Take a look at some of my favourites below, you can see more on our Facebook page here.  We’d love to know what you think, let us know which ones you like best and what you think of our new colour slate too!

Boot Scraper

Beehive Composter

Large Clay Jug

Clay Pet Bins

Hedgehog House

Slate Fireside Accessories

Number Canisters

We hope you are enjoying the lovely weather we have been having and that you have had a chance to get out in the garden! As a way to celebrate the summer we are holding a Summer Sale where we are offering 25% off selected products. Here is a taster of some of the products we have on offer. Visit our Summer Offers category for all of our discounted products.

Whitstable BBQ Now £15.75 (was £21.00)

They laughed when we suggested the Whitstable BBQ in a bucket but years later it is still one of our bestsellers. Inspired by stories of local fisherman who would heat some of their catch cooked over coals in a scuttle; the Bucket BBQ was born.

Set of 3 Climbers Coffee Bean Now £62.00 (was £78.00)

Sleek and stylish set of 3 climbers finished in coffee bean.

Elysees Bench Apple Green Now £200.00 (was £225.00)

Our Élysées Bench is inspired by the most prestigious avenue in Paris. Sure to be a winner, we think that our design really captures the effortless elegance of the famous street that’s renowned for it’s beauty and style.

Four Tier Herb Pot Stand Now £50.00 (was £60.00)

Included with this 4 Tier Herb Pot Stand are the 12 galvanised pots, so you have everything you need to create an instant herb garden for your kitchen.

Photo Competition

We had lots of gorgeous entries into our photo competition, and after much deliberation we have chosen this lovely shot of our potting bench being used in the bathroom by Sarah Barrington.

Our MD Jon Holloway chose this shot because it illustrated how lots of our products can be used in ways that you may not expect!

Small Potting Bench

“Please find attached a photo of your potting bench looking rather lovely in my bathroom!  I searched high and low for a reasonably priced free standing unit for the bathroom to find that unfortunately white laminated MDF reigns supreme in this area.  I was delighted when I spotted your potting bench which not only looks great, but is practical too with its zinc top and useful shelf.”

Congratulations to Sarah who will be receiving one of our lovely Four Tier Herb Pot Stands and £100 Garden Trading Gift Voucher.  We would like to say thank you very much to everyone who was kind enough to share their photos with us – check your inbox later today for a special offer for every entrant.

You can view the other entries here http://blog.gardentrading.co.uk/fan-photos/

By our guest blogger – Joanna from At Home with Mrs M

Harvest Time

We’re well into June now and I don’t know about anyone else but I am starting to harvest some of my early crops and reap the benefits of all the hard work I put in back in March and April.  The first item that was ready for the eating was my radish, quickly followed by spinach, which you can see here in my Garden Trading Wicker Trug

Garden Trading Wicker Trug

Yes, whilst I like to be as practical as possible I also like to have nice things around me and this trug is very pretty as well as being the perfect size to take into the vegetable garden with me when I want to go and pull a few plants out of the beds.  In a few weeks however I will be digging out the first of the salad potatoes and for that I think we’ll need something a bit sturdier like this bucket.

Garden Trading Vegetable Bucket

Storing potatoes carefully is very important if you don’t want your produce to go to waste.  If you are not careful your potatoes will start to sprout or shrivel and you don’t want that after you are loved and nurtured them for months.  My three top tips for storing your spuds would be;

1. It’s not necessary to rinse your potatoes before you store them; in fact it’s better if you don’t as dampness can cause decay.
2. Keep them in a cool, dark place – never in the refrigerator as this turns the starch into sugar making them sweet. Do not keep potatoes in direct light, as they will turn green.
3. Store potatoes in a basket (see below), hessian bag or paper bag. Only use a plastic bag if it has holes in it – the potatoes need to breathe.

Garden Trading Potato Basket

When you’ve harvested your first crop of new potatoes why not make a lovely potato salad to serve up with a BBQ?  There are many, many recipes out there that you can use for this dish but here is my favourite.

New Potato Salad

Ingredients

500g new potatoes, washed and halved

1 tbsp half fat crème fraiche

1 tbsp mayonnaise

1 red onion, finely chopped

1 tsp lemon juice

2 tbsp freshly chopped chives

Salt and pepper, to taste

Method

Place the potatoes in a pan of lightly salted boiling water and cover.  Simmer for 15 minutes or until tender.  Drain the potatoes and allow to cool.

