Topic: Garden plans for 2010

[plainleaf2]

What are your veg garden plans for 2010?
What will be new,old and left by wayside?

[GrannieAnnie]

What are your veg garden plans for 2010?
What will be new,old and left by wayside?

Many more Heritage Red Raspberries
              Better fences and ways to keep varmints out
              Stronger bean poles
              Black cherry tomato and try some more new types of toms
              Grow more butternut squash up shrubs
              Increase plantings of Massai bush beans and purple Italian pole beans
              Try some larger aubergines

[Digeroo]

purple Italian pole beans

What variety do you grow?  Are they for eating as pods or for dried beans.  I grew a heritage variety called Mrs Lewis's Purple podded this year and it was amazing.  Ate piles of pods and then left some to run to seed and ended up with 400 beans.  Only started with 10 beans, and ended up with only 8 plants.

[lewic]

Dig out rasberries and put up a polytunnel
Make a pond at the top of the plot
Build a more solid arch to grow roses up
Decking round the shed
Arch at the bottom of the plot to grow clematis up, and hide the fence
Round courgettes for stuffing
More butternuts
Dwarf stringless beans
More carrots
Parsnips
Try to keep it tidier!

[Duke Ellington]

more sweetcorn
less runner beans ~ next year will be the third year I reduce the amount
more french beans
white beetroot
yellow beetroot
a few new squashes
a thornless blackberry for the fence at the back of the plot
fruit cage completed


IN THE GREENHOUSE
less chilli plants ~ had far too many
more tomatoes different varieties
more sweet peppers~ they were so lovely the supermarket ones taste awful now  :'(


Duke

[Flighty]

Duke I'm going to grow white and yellow beetroot as well.
If you've not done so before be aware that germination is somewhat erratic and they tend not to grow very big, golf ball size is good going.
I love the taste of yellow ones but have yet to try white ones!

[Duke Ellington]

Thanks Flighty :)

Where did you buy your white beetroot seeds from?

Duke

[GrannieAnnie]

purple Italian pole beans

What variety do you grow?  Are they for eating as pods or for dried beans.  I grew a heritage variety called Mrs Lewis's Purple podded this year and it was amazing.  Ate piles of pods and then left some to run to seed and ended up with 400 beans.  Only started with 10 beans, and ended up with only 8 plants.

"PURPLE TRIONFO VIOLETTO BEAN" (60 days) and doesn't mind part shade plus ripens earlier than my green beans. Eat the pods. I suppose you could eat them dried, but the seeds are smallish. These have a light purple flower and purple vines. The seeds are white.

[Digeroo]

"PURPLE TRIONFO VIOLETTO BEAN"

  Many thanks Grannieannie will give that one a try.   Over here the beans need all the sun they can get.  Grew Purple King dwarf and like them but find picking the climbers much more satisfying.

I will also grow some choices from the Heritage Seed Library.  We get six choices and a lucky dip and I usually ask for an extra bean variety. 

Otherwise plans are more golden beetroot, more carrots, more strawberries, more space(?!), more parsnips.

[non-stick]

More Sweetocorn
Earlier Butternuts
Crack Pumpkin Growing
Less Summer Cabbage
More Cauliflowers
Less Runner Beans
More Salad Leaves
Try Aubergines and Peppers(again)
Mark out some paths
Some Decking/Paving round the shed for seating
Edge the plot so that the wire can be fastened inside to aid strimming the grass paths

and

continue to enjoy it

[Flighty]

Duke I've got a packet of Albina Ice that I didn't use this year which I got from MoreVeg. I notice that this year they're not doing that variety but Detroit White.

http://www.moreveg.co.uk/shop/article_BEEDW/Beetroot-Detroit--White.html?shop_param=cid%3D8%26aid%3DBEEDW%26

[Digeroo]

I have some left of a packet of Albino Ice from Nickys Nursery, not keen on it.  Go for Golden Burpee instead.

