Topic: What are your must grow again varieties for 2014?

[sparrow]

I'm still quite new to all this, but my favourites are chenzo & lemon drop chillies, kent blue pea, purple kohlrabi, lebanese Otto courgette, thelma sanders and potimarron squash. Charlottes and Desiree are also becoming firm 'musts'.

Thanks to a seedaholic moment on the internet, some swaps with a friend and a seed-swap parcel on another forum, my seedbox overfloweth! Lots of new things for next year, including Big Gee's purple runners.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Kent Blue is one of my favourites.

[Jeannine]

Robert, I have the broadies dampened on tissue to check for germination, just the unknown one, boy these seeds are big, I don;t think I have ever had a bean this big before, they are a mid brown deed buy ale lightening now they are damp.

Oh and I need your address.

XX Jeannine

[Tee Gee]

Leek - Oarsman

Stems over a foot long and as thick as my wrist without any particular treatment.

A few of the other plot holders have commented on them!

Sown then pricked out into 3" pots and planted out without sinking / dibbing them in.

Only used a handful of FB&B per square yard at planting out time!

God only knows that had I still been an exhibitor and sleeved them,  I might have got at least two foot of stem.

It's a cracker!

[Jeannine]

Tee Gee, thank you I was just pondering about leeks, any advice about Brussells which I always have trouble with XX Jeannine

Tee Gee as an afterthought when do you harvest this one. Also I try to grow an early for baby leeks   , them one for picking in the fall, then a real toughie that will take the heavy winter which usually takes me through to Easter, Blue Solaise is my usual late one ..do you have any better ideas for the threesome please.

XX Jeannine

[manicscousers]

Brest f1 sprouts, best we have ever grown. Don't usually do f1 but have trouble with sprouts. Cantaloupe melons, they were amazing 

[Jeannine]

Thank you I will look up Brest,,,XX Jeannine

[Jayb]

Maximus f1 sprouts are the ones I grow, I'm not a huge sprout lover but do like these. Brest F1 sound good too 

[Jeannine]

May I ask why, my sprouts don't seem to come on right, they never seem to flourish and yet before I ever came to Canada I could grow great sprouts and again when I went back for 8 years I didn't have any trouble, both times the plants were in the ground, now I grow in raised beds??

XX Jeannine

[manicscousers]

we grow in raised beds, too 
Maybe it's the ground preparation this year, large quantities of mushroom compost and a hand full of lime in the planting hole, fed at the outset with bfb and a bit of chicken pellets sprinkled around. maybe we fed them better this year, oh, and they are staked very well, too ?

[Floyds]

Forgot to add, Blue Belle main crop potatoes 

I'm with you there.

[Paulines7]

Cavali courgettes.  The seeds are expensive but the courgettes are in a class of their own. 

[antipodes]

I had a type of dwarf bean called, I think Tendergreen, they were rather nice and grew quite high (so the voles don't nibble them!). I also had a climbing French called Blue Lake which was not as good as Cobra but still grew quite well;

I had good luck with Waltham butternuts this year....

[BarriedaleNick]

Alto Beetroot has become a must grow for me over the last year or two.  Sarpo Mira were hugely prolific this year so they are on for 2014.  As soon as I recall what sweetcorn I planted this year that will be on the list as well!  Purple Kohl Rabi for me too were great so that's going on the list as are Fatalii Gourmet Aji Fantasy chilis..

Interested in Tee Gee's Oarsman leek as mine dont seem to do so well

[Tee Gee]

Tee Gee, thank you I was just pondering about leeks,

Like you I have been looking for a change to Musselburgh which I have grown every year since I started growing Leeks as the are just so reliable and can stand up to virtually anything the weather fires at them.

I planted out  Electra, Musselburgh, Elefant and Oarsman, and as I mentioned previously, Oarsman has been brilliant but I don't know if it would stand the rigours of a hard winter, being a 'blanch' variety hence the reason I have been eating them for the past month.

Electra seems to be quite a big grower as well so I might use them next in case they too might not stand the winter.

Elefant is not living up to its name as it is about the same size as Musselburgh, so perhaps I may have found another good winter variety, only time will tell!

any advice about Brussells which I always have trouble with XX Jeannine

Maximus is my 'banker' but like with the Leeks I am giving another couple of varieties this year to see how they go on.

I planted Maximus, Doric and Darkmar this year, and picked my first Maximus yesterday,the other are still a long way behind so it suggests that they will see me into the new year.

I noticed this morning that Darkmar is quite tall and very leafy and Doric is about the same size as Maximus.

I don't particularly like the very tall varieties on my plot as it can get a bit 'blowy' on it meaning I have to stake my plants, as I did with a couple this morning.

Again only time will tell!

Regarding you problem with Sprouts I am not sure what it is, but reading between the lines I am wondering if it is the 'raised beds' and that your soil is a bit loose and the plants are suffering 'wind rock' something sprouts don't like I find.

Another thing I find with sprouts is the like to hog the sunlight.

I find that due to my rotation programme that the years my sprouts are situated in somewhat shadier beds than others, I do not get as good a harvest!

But equally I do not tread my plants in and some people do as I think this is too severe a treatment so I ensure that I dig & muck my 'Brassica' beds the previous autumn and I find this is all the compaction I need!

Strange how we all have our own ways of doing things isn't it?

Well I think thats I all I can offer on the subject, and hope that it gives you some fresh ideas for 2014

[Jeannine]

The raised beds are filled with very light soil Tee Gee, we had to fill the beds and make up the mix, it was a mixture of peat, little sand, ,manure and compost,and very very little actual garden soil, lime is OK as we had it tested for that. Everything else seems to love it,   but the sprouts blow, are small and generally useless so I suspect it is just too soft.

I will try again this next year as the soil has been evolving for three years now so may be better. There is club root on our gardens but not in my soil.

XX Jeannine

[artichoke]

I have always been rubbish at sprouts but someone advised me to grow Maxima this year, and we ate the first helping a couple of weeks ago. They seem to be developing at very different rates so I hope they will last for a bit.

I planted them into an area of firm meadowland whose grasses and weeds I had smothered under straw bales, cardboard and newspaper the year before last (trying to grow courgettes and winter squash etc in them, not hugely successful), then spread the disintegrating straw bales around plus some dalek compost, some lime and some gromore, and this seems to suit them as I have never ever eaten my own sprouts before, in spite of trying. I dug out planting holes, but did not do any other digging, just hoed and weeded.

Interesting that "they like to hog the sunlight", as my previous unsuccessful efforts were in a rather shady place, especially over the autumn/winter - this new wood is out in the open.

So I shall certainly try Maxima again next year.

(I am quite pleased with this bed, heavy weedy grassland two years ago, no digging, now a large productive area).

[Digeroo]

Our soil is very challenging for sprouts far too gravelly and there have been a lot of blown ones.  Suggest you need a good F1 variety.   They are also very hungry plants.  I would recommend Amoroso but they have disappeared here.   Though they are available from Holland.  One year