese Vegetable Lasagne – You’ll never want a meat one again!
    • Tomato Sauce – A Very Simple Recipe
    • Simply Delicious Cauliflower Cheese – Recipe
    • Brandywine Tomato Salad – It’s too easy to be so delicious!
    • How to Pickle Gherkins – The quick & easy way
    • Cherry and Courgette Cake
    • Super Simple Bean Salad with Mint & Thyme dressing
    • Easy, Purple Sprouting Broccoli Soup
  • Intro
    • From lawn to kitchen garden
    • My Story
    • Welcome to my gardening blog
    • Remembering my Gardening Hero (Dad)
  • The Garden
    • Gardening Therapy
      • Gardening for your mental health
      • Gardening through a pandemic – Part 1 Spring
      • Gardening through a pandemic – Part 2 Summertime
      • Gardening through a pandemic – Part 3 Autumn
      • Gardening through a pandemic – Part 4 Winter
      • Gardening through a pandemic – Part 5 Spring 2021
    • Grow your own
      • Produce coming out of my ears!
      • The Kitchen Garden Produce is Ramping up!
      • Disaster in the Greenhouse
      • How to Grow Potatoes in a Container
      • Tomatoes in November!
      • 2022 – A Bumper Apple Season
      • Food from Flowers – With help from our little friends
      • Our Cherry Tree – It’s the cherry on the cake!
      • Now for something completely different – The Purple Potato Project
      • What’s growing in the kitchen garden 
      • The Greenhouse – My Happy Place
      • Growing Tomatoes from seed – Now is the time!
      • Growing Potatoes
      • Crop Rotation
      • Beans – French, Runner & Borlotti
      • Tomatoes – My first crop
      • Time to bring the chillies in!
      • Out with the Brussels, in with the beetroot
    • Present Day
      • Cosmos – Lost and Found
      • Dierama Plants – Fussy, but worth the trouble!
      • The First Week of July
      • Sentimental Plants – Plants that remind you of others
      • Last week of May
      • Rhododendrons and Azaleas
      • A Red, White & Blue Theme to celebrate the Coronation of King Charles lll
      • Dancing Under Falling Tree Blossom
      • Happy Easter from Walnut Kitchen Garden
      • It’s all go in the garden – Spring has Sprung!
      • Time to chop down Karl Foerster
      • So we did get snow this week!
      • Just as the garden is waking up from its winter slumber…
      • Pulmonaria – Perfect plant for a shady border
      • Demolition in the Garden
      • Another Late Holly Chop
      • First snow of the year – No Gardening this week!
      • The Garden Nurtures the sole
      • New years resolution? Get rid of the weeds!
      • Happy New Year 2023
      • Christmas Tree Celebration
      • Frosty Week – A Winter Wonderland
      • Time to put things to bed in the Winter Greenhouse
      • Gardening with Cats – The Original Stars of Gardeners World
      • Chilli Explosion
      • Heatwave – Monsoon. How the Flowers coped
      • The Big Lavender Chop
      • Wildflowers – My New Border
      • Mid-summer – Full Borders and lots to Harvest
      • Gardening in a Heatwave – Too much Watering!
      • Growing Dahlias – Why have I never grown Dahlias before?
      • Am I turning into a Flower Arranger?
      • Longest Day, Midsummer’s Day & Summer Solstice
      • Jubilee Garden Celebration
      • The Madness of May!
      • Sciatica Makes For A Frustrated Gardener!
      • Catching-Up With The White Garden – Part 2
      • Catching-up with the White Garden – Part 1
      • Muscari
      • Snakes Head Fritillary – ‘Fritillaria meleagris’
      • Early Spring 2022 – Let’s get back to the flowers!
      • Happy Birthday Walnut Kitchen Garden
      • Crocus – The First Vibrant Colour Of The Year
      • Discovering the Beauty of Hellebores
      • Snowdrops
      • When’s the most exciting time in the garden?
      • The Annual Holly Hedge Trim
      • Snow in the Garden. Love it or loathe it?
      • Making Compost
      • Gardening highlights of 2021
      • Late Autumn in the Garden – The big tidy-up
      • Early Autumn in the garden – Harvests, flowers & sunshine
      • Finally Growing Angelica ‘Gigas’
      • The Joys of June
      • Snowing in June?
      • Tulip’s – Rain stopped play!
      • Snow in April!
      • Springtime. The gardens bursting into colour!
    • Transformation
      • The Pizza & Olive Patios
      • Making a Mediterranean Bed
