2009 Veg Growers successes and failures thread.

[WynkenBlynkenandNod]

Thought it might be helpful for us to say how things are going and any varieties that you've found to be particularly successful/unsuccessful so far, we can update it later in the year. Mine are :

Sucesses

Tomatoes - Red Alert are brilliant though none ripe yet. Gardeners Pearl I'm not so impressed with, a lot of flower drop. Have had one ripe one so far which was good but not fantastic. Principe Borghese and Golden Queen just at flowering stage so a bit behind.

Peas & Mangetout - kelevdon wonder, great but need many more next year. Mangetout as been very easy and definitely to repeat.

Strawberries - Year 3 for some of these plants and not as good as last year, though have had a fair few off them (DH's strawberry icecream is delicious !)

Parsnips - looking very healthy and very pleased so far.

Peppers & Chilli - DH's department. He has a couple of pretty impressive pepper plants with lots of baby peppers on. Chilli plants not quite so healthy looking but he does now have 3 green chillis.

Melon - donated by a friend and grown under a cloche. Looks as if I do have one baby melon, hopfully more to come.

Sweetcorn - growing fairly slowly as not as much sun as should be but am hopeful.

Courgette - one large plant going great guns, smaller one just started flowering.

Rocket - done well but has bolted

Spinach - as above

Spring onions - slow but fine I think

Pumpkin - think I can see first baby pumpkin.

Raspberries - DH's again, looking good.

Failures

Beans - slugs have eaten most of my climbing french ones and the dwarf ones.

Aubergines - have very healthy looking plants which have just started flowering but flowers are just falling off.

Thai basil - went yellow and died.

Chives - can't get them to germinate to save my life.

Blackcurrants - first year of no flowers and fruit at all.

Not sure if success of failure

Cucumber - germinated one from seed (Cucumber Perfection), in plastic greenhouse with two bought from market. Unfortunately not sure which type the market ones are so not sure if should be taking male flowers off. Shame as have a lovely looking cucumber growing ! Other cucumber plant has tiny one on that doesn't seem to be doing much.

Beetroot - not quite sure about these, might be OK.

Carrots - most of the sown directly in the ground got munched.

Blueberries - their first year, are in pots looks like there will be some but not huge amount.

Might be fun to try with the squash! Might be a bit late in the year to get a crop by the time the weather turns cold again, perhaps you could try next summer. My friend has had great success growing chilis with the seeds she's scraped out of the supermarket chilis.
WynkenBlynken, I have the Joy Larkcom book too. It's full of information, I keep it next to the sofa at all times just to refer to. I also have Sarah Raven's book, I thought it might all just be arty photos but actually it's pretty good. And the photos are beautiful!

Successes:

potatoes (more than I know what to do with and didn't get slugged so far)
beetroot
garlic (in pots)
blueberries - bought last year, and have a small crop if the birds don't get them first
wait and see
herbs in a pot all doing well: chives, tarragon, oregano and thyme

Looking good:
courgettes ( a few flowers, loads of buds, no courgettes yet)
brussels sprouts - a couple bolted but the rest are looking very healthy
strawberries - planted recently - birds got the first couple, hoping for good things next year
leeks - in to overwinter, so far so good, likewise, savoy cabbage and purple broccoli
radishes

Hmmm
Dwarf french beans -only ONE germinated, and it is in a pot, with about 3 teeeeeny beans on it
salad leaves - rocket bolted, spinach bolted, lettuce looks ok

Argh
Kale - got decimated by pigeons. I've netted it so hoping it might revive

Also prepping a bed to plant lots of soft fruit in the autumn for next year - blackcurrants, rasps and gooseberries, and perhaps more blueberries because they are soooo frickin expensive and the boys love them. And rhubarb. Yum.

Successes:
peas
perpetual spinach
lettuce
leeks (going well so far)
squashes (going well, but not squashed yet)

Disapointments:
Having to dig everything up so we can put up a playhouse!

Growing well..

beetroot
carrots
lettuce
dwarf green beans

chives
parsley

grew well but attacked by cabbage white

Hispi cabbage
cavello nero ( black cabbage)

still growing
Butternut squash- lots of leaves no flowers yet but planted late

Jury still out

peppers- planted late still just 4" high- maybe too late and getting too cold for outside even on S facing patio?

successes

spring onions
lettuce
mange tout
dwarf peas
broccoli
celery
Spinach
baby salad leaves, which I've grown in plastic trays and when ready leave on the window sill in the kitchen to cut when needed
raspberries - although we could do with more!

don't know yet

red onions
cabbage
carrot
parsnips
peas
courgettes
tomatoes
cauliflower
brussell sprouts
melon - just giving it a go, bought it at a fete!