[GrannieAnnie]

"PURPLE TRIONFO VIOLETTO BEAN"

  Many thanks Grannieannie will give that one a try.   Over here the beans need all the sun they can get.  Grew Purple King dwarf and like them but find picking the climbers much more satisfying.

A funny thing about the purple beans- some lost almost all their leaves late in the season and I'm not sure why. I thought they were dying. Maybe too much heat? Anyway, they got their second wind somehow and I just picked some ripe purple beans off them yesterday! Sorry now I pulled some of them down earlier thinking they were dead as a doornail.

[Digeroo]

Runner beans are certainly perennials and if you keep them frost free they can be persuaded to come again in the spring.  A few years ago winter was so mild here that bean plants in the garden did not die and came up again the next year. 

I suppose that French beans (Pole beans) are also perennial so perhaps they thought it was spring and time to get going again.

I do a second sowing towards the end of June or early July so I am still eating them in September and October. 

[mpdjulie]

This year was my first successful year but there will be some veg that I shall not bother with next year.
The best for me this year was my courgettes by far, they are still producing.
La diva cucumbers were exquisite.
My 3 bell pepper plants in the greenhouse are still producing peppers and flowers.
My chilli pepper plants have given me a few hundred chillies.
I had 8 scarlett emperor runner beans plants which I stopped picking from about 3-4 weeks ago to harvest some beans for future plants.
My 4 butternut squash plants have produced about 8 squashes but as yet aren't ready to pick.
I have 6 iceberg lettuce still in the ground.
I have had peas, leeks, french beans, salad bowl lettuce, broad beans, cabbages, lots of spuds, shallots and tomatoes.
I was really unimpressed with some onion sets from Marshalls.  They all had to be pulled early because they had some furry fungal stuff on them so I won't be growing sets again.  I have sown some seed in my greenhouse.  Hoping that they germinate ok I shall be planting them.
This year I'm planting more or less what was successful this year but I am also going to have a go at pumpkins and watermelons.

[GrannieAnnie]

Runner beans are certainly perennials and if you keep them frost free they can be persuaded to come again in the spring.  A few years ago winter was so mild here that bean plants in the garden did not die and came up again the next year. 

I suppose that French beans (Pole beans) are also perennial so perhaps they thought it was spring and time to get going again.

I do a second sowing towards the end of June or early July so I am still eating them in September and October. 

Good point Digeroo. I forget that they can be perennial since it gets way below freezing here and they don't stand a chance. I did try a late planting of bush beans but the groundhogs mowed them down in a night. >:( and then ate the red beets to balance their diet.

[Rhubarb Thrasher]

runner beans are perennial. Treat as for dahlias, though i've never done it

French beans are annuals

[Sparkly]

Plant more:
Early peas
Carrots
Raspberries
Strawberries

Plant less:
Turnips

Put in a few more large raised beds
Build a proper compost heap
Get the paths properly straight

[chriscross1966]

More climbing beans
No dwarf beans
Succession the broad beans and peas
Bigger selection of squash
Get a polytunnel
Take on another half plot to put the polytunnel on.....
More sweetcorn
Swede
Try different big onions as I'm not sure I'll ever get Kelsaes to the size I want
More long red florence onions
Get several gherkin plants to grow together
No Waltham butternut (too late) or Bon-bon (too aggressive)
A monster pumpkin (Have Atlantic Giant)
Try eastern european tomatos outdoors
Sort out the gooseberries
Get blackcurrants and sloes
Strawberries
Get the asparagus planted out

That'll do for starters.

chrisc

[cornykev]

More sweetcorn.
More peas.
Earlier butternuts.
Stager French beans.
Try Turnips.
Big Pumpkins that don't get stolen.
More Strawberrys.
Less Earlies, more Kestrels and a decent maincrop for size, storing and resistence.
At least half a dozen decent cauli's, it's not too much to ask is it.
 ;D ;D ;D