Mix the remaining ingredients together in a large bowl and carefully stir in the potatoes.  Season to taste as required.

Potato Salad

You can view Joanna’s blog that’s full of lovely things at http://athomewithmrsm.blogspot.com/

There is nothing we love more than when our customers send us their own photos of our products in use, but we’d love to have more! If you email us your pictures before the end of June then we will choose our favourite and give the sender a fantastic prize.

All you need to do to enter our competition to win a £100 Garden Trading voucher and one of our lovely Four Tier Wooden Herb Pot Stands is to email us your pictures – making sure you tell us what you love about your chosen product and your full name. The winning photo will be used as a banner on our website too!

Terms – Please email your high-res image in jpg, jpeg or gif format, along with a few words about why it is your favourite Garden Trading product. You can send as many pictures as you like, but please send them on seperate emails. Email to enquiries@gardentrading.co.uk before the 30th of June 2010. Please include your full name and the county you live in. After the competition has closed our MD Jon Holloway will choose his favourite picture, and the winner will receive a £100 gift voucher for our website and a Four Tier Herb Pot Stand worth £60. By entering you agree that we can use your photo and your name on our website and blog. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us on 0845 608 4448.

We love it when new stock arrives – and we are especially excited to have some brand new designs of pendant light arriving in soon – as they are so new they weren’t even featured in our Spring/Summer catalogue!

Meriden Pendant Light - Slate

Our fantastic Meriden Pendants lights have already proved really popular in the clay finish, so we have expanded the range and added in two beautiful new colours – white and slate.

Meriden Pendant Light - White

The slate is a stunning dark grey colour with blue tones, and the white is a bright and clean finish that will suit any interior whether contemporary or traditional.

The Meriden Lights come with aluminium casting and we feel they are reminiscent of the successful industrial era of the 60′s.  The Clay is in stock now and the Slate and White are due in next week and available to pre-order now at £85 each.

Rise and Fall Harrow Pendant

These brand new Rise and Fall Harrow Pendant Lights are the result of many requests over the years from customers who love our existing lights, but were looking for some with an adjustable drop.

These stylish pendant lights will look wonderful lined up over a kitchen counter or a dining table.

Create different moods of lighting and have the practicality of being able to adjust the height.

They are not due in until the end of July – but if you’d like to put your order in for one now then we are very happy for you to do so!

Rennes Ceramic Lights - Coming Soon

We’ve also got these gorgeous Rennes Ceramic Pendant Lights coming in July – keep an eye on the website for more information to come soon.

- Kayleigh

Fayence Folding Furniture

Vogue magazine have chosen two of our candle lanterns in their June issue as part of a feature on ‘blistering barbecues’ -and with the weather hotting up we have plenty of pretty accessories to make your garden a wonderful and inviting place for guests.  Our simple and stylish Fayence Furniture has arrived in the stunning bright white option – so you can make sure every guest has a seat.

Holham Bucket BBQ

As soon as the sun comes out that is the only excuse we need to invite everyone round for a barbeque – and it couldn’t be easier to get the party started with our portable bucket BBQ.   The galvanised metal pit has large air holes to allow for maximum circulation through the charcoal, an even burn and less ‘flare-ups’. Once the food is finished family and friends can sit around the glowing embers way into the night.

‘BARBIE DOLL’

‘Preparing the garden for guests can be a matter of 10 minutes at your computer.  First stop, lighting.  Order chain lights from TLCdirect.co.uk, glass candle-holders from Garden Trading at Notonthehighstreet.com and pretty bamboo lamps from Gardentrading.co.uk. Tidy up your plants with beautiful rusted iron plant supports from Leanderplant.co.uk…’

Vogue - June Issue

'Blistering Barbecues'

Hanging Bamboo Lantern - £25

Our stylish and rustic bamboo hanging lanterns come in two sizes, and we also stock spike bamboo lanterns that poke into the ground so are excellent for lining pathways or driveways at parties, or for highlighting certain areas of your garden.

The hanging lanterns are handcrafted from natural materials and perfect for lighting pathways, or hanging from trees at parties and in the garden.