Failures

Rhubarb - somehow managed to completely kill off the whole lot?

It's been my first season with an allotment & overall I've been really pleased with how things are going. Details below...

Successes:

Strawberries
Potatoes (earlies)
Beetroot - first crop really good (remaining ones a bit large for my liking now), second sowing ready for baby beets soon.
Chives
Lettuce (5 types, all excellent)
Pointy Cabbage
Spinach
Leaf beet
Broad Beans (huge crop)
Peas (had lots of these)
Asparagus Peas (but they taste grim)
Courgettes
Patti Pans
Aubergines (purple stripey ones - getting lots at the moment)
Tomatoes (normal ones cropping well, gardners delight & beefsteak ones look like they'll be ready soon).
sweet peppers
Chillis
Sage
Thyme

Mixed results:
Melons - just one very small one so far, two more on the way.
Cauliflower - quite small heads, but edible & tasty & not caterpillar infested (so succesful for me)
Carrots - quite a few affected by carrot fly
Onions - quite a lot (~50%) affected by white rot
Shallots - as onions
Garlic - as onions
Blackcurrants - No fruit at all on cheapo Lidl bushes (though very healthy looking plants), but unpromising looking stick like cuttings from my allotment neighbour were absolutely laden.

Too early to say:
Squashes - looking promising - plants absolutely vast & lots of squashes growing (some seeds failed to germinate though)
Sweetcorn - slow start and quite small plants, but cobs developing now.
Runner Beans - just starting to harvest, but plants looking good (had an unpromising start - first 3 sowings failed to germinate - these ones were sown in situ).
French Beans - first picking today, plants looking good.
Potatoes (maincrop) - plants looking healthy, no blight yet.
Swede - plants have come up OK
Celeriac - look like the heads are developing OK.
Parsnips - The tops look extremely promising. The roots are up to 1" across at the top too & I had good germination success, so looking forward to bumper crop this winter.
PSB/WhiteSB - Looking Good
Red Cabbage - Looking good
Kale - Looking OK

Failures:
Blueberries: 3 or 4 plants died, remaining one very sick looking & no fruit. I hadn't realised they need acid soil, so suspect that's why.

Gooseberries & Redcurrants: cheapo Lidl bushes look very healthy, but no fruit whatsoever.

Rasberries: one plant died, the other struggling, no fruit (cheapo Lidl plants again).

Kohl Rabi - tried several sowings, but I couldn't identify any plants from among the weeds.

Cucumber - didn't germinate well & the one that did died young.

Celery - failed to germinate.

knew I'd forget some stuff:

Sprouts & Leeks look OK but too early to judge.

Rhubarb I moved this year, so not cropping yet.

Asparagus planted crowns this year, so not cropping until 2011!

Goodness Snorkle that all sounds very impressive, I now have parsnip envy, mine are less than a centimeter across at the moment. Have resolved my cucumber problem, DS shared the little baby one and said "it tastes just like a real one" so looking good. Add leeks to my failure list.

Have just been down to friend's allotment to water the polytunnel, it is all most impressive. Don't know what her failures are but here are her successes:

Chillis - the plants are absolutely laden with them.
Peppers - a pretty decent crop with some pretty large green ones that I reckon will go red soon.
Melons - she has about 5 plants and a good few melons on each a bit bigger than a tennis ball.
Aubergines - plants look like they are dying but are producing aubergines which is more than mine are doing.
Cape Gooseberry - looking very impressive
Sweetcorn - loads with cobs on.
Runner Beans
French beans
Butternut squash - still quite mini but doing well
Florence Fennel
Beetroot
Kale
Courgettes
Broadbeans
Lots of herbs
Tomatoes
Potatoes

Hiya,

Here are my update successes:

loose leaf lettuce - lots of ongoing crop, now replanting colourful salad leaves.

Cabbage : just coming through now, green loose leaf so ongoing harvest too.

Cauliflower : lovely crop, all very tasty and now have 4 left before replanting next seasonal crop.

Sweetcorn, growing nicely

Brocolli, plants huge, waiting for broccolli to sprout later on

Herbs, all doing well - basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, bay bush, mint, coriander, parsley...have freeze dried some of these already.

Potatoes - again almost ready for picking

Courgettes - gorgeous crops, have been picking some very samll (3 inches - very sweet to eat raw) then larger 6 inches i cooking, m letting one grow really big for another oriental dish..have 2 varieties...green and white.

Not so great this year:

Strawberries have bot done too well, I think it's the qulity of the plants...

Rasberry, still growing.....

