How does your garden grow? This year's successes and failures please

[Terriffids]

I've dabbled in growing vegetables over the years but this year was the first time I went full on. I knew I'd have failures so overall I'm quite happy with the results but would love to hear from others on what grew well this year and what didn't.

For me the best results came from courgettes, potatoes, cucumbers and tomatoes (lots of them but not many going/gone red yet).

Not so good were anything which I sowed the seed direct into the soil - carrots, parsnips, onions, leeks and the beetroot are also looking a bit dodgy.

Those I grew from seed and planted out certainly grew okay but then were eaten by unknown beasties - broccoli, sprouts and sunflowers.

My peas are currently only 2ft tall with about a dozen pods on them and seemed to have stopped growing altogether. The sweet peas grew to about 8ft, flowered and then stopped, despite me deadheading them.

The problem is that I don't know which failures were down to me and which, if any, were down to the odd weather we've had this year.

How did your garden grow?

Our onions have been fantastic. As have the potatoes, beetroot and green beans. The sweetcorn's looking promising.

Failures: late blight destroyed all our tomatoes . Much of the fruit has been a bit lacklustre - low crops of autumn raspberries and bramley apples, especially.

Causing extra excitement here: some mistletoe we seeded a few years back looks like it might be ready to give up a spring or two this year for Christmas!

Ah well. There's always next year

Oh, and or sweet peas have been totally rubbish!

i don't have any veg, but the herb troughs are outstanding, they did really well this year and apart for the sorrel the slugs and snails have left them alone.

Ladies mantle has gone over very quickly, and the foxgloves were very late and I don't think will have time to flower...maybe next year for the new people!

My dog rose is also lovely but it always is! Rambling over the washhouse and enticing in all the bees.

I am really looking forward to see the new garden in the next house, It's a pretty barren courtyard, and I have lots of plans!

I expect area and soil type are relevant to what's worked and what hasn't, as well as the weather.

I'm SE, clay soil, quite exposed.

I've had loads of peas, beetroot. Decent kohlrabi and turnips earlier in the year. Lots of runner beans, courgettes and summer squash. Grew early potatoes in bags and bloody slugs destroyed all the top growth completely, thus the harvest below ground while delicious was disappointingly small.
I have a couple of large winter squash coming along but last year I had far more.
I have lost two varieties of tomatoes to blight, but three left are fine, though later producing fruit than I'd expect. One variety I've lost one plant so far and keeping fingers crossed for the other.

Awful.

Vine weevils and other pests got my runner beans and broccoli. My strawberries all turn mouldy, my sweet peas were eaten by caterpillars and my fruit trees barely bore any fruit (3 on my damson tree!)

No idea why. I spray with insect protector, use netting on my hanging strawberries, cloches, copper wire etc..

I live in the Midlands and I think its just been too wet.

Bindweed is doing very well for me this year.

Squashes and courgettes all munched. Tomatoes got blight. Potatoes did well. As did sweet peas. Have some runner beans flowering now. Not a very rewarding year at the allotment.

On the plus side, my garden has generally done really well, and my cosmos, agastache and gladioli looked amazing.

Best cosmos I've ever grown. Dahlias made an astonishing comeback after slugmageddon in May when it was very wet.
All veg has been a disaster.

Its been a cracking year for massive dandelions.Theyd happily grow on me I think, if I stayed still long enough.

A few years ago I dutifully planted my black currants in a sunny place and they hated it.

I relocated them to a shady part of the garden and they are thriving. I'm wondering if there are different types with some varieties preferring more shade?

Rhubarb is majestic this year and the roses and cosmos have flowered for Britain.

I'm now in the process of buying up the shabby looking perennials (for £1) at my local supermarket. If I can get them in this week they stand a good chance of making it next year.

Tomatoes have been an utter disaster this year due to blight and poor weather, particularly irritating since it’s the first year that I’ve planted them in good time and staked them properly, and dealt with side shoots etc well. So they’re lovely, tall, properly staked and totally inedible.

Berries have all done well. I’ve had some pomegranates (!!). The fig tree seems very happy.

Peas have been good this year but I was slow with succession sowing so they are done.
Lettuce bit of a flop
Corn is very behind
Dahlias absolute failure
Bee area -mallow, borage & wild seed mix-absolutely fantastic.

Oh yes, rhubarb has been amazing this year.