For use with tea lights or small pillar candles.  Made of bamboo, with a glass candle holder inside.

Click here to see our simple glass votives – perfect for pretty lighting indoor or out

Bamboo Parasol and Stand

Let’s hope the weather is lovely this weekend and we can all get out into our gardens and start enjoying some sunshine!  If it gets too sunny for you (not likely, I know) – then our new and exclusive bamboo lanterns look stunning in any setting (my favourite is the green!)

Spring is finally here, and whether you’re lucky enough to own a Wall Mounted Herb Rack or you have a few pots on the patio or windowsill to fill, it’s time to think about getting this year’s herb garden underway.

Wall Mounted Herb Rack

Choosing your herbs

If you’re new to herb gardening then there are a couple of things you need to bear in mind when you’re choosing which herbs to grow. The first is which ones you use most in your cooking – although it’s fun to experiment with new plants, if you want to really use your herbs then plant your favourites!

It’s also important to know whether your chosen herbs are annuals (for which you need new plants each spring) or perennials (which grow for many years, but need extra care) and whether they like a lot of sun or a lot of water, or both.

Where to grow them

If you have a sunny spot for your herbs then you can grow kitchen favourites such as rosemary, thyme and oregano. These three revel in sunlight and can cope with drier soil as they are adapted to the Mediterranean climate. Let the compost dry out between waterings and be sparing with the plant feed as overly lush growth won’t pack the flavour punch you’re looking for. All of these are perennial herbs, so if you buy a small plant this year it will grow for many years to come, although it will need repotting into a larger container in a couple of years when it starts to look cramped.  This herb pot stand is excellent for positioning in a sheltered, sunny spot of your courtyard or patio.

Four Tier Herb Pot Stand

Another sun-lover is basil, but it’s different because it’s an annual herb and also because it enjoys plenty of water. You can sow basil from seed in the spring (but it’s tender, so don’t put the plants outside until the risk of frost has passed), buy a plant from the garden centre or simply pot up one that you’ve bought from the supermarket.  Garden Trading’s Pots on Tray are perfect for this and come in 4 lovely colours.

Pots on Tray - Cream

Shade-loving herbs

Many of the leafier herbs thrive in a shadier place. Mint is a fast-growing perennial and comes in lots of different varieties – peppermint and spearmint are the most familiar, and are hardy enough to live outside all year round. Some of the more exotic mints won’t survive a frost, but you can bring them inside for the winter. Mint doesn’t like out-growing its container and so you’ll need to give it a bigger pot each year (in spring or autumn). You can divide a mature mint plant, which is simply a matter of prizing the roots apart into smaller sections – each section will grow into a new plant. It seems brutal, but the plant will survive! Never plant mint in a pot with other herbs as it rapidly takes over.

Indoor herbs

Parsley and coriander are two annual herbs that are very useful in the kitchen. Again, you can grow them from seed or by plants and pot those up. Parsley seed is notoriously slow to germinate, so it’s easier to keep the seeds indoors where you can keep an eye on them. Both of these plants appreciate generous watering, so try not to let them dry out.  You can make life really easy for yourself and buy the parsley seeds complete with a herb pot from Garden Trading.

'Grow Your Own' Parsley Pot

Harvest regularly

All herbs benefit from regular harvesting, which stops them from becoming straggly and from flowering. Coriander can flower while your back is turned, which makes the leaves bitter, so when it flowers it’s best to replace the plant with a fresh one, but you can also allow the plant to flower and collect coriander seed to flavour your curries!

Garden Trading have also just added this great Herb Garden Grow It kit into their range, with a variety of seeds including basil, parsley, thyme, and rosemary – everything else you need to get you off to a flying start growing herbs.

Grow It: Herb Garden

Emma Cooper is a freelance garden writer living in Oxfordshire with her husband and two pet chickens. You can read her garden diary and listen to The Alternative Kitchen Garden Show online at http://coopette.com. Her first book, ‘The Alternative Kitchen Garden: An A to Z’ was published by Permanent Publications in August 2009.

Alternative Kitchen Garden

So you’ll need:

300g dark 70% cocoa chocolate

5 eggs, at room temperature

175g unsalted butter

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

4 teaspoons low-calorie sweetener

6 tablespoons thick double cream

Blueberries/strawberries to decorate

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC and line a 23cm (9″) cake tin with greaseproof paper, making sure you include the sides.

I used a cake tin liner

2. Put the chocolate and butter in a large glass bowl and melt gently by sitting on a saucepan of hot water, stirring until smooth

Melt butter & chocolate in a bowl

3. Remove the bowl from the saucepan and add the vanilla extract

4. Beat the eggs, cream and sweetener together for 3-4 minutes (it will stay runny) then fold into the chocolate mixture.  Pour into the tin and cook for 45 minutes (less if you have a fan oven) or until the top forms a crust.

5. Allow the cake to cool and then loosen it from the tin.

6. Turn out the cake onto a serving plate

Topside up (looked a bit 'tanned')

7. Top with some fruits and serve with extra cream if you like (I did – lots of it)

Strawberries are yummy

Lovely cream

If you didn’t want to have cream then you could just dust with sweetener or icing sugar to finish.

Au revoir!

p.s. nearly forgot to mention that you can buy the bowls in my pics from (you guessed it) Garden Trading – click here to see them

With the lighter evenings, crocuses and snowdrop flowers opening with every burst of sunshine, we are all hoping that all the cold weather has vanished and that Spring has finally sprung! This would be a good time to wrap up warm and get out into your garden, there’s plenty of jobs you could be doing now to get your garden ready for Summer.

Flower Beds and Borders

1. Check on the condition of your flower beds and borders
   Look at your whole bed or border and see what you could improve, think of design features that could add height or interest in your garden or check where you could make space for new plants or shrubs.
2. Maintenance
   Your beds and borders have been left to their own devises over the winter which means weeds have invaded, plants have spread, leaves and dead twigs may be hiding under shrubs. Use a hand fork and trowel to ease out weeds to help your established plants have space to grow.
   Why not treat yourself to a new sturdy stainless steel Hand Fork and Trowel Set with ash handles to ease yourself into the weeding season.


Garden Trading Tools in Bag

3. Mulching and Plant Food
   To keep your beds in tip-top condition, add nutrients after weeding. The soil can be raked or loosened with a fork (taking care around your spring bulbs) and dig in compost or well-rotted manure, then top dress the soil around shrubs and plants with a multi-purpose balanced plant food to give your plants a boost.
4. Sow Hardy Annual Flower Seeds
   When the soil has warmed up, sow hardy annuals in drills or scatter seeds over well prepared soil, cover with soil and water well. Hardy Annuals like alyssum, calendula, centaurea, cosmos, helianthus and larkspur can be sown from March.
   Sweet Pea’s can be sown in pots and planted out or sown direct at the foot of a support pole or frame – try this Set of 3 Willow Maypole Supports to give your garden design some height and a rustic cottage garden style.


Set of 3 Willow Maypoles

5. Plant Summer Bulbs
   Summer Bulbs like alliums, agapanthus, gladioli and cannas can also be planted in pots or beds  (Top Tip: if your soil is prone to waterlogging, add coarse grit to your planting hole) and any excess bulbs can be stored in this sturdy but stylish Bulbs and Seed Box.


Bulb and Seed Box

Potting Shed or Garage

1. Clearing Clutter
   Before the growing season gets going, take this opportunity to clear space in your shed or garage so you’ll be ready to pot up plants, sow seeds or take cuttings.
2. Garden Tools
   Organise your tools with this handy Tool Hook Rail, a simple idea that will tidy up clutter and safety store your tools.
   

   Tool Hook Rail

3. Seed Packets
   It is a good idea to sort through your flower and vegetable seeds and check the sow by dates on the packets. Any seeds that you don’t need anymore can be given to friends, family, neighbours or can be swapped online or at a local seed swapping event. Your remaining seed packets can be stored safely in a small or large Seed Box available in Apple Green,  Coffee or String from Garden Trading.
   

   Large Seed Box

4. Cleaning Pots
   Wash old plastic pots and dry before storing and check the condition of seed trays and cells.
5. Storage
   Collect together all your potting tools, string, pots, dibber, plant labels and store them together in one place for piece of mind and organisation. This rustic Tall Wooden Shelf is a fantastic storage unit with individual compartments to label and organise your tools and garden accessories which will give you more time to concentrate on your sowing!
   

   Tall Wall Unit