      • Planting the Magnolia border
      • Digging up the lawn
      • Creating a Woodland border
      • Creating the Pathways
      • Gardening on an Ice-Age Glacier
      • The White garden
      • Dreaming of a pond
      • The Fruit trees
      • Greenhouse – take two
      • The Holly and The Ivy
      • The Majestic Walnut Tree
      • Bamboo and Hosta raised beds
      • Creating a walled garden from scratch – The Great Wall
      • Creating a walled garden from scratch – The Shady Wall
      • Lady bricklayer ?
      • Building the raised vegetable beds
      • New garden, new cat!
      • Let’s get stuck into the garden makeover!
    • Weekly Garden Diary
      • Garden Diary – The white borders turned into a white garden!
      • Garden Diary – Beautiful sunsets & blue skies calling!
      • Garden Diary – A week of Remembrance & feeling grateful
      • Garden Diary – Halloween spiders & goodbye Tomatoes
      • Garden Diary – Say goodbye to the lighter nights!
      • Garden Diary – Pink for Girls? Not for this little girl!
      • Garden Diary – Another bizarre weather week
      • Garden Diary – A Week of Highs and Lows
      • Garden Diary – Rain, rain go away, we must be due a sunny day?
      • Garden Diary – Started in the pink, ended with thunder bolts!
      • Garden Diary – Two new Cat Faces in the garden!
      • Garden Diary – Finger Licking Raspberries hands, wave goodbye to the Rhubarb
      • Garden Diary – Tomato bonanza, there’s even enough for soup!
      • Garden Diary – Alfresco cooking with aliens lurking
      • Garden Diary – Insects and harvests
      • Garden Diary – Blue skies at last – but dragons on the horizon!
      • Garden Diary – All the B’s, Bees, Butterflies & Blueberry cake
      • Garden Diary – Figs, Blueberries & Tomatoes, not necessarily together!
      • Garden Diary – Rain, rain, the produce is liking it, but the bees are not!
      • Garden Diary – The Bounty begins and a Moth rescue!
      • Garden Diary – Let’s get you up to date!
    • Wildlife
      • My Wildlife Pond – Dragonflies, Frogs & so much more!
      • The garden is full of life
      • The Frogs have spawned at last – But there’s a problem!
      • The Geese are back in town! – Autumn is around the corner!
      • Hurrah, hurrah, it’s Damselfly Day!
      • The Frogs have Spawned!
      • Outdoor Wildlife Camera
      • Rare White Sparrow
      • Wildlife Finds the Pond
      • Ladybird plague? Hopefully not quite that many!
      • The bees are back in abundance
  • Outings
    • Carpet of Snowdrops at St. Mary’s Coddington
    • Christmas Tree Festival
    • Garden Visits
      • Visiting the Gardens at Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons – Part 1
      • Visiting the Gardens at Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons. Part 2 – Ponds, Herbs, & Saving Our Heritage
      • Visiting the Gardens at Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons. Part 3 – Polytunnels, Compost, The Orchard & Tasting
      • Hodnet Hall Gardens
      • Wollerton Old Hall Garden
      • Dorothy Clive Garden
    • Garden Shows
      • RHS Chelsea Flower Show
        • Visit to The RHS Chelsea flower show 2021 – Part 1
        • RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2021 Part 2 – The Great Pavilion
        • RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2021 Part 3 – Smaller Gardens & Shopping!
  • Reviews
    • Gardeners World, an inspiration!
  • Contact
  • Recipes
    • Fragrant Summer Bean Curry
    • Salmon Pasta with Broad Beans, Soy & Honey
    • Stewed Rhubarb & Yogurt – Breakfast of Gods!
    • Rhubarb Fool – A speedy pudd when unexpected guests turn up
    • Bramley Apple & Calvados Cake
    • Polly’s Simple, Mild Chilli Sauce
    • Super, Simple, Hot Habanero Chilli Sauce
    • Pear & Raspberry Cake – Gluten Free
    • Courgette & Cauliflower Cheese Vegetable Lasagne – You’ll never want a meat one again!
    • Tomato Sauce – A Very Simple Recipe
    • Simply Delicious Cauliflower Cheese – Recipe
    • Brandywine Tomato Salad – It’s too easy to be so delicious!
    • How to Pickle Gherkins – The quick & easy way
    • Cherry and Courgette Cake
    • Super Simple Bean Salad with Mint & Thyme dressing
    • Easy, Purple Sprouting Broccoli Soup
  • A dark pink peony with a bee and a hover fly on it.
    Weekly Garden Diary

