Topic: What mistakes have you made this year ??

[antipodes]

 ;D we can't be right all the time.
I planted my tomatoes much too close together. dunno how I will pick them! I also sowed a whole lot of squash and don't know what they are.

[cornykev]

Not covering my Spuds when the frosts came,  :'(  famous last words my plot on the end always seems to miss the frosts.  :P      ;D ;D ;D

[gwynnethmary]

putting runner beans out too early

[gypsy]

Not a mistake with planting as such, but...

I allowed someone to use my spare allotment (I have 2), as my co-worker, with a view to eventually handing it back to the council, who would then offer the named co-worker the tenancy.

Seemed a good idea, but she is not doing much gardening, and is not there much. I don't feel I can take it back as there are a few crops, and a shed. I thought I was helping a keen gardener but now I really wish I had kept using it myself.

[Paulines7]

Forgetting to sow parsnips and carrots. 

Using very old lettuce seeds and then finding none of them germinated.  I have now bought some new packets. 

Growing far too many mange tout and not planting any peas.

[Bugloss2009]

dropped one of my trays of tomato plants. 3 out of 20 ruined, but all the labels fell out. Ended up throwing away plants with labels and keeping ones without just to have a proper selection

Planted 4 half rows of peas in a way that made them almost impossible to pick  :D

Kept sowing some salad seeds when it was obvious they had gone off

but in a very difficult year, as many new successes as new failures  ;)

[royforster]

I bought peat-free sowing compost from B&Q in March and none of my tomatoes or peppers germinated. They grew happily in the soil in my polytunnel:-) - but all my toms are late this year.
Sowing parnips too thinly - too late to correct and being a bit late with successional sowings of peas and carrots.
Otherwise, here in France, no veggies being bought for many months:-)

[Bugloss2009]

and put a trough of carrots right under the niger seed feeder  :D

[Manouche]

Took home a big tub of loganberries. Never eaten them before and swore we never would again.
They were extremely sour.
About to dig up the plant when our allotment neighbour told us they were not ripe and to wait until they
turn almost black. We had tried them Raspberry red.
Still makes me cringe thinking about that taste. x

[antipodes]

Manouche, you might be able to make jam with them? (the unripe loganberries)

[small]

I had some Pentland Javelins left from last year so I broke the rules, chitted and planted them. Absolute disaster, won't do that again.

[lewic]

Not digging or watering enough, then expecting carrots, parsnips and beetroots to grow!

[lottie lou]

Sowing far too much as usual.  Still got brassicas and salads and stuff in pots waiting for my spuds to come out so I've got room for them.

[luckycharlie]

    Hi  Hope you don't mind me joining in ;)

       Made sooo many mistakes in this first year could fill the page but not labelling anything cos I will remember what they are has to be the worst.

 X Chas

[Mortality]

Not successional sowing properly....

Definitely one of mine.

Planted Lettuce rows too close together, some rotted under the leaves of others.

Forgot to put drainage holes in some of the black florist buckets I used for the tomatoes, lost 3 plants because they got too water logged.

Forgot to put netting over Cabbages and Pea plants, Cabbage Whites etc and Pea Moths etc got to the plants.

Didn't sow enough Courgette seeds only one plant survived and the flowers aren't getting pollinated.

..but this was my first year and I've learnt alot  ;)

[pigeonseed]

I had some Pentland Javelins left from last year so I broke the rules, chitted and planted them. Absolute disaster, won't do that again.

What rules? [insert tone of voice meaning, 'I don't know the rule', as opposed to tone of voice that says 'you're talking nonsense!' ;D]

I'm another one who could have done more successional sowing, lettuce-wise...

And I planted my beans out too early and they died and I had to start again  ::)

[macmac]

1.planted courgettes in raised beds they're struggling as it's been so dry and the beds drain very freely.
2.Planted loads of chillis in pots which aren't big enough they're struggling as
well.
3.Bothering with runner beans at all,they're covered in black fly and not enjoying the lack of rain,they're struggling.
4.Accepting swede plants from a lottie neighbour back along,'dug up huge swedes this morning but who wants swedes in July ?That said despite being sown in a tray and then pricked out they behaved beautifully and I thought you couldn't transplant root crops :)

[Jeannine]

I've got red flowers on my climbing beans that should have white and I planted a second lot of Scarlet Runners because the first lot didn't germinate..still waiting for those flowers, suspect I don't have any of one tpe and 2 sets of Scarletts. Seems I replanted the wong ones  ::)XX Jeannine

[Easywriter]

Not reading the seed packet!

I'm planning to dig over the whole lottie mid-October, but I've got some cabbage, onions and leeks that won't be ready until December . . . have to leave them be I suppose and dig later [or harvest them early].

Experience is recognising a mistake when you make it again . . .

Pulled my first ever pototoes yesterday by the way, 10 oz [300 gm if you prefer], from one 'Annabelle' plant, after 9 weeks [they need another 5/6 weeks really]. Is that good, bad, average?  ???

Pretty exciting for me anyway ;D They'll on our dinner plates later today ;D

[Busby]

In January I cut my cherry tree back. My neighbour has a shredder and I asked him to shred all the wood for me which he did. Looking around for a use for the now piled up wood chips I thought it would be a good idea to cover (in the sense of protect) the rhubarb plants with some of it. Luckily I only covered one of them - this plant, usually very healthy and big, almost withered away. Only by raking the chips off and watering daily could I get it back to some sort of life until now and hope it will recover for next year. My assumption is that the cherry wood acted as a poison.