Lettuce in one pot got ants a the bottom who took over the pot, had to get rid of it and burn the soil as it couldn't be re0used, it's on the compost heap now waiting to mush...

If you want to hear more and some expert advice from another mum:

Have a look here:

Http://www.mumsgrowyourownorganicvegetables.com

It's great resource and ongoing support.

Things that worked this summer:

Peas and mange tout in containers on the patio ? this kept them (relatively) slug free. Next year we?ll do more in pots and more sequential planting.

Runner beans in large pots on canes

Peppers in the potting shed and the green house ? next year will do lots more small sowings in trays and propagate widely

Herbs ? sequential sowing of annuals meant constant supply of nice herbs like basil and parsley. Basil did well on sunny spare room window.

Squash ? did brilliantly in greenhouse but outside ? not so much

Cucumber ? need to keep properly moist to avoid problem of powdery mildew on leaf

Tomatoes ? worked very very well in the Autopots (automatic watering system that draws water up only when needed)

Beetroot ? Looks good in pottage beds and were well protected by the green plastic slug barriers.

Note for next year: successional pea sowing, cucumber and squash to go in Autopots, more space for potting on pots, start peas and climbing beans in pots first

What didn?t work:

Growing squash plants on the shed roof ? try brassics or aubergines or peppers

Direct sowing lettuce ? this was munched by the evil slugs

Trying more than herbs in hanging baskets on the apple tree ? peas and spinach didn?t work, marigolds were okay but herbs work best

Sunflower seedlings need more protection as they were decimated? we didn?t get a single sunflower this year!

One great success, thanks to Lilyloo's advice in July, is coriander. Even had enough to make thai green curry paste!

Other success:

Basil, chilli, kale, leek, spring onions, rosemary, bay, thyme.

Failures:
land cress, sweetcorn, tomato.

Hopefuls:
Oriental greens: kailan and choysum and chinese chives. They look good now.

Tiny, tiny plot hear (5ftx 4 and not all given over to food) but...

Successes: raspberries (main crop and autumn), tayberries (fantastic crop this year - enough to make eight pots of jam - though have just pruned them wrong so possibly nothing next year...) Blueberries - another bumper crop.

Failures: Courgettes not good this year only five from two plants (suspect the seeds were a bit old). Chillis (succumbed to greenfly frenzy) peas (such a meagre crop forgot to pick the surviving blighters...) strawberries (millions of plants, sod all fruit).

Meant to say that my big (non-growing) success this year was 'slug buggers' - my front garden plot reeked like a sheep farm but my crops were slug free!

This was our first year and none of our beds were weeded properly.

We started by planting the eyes of some potatoes which dh had dug out, just to see what happened. Got two plants which I thought were weeds until I was told otherwise. Yielded 6 little little spuds altogether which dd ate and pronounced wonderful. We will do them properly next.

Planted carrots which were eaten by slugs or something and not a trace of one came up.

Strawberries. Lots of plants in their first season. I've been told not to expect fruit and I didn't get any. Apparently I will next year.

The peas were eaten like the carrots.

DH's tomatoes died while the fruit was green, but that happened to everyone in this area. I have saved a tiny green bit from the top of one of the plants, put it in water until the roots were quite long, and put it in a pot. It is looking fantastically healthy now and nearly as tall as the originals. I'm not expecting any fruit from it now, but talk nicely to it anyway as I'm so pleased I saved it.

Otherwise, I have herbs in pots and an olive tree which I'm told will bear fruit in about 5 (or maybe 10) years' time. It's grown about 6 inches. I talk nicely to that too.

(I did plant some sunflowers very late. They are growing happily outside now in a bed, but no sign of flowers. I imagine they are not going to last the winter.)

Ingles2, I am so envious of your globe artichokes. Can't get them for love nor money round here; haven't had one for over 3 years. They are my, and dd's, favourite favourite food.

Are they hard to grow? My grandmother used to grow them every year throughout my childhood, and this lack is telling on my soul.

Has anyone had success with quince?

Our tree is still very young and the fruit was tiny this year.

I harvested my squashes this week & am very pleased with them. I've put a photo up if anyone wants a peek...

Successes
Swiss Chard
Radicchio
Lettuce
Chilli
Garlic
Plums
Leeks - haven't tried yet but they look good.
Kale - this is a winter crop but I have several healthy plants.

Not so Good
Tomatoes. The Sweet Million were okay but didn't crop as well as usual and the Moneymaker which I grew for the first time were very bland with tough skins.
Sweet Peppers smallish crop

Total Failure
Carrots. Entire crop = 2
Spring Onion - poor germination