Wild garlic season starts in late winter and lasts until the end of spring. With a lighter flavour to traditional bulb garlic, it is a wonderfully versatile ingredient best picked in early April.

Each migratory bird species carves out its own unique niche in the ecosystem, relying on a fine balance of food, shelter and nesting habitat to survive. This makes them exceptionally vulnerable to influences from outside. Local reserves for nature, such as the Thyme water meadows, offer valuable sanctuary for migratory birds to make home.

Late winter is a crucially important time to prune, as we welcome in spring. Pruning is an integral part of maintaining and preparing our gardens for the new season. Our Head gardener Janine gives us her top winter tips.

Cut off by floodwater, thick hedgerows and the fast-flowing river, the water meadows at Southrop form the perfect haven for wildlife in winter, where rich grasslands, flooded ponds and berry-laden bushes are found, hidden away from human disturbance.

Pumpkins are the classic winter ingredient. Seen on menus across the country, the are fabulous in soups, simply roasted atop polenta, or pickled and served with cheeses, pates and rillettes. We have so many come out of the garden, from butternut and onion squash, to the big blue skinned crown princes. They store well through the winter and we put them to good use throughout the colder months.

We are delighted to be welcoming Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall to Thyme in November, to host a panel discussion exploring the importance of soil health and its vital role in our ecosystem, while discussing what we need to do in order to secure its future. Hugh will be joined by The Land Gardeners, chef Lulu Cox and artist Nancy Cadogan to hear about their acclaimed new book, Soil to Table, exploring the link between the health of our soils and what we eat.

Here, we sit down with Hugh to hear about his new book, River Cottage Good Comforts, and learn a little more about his thoughts on current food issues and the importance of education in guiding people to healthier eating.

Planted in late 2016 and early 2017 our orchards frame the arrival at Thyme. They sit behind estate fencing that separates the orchard form the fields with a thorny edible hedgerow also planted at the same time.

For two decades, since the publication of her first book, ‘The Cutting Garden’, Sarah has led the way in introducing a new kind of productive gardening. Her aim, to create intense colour and beauty combined with a practical and easy to achieve approach. Her love of gardening extends to all areas, from growing cut flowers and delicious vegetables from seed, to designing gardens packed full of incredible colour and scent every season.

Few animals have such a strong link with the water meadows at Thyme as the Barn Owl. Present all year around but only fleetingly seen or heard at dawn and dusk when they’re travelling to and from their roosting spots inside tree trunk hollows or the artificial nest boxes provided for them. It has been an unalloyed privilege to spend time in the meadows over the last few years and to regularly see the owls hunting over the rough grassland, quartering up and down the lengths of the fields, hovering momentarily with their head turned towards the earth, before dropping silently onto their unsuspecting prey.

The month of July brings with it colour, sunshine and gloriously long, golden days. We are also feeling the heat and with temperatures soaring making work in the garden challenging, early morning starts are the order of the day. There is something very special about the first few hours of the day.

Orchids are one of the largest families of flowering plants and are the national flower of many exotic places, from Costa Rica to Guatemala, Singapore to Assam. Their glamorous blooms are brightly coloured and very long living, with bilateral symmetry and a highly modified petal called the labellum or ‘lip.’ The many different varieties are instantly recognisable as an orchid.

As high summer approaches and the days are warm and long, we can feel midsummer on the horizon. The summer solstice is on the 21st of June, the day when the northern hemisphere is bathed in more sunlight than any other day of the year with the sun highest in the sky. It is the first day of astronomical summer and one for celebration.

My dad didn't cut the lawn - or at least not often - he let it grow until it was knee-high and the neighbours muttered. Admittedly, my dad isn't much of a gardener and the lack of lawn-mowing was mostly because he never quite got around to it.

Searching in the attic last summer for a lost suitcase, we were struck by a distinct sweet perfume that filled the air of the very dusty 17th century roof space.

Although the mornings are still cold, the wind has shifted to blow from the south bringing with it a wave of migratory birds that have been spending the winter in southern Europe or across the Sahara in West Africa.