    Garden Diary – Bees, Cats, Frogs, Friends & Flowers

    11 June 2025 / 0 Comments

    The first week of June has brought, Busy bees and sleepy cats, berries for breakfast and raindrop covered flowers. New plants and old ones and some spread accidentally between friends. I’m over the moon with the first peony in the garden, although it’s not strictly the first. I bought one a couple of years ago but as it resembled a stick, I accidentally trod on it and that was the end of that! So I made sure I bought this one at the right time of year. I was very impressed with this one from Crocus, both the size and the fact that it already had two buds on. Good…

    read more
    Polly Gardener

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  • Two pink roses of David Austin roses ‘Mary Rose’ www.walnutkitchengarden.com.uk
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    Garden Diary – Wake up & smell the roses

    19 May 2025 / 0 Comments

    I do wake up & smell the coffee first, but then watering has become a daily necessity and so smelling the roses comes a close second. The roses are now in full swing and I feel there are more blooms than usual, which I guess is down to all this marvellous sunshine. Isn’t the weather extraordinary, and not just for the time of year, we would be over the moon with this in mid summer! Although… I’m not keen on watering, firstly it’s quite time consuming and secondly, my primary school did a good, brain washing job on us about not wasting water. We do have water butts, but it’s…

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    15 May 2022
  • A view of the Cheshire plains
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    Garden Diary – Say goodbye to the lighter nights!

    29 October 2024 / 0 Comments

    This is the week that really feels like Autumn is tipping towards winter, as the clocks fall back and we say goodbye to the lighter nights! Despite this we’ve had some gloriously sunny days with fabulous blue skies showing off the still dominating pink flowers in the garden, especially the extra late cosmos dazzler which was backlit on a few occasions. The pink shrub salvia is still covered, the dark pink dahlias are still sending up small blooms and a few Nerine bulbs have finally opened up like pink fireworks. I really thought they must have rotted as they were so late. The sun and skies have also been setting…

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    14 May 2025
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    17 August 2024
  • Catfaced
    Weekly Garden Diary

    Garden Diary – Two new Cat Faces in the garden!

    17 September 2024 / 0 Comments

    I learned something new about mis-shaped tomatoes this week. The larger ones quite often have slightly strange bottoms but one of them had the strangest bottom I’ve ever seen! I posted it on my three social media platforms and just one person came up with the answer. The name for this strange contortion is ‘Catfaced’, which takes me nicely into a new feline friend I made this week. I was minding my own business watering the greenhouse when in strolled a new young cat, with a rather interesting cat face! Back in the greenhouse one of the new varieties I’ve grown this year ‘Indigo Rose’, finally had a single ripe…

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    2 October 2025
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    14 August 2025
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    Garden Diary – A week of Remembrance & feeling grateful

    12 November 2024
  • Gardeners world presenter Adam Frost with ash
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    Gardening with Cats – The Original Stars of Gardeners World

    30 October 2022 / 0 Comments

    Come Outside! The first cat we had would scratch at the back door, we’d open it and he’d just stand there meowing. We’d say are you coming in or not? – because our cats obviously understand English (when it suits them). We’d shut the door and five minutes later we’d have the whole thing again. It took us quite some time to realise that he didn’t want to come in, he wanted us to come out into the garden – because we clearly don’t understand cat talk! He wasn’t really a lap-cat, but he seemed to love us being outside with him. When we were gardening, he was never far…

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    21 August 2022
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    5 December 2021
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  • Transformation

    New garden, new cat!

    28 March 2021 / 2 Comments

    Garden Transformation Part 2 – Story of an orphaned cat When we came to view the property, eight years ago. We knew the minute we saw the garden, that this was the one for us! A blank canvas, big enough for what we had planned. With a long south facing boundary, that I could already imagine fruit growing along. Whilst we were exploring the garden, we saw a cat fast asleep in one of the borders. As it was the next door neighbour showing us around, so we asked who the cat belonged to. The neighbour told us, that sadly the occupant of the house had died, leaving her cat…

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The Majestic Walnut

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