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Gardening

Find tips and tricks to make your garden or allotment flourish on our Gardening forum.

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

34 replies

Terriffids · 26/08/2021 16:16

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?

OP posts:
StandardLampski · 28/08/2021 19:02

Also a difference - not just the weather, but I had significantly less time to attend to garden this year..

pickingdaisies · 29/08/2021 15:59

Update! Hold on to your hats, I have one tomato. I might get it gold plated and set into a ring.

Petrarkanian · 01/09/2021 11:31

Really interesting about everyone's Cosmos, they are usually the one thing I'm good at growing, but this year rubbish
Sweetcorn is looking good, courgettes ok, 99% of tomatoes got blight.
Morrisons Geraniums are beautiful.

Gladioli's are doing well.

BarkingUpTheWrongRoseBush · 01/09/2021 13:25

I'm in the north west and have had less time than usual at the allotment.

Peas were great, runner beans good now but really late, Courgettes best year in a while. Potatoes great, blackcurrants and plums amazing. Rhubarb so so but I moved it last year.

Pumpkin never got going. beetroot not great. ARtichokes fantastic.

I find when sowing seed there's a sweet spot in late May early June when the soil is warm enough but not too hot when stuff just romps away. Any earlier than that and nothing much happens.

snowspider · 01/09/2021 13:39

Wonderful

potatoes still a lot to harvest, and amazingly virtually no slug damage
chard
lettuce
alpine strawberries
trail of tears beans
beetroot
rocket
curly endive

the few peas that germinated were good

should have sown more carrots as they were nice

leeks are looking ok
sunflowers late but now nice ditto sweetpeas
tomatoes will they ripen?

I messed up on squash and pumpkins and courgettes by not planting them out but think they wouldn't have done well anyway due to weather

sweetcorn jury is out, as they look small cobs and will they ripen now?

brassicas dead loss that is no cabbage, cauliflower as plants got eaten by slugs and a small amount of kale

Timetable99 · 04/09/2021 18:23

Sweetcorn - good so far! Amazed how quickly the kernels grow after pollination. Never grown it before but kernels on some cobs are starting to ripen already.

Lettuce - couldn't eat it fast enough, did well throughout late June/July in two planters (interspersed with corn).

Zinnias, cornflowers, rudbeckias, and other flowers such as salvias all done well after a very slow start. Sweet peas flowered beautifully (but rather late - we still have flowers on one plant). Kept picking them daily and seemed to work.

Sunflowers very slow to get going and got badly munched by snails in the spring but are just starting to flower now.

Courgettes were OK but didn't last long (all got powdery mildew and couldn't keep on top of it). Got one fantastically large plant which produced ~15 courgettes which we all ate and enjoyed.

Tomatoes have been rubbish! Pretty sure they have blight now. Managed to harvest one huge beef tomato last month, and some small yellow cherry ones recently, but the rest are refusing to ripen and are slowly rotting.

Broad beans - after a bumper year last year they all got mouldy and sad in the rain this year. Didn't harvest any.

Peas - all got munched before could harvest.

Carrots - 50/50, some were great and tasty (but not as large as last year) and others bolted or went very woody.

Parsley - was great as soon as it warmed up properly in July, but has stalled now

Rocket - completely stalled

Pak choi - has germinated but stalled as well

Quinoa - I doubt this will work, first time growing it, but the one in the planter is still growing and seems to be seeding whereas the one in the pot has stalled quite a bit

Basil - terrible. Got a few small plants going in the large planters but they got munched then stopped growing after the last mini heatwave.

Peppermint and spearmint - again really bad! Seemed to get that white fungal infection then went straight to flowering.

Wow, I grew more than I'd realised Grin it's really been hit and miss this year.

Heruka · 05/09/2021 23:38

We’ve moved in to a new massive and beautiful established garden with a wonderful pre existing veggie patch. So can’t really take credit for lots of it, but

Plentiful blackcurrants, some raspberries.
Second year potatoes - oodles. How long can they stay in the ground/store btw? We are just lifting them as needed but not sure if there’s a cut off point.
Trees with pears plums and a few apples - squirrels got virtually everything.

I planted carrots that have done great, still going. Broccoli that has some kind of beastie on I noticed today.
Cherry tomatoes from seeds squeezed out of a tomato - all green though. I took off all the remaining flowers and pruned the tops today in effort to encourage ripening - any chance now does anyone think?
Onions were pretty good.

CatAlice · 05/09/2021 23:57

Successful
Courgettes- mountains of them
Rhubarb- freezer full
French beans
Leeks
Lettuce was good until August, all bolted. Just sowed some more.
Coriander

Failed
Tomatoes - late frost cold greenhouse killed them all
Chilli's- still not ripe
Runner beans
Kale - eaten by caterpillars
Raspberries feeble
Blackcurrants- a handful. I've dug them up.
Strawberries - small bullets
Cosmos rubbish
Basil, though I never have much luck. Best thing is to nip off leaves and freeze.

YanTanTethera123 · 06/09/2021 02:01

Strawberries, raspberries and black currants galore, runner beans ok, french beans disastrous.
Greenhouse tomatoes mediocre, cucumbers completely failed.
Courgettes eaten by slugs and sweet peas barely grew.
Roses and clematis utterly amazing!
Most peculiar year for growing stuff!

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