Successes:
Runner beans
Courgettes
Potatoes
French beans
Lettuce
Rhubarb
Pumpkins - best ever by some distance

Failures:
Almost all the fruit - blackcurrants, blackberries, tayberries, strawberries. All hit by late frosts.
Tomatoes - all hit by blight in the wet and windy weather

Apples a mixed bag depending on type and when they blossomed. Almost no cooking apples but the eating ones (which blossom earlier) have done well.

Oh, and using an indoor GrowBox / hydroponics kit for lettuce has been a raging success.

For me one courgette plant has produced more than we can eat for the last 6 weeks or so. The Tumbler tomatoes have also been successful.

Cabbages have fed the caterpillars, as have the broccoli, and my cucumber (cadged from a friend) never grew big enough to fruit.

The puppy ate all the strawberries (the few that survived the frost) when they were teeny

I might stick to traditional flowers, most of which have been wonderful this year, apart from the absolutely disastrous dahlias!

Flowers that have been good - solanum glasnevin has been flowering since March, as have my geums. And it's been a great year for sweet pea.

My grown-from-seed cosmos are now all between 3 and 5 feet high. The foliage is lovely, but they haven't a single flower between them . I have no idea what's up with them.

Good this year:
Gooseberries
Blackcurrants
Kale
Mangetout
Runnerbeans
Half of the cosmos

Poor this year:
The other half of the cosmos (lovely foliage, no sign of flowers)
Plums
Carrots

Apple's and pears are plentiful, but are completely infested.
My rhubarb is rubbish this year, but I split it last year, so I don't know if it needs some time to recover.
Loads of figs on my fig tree, but I planted it in the wrong place, so it never gets quite enough sun for them to ripen, and by the time I realised it was too big for me to move it.
I got a bougainvillea and it's lovely, I was disappointed when it shed all its flowers, and about a week later it was in full bloom again

Thanks for all your responses. It does seem as though we've all had a fair few disasters this year. I'm hoping that it's down to the weather and not my not-so-green fingers though.

I've noticed almost of the seeds I planted direct in the soil failed miserably. I think next year I'll try growing them from seed before planting out.

My cosmos are much less successful than in previous years. I’ve got some flowers but nothing like the usual display.

Rudeckia the best they’ve ever been though.

Yes @ApplesAreTheBaneOfMyLife , my ridge Kia's have outstanding this year, think I'll plant more next year.

Successes
Sweetcorn
Most herbs
A moderate potato yield
Honeysuckle ( which I've struggled with previously)
Cosmos
Dahlias on one side of the garden only.

Disasters
Peas
Courgettes
Tomatoes
Peppers
Squashes
Runner beans ( usually have a glut by now)

My general observation is that anything that needed early growth has been a disaster. It was too wet and cold for too long. Northern England btw. But then I’m not very good at growing nice things either.

Crap - onions even from sets, broad beans - fgs, not being able to grow broad beans is bad - leek seed failed twice, anything brassica got eaten, tomatoes are still hanging in there but all my early sowings failed and they’re late. Fruit trees aren’t doing well.

Ok - potatoes, lettuce once it dried up a bit, sweet corn, carrots, Leeks aren’t looking too bad once I finally got them going.
Good - squashes, gooseberries, runner and French beans.

I've noticed almost of the seeds I planted direct in the soil failed miserably.
A tip I found on the internet somewhere was to pre-sprout seeds on wet kitchen towels. Worked a treat with carrots, parsnips and French beans - my beans used to go mouldy before I started. Doesn’t work on runners.

What a strange year. Fantastic runner beans and sweet peas for the first time ever. Tomatoes have only just flowered (!)
Cosmos are rubbish. Courgettes, awful. I mean, no courgettes, what's going on? Something ate my broad beans, my peas and my French beans. Snails demolished the zinnias. The raspberries on the other hand are going crazy. Every cloud.

Success: onions, sweet peas.

Failure: tomatoes, peppers, carrots.

We planted purple broccoli and cauliflowers today so we'll see what happens. It's my first year of growing veg.

Success-
Onions
Rhubarb
Asparagus
Carrots

Disaster-
Broad beans
Tomatoes (so much time and effort for nothing!)

Success - tomatoes have done ok, except for the heritage plant I was gifted. Yet to flower

My first lot of cucumber plants died but three successful ones doing well!

Pumpkins doing ok, as are peas and beans. Raspberries were fab

Cosmos and nasturtium good
Wild flowers not really

Not so great

The wildflowers
Currants
Strawberries

Took my eye off the flowers and they got a bit battered in bad weather too

Havr things to think a out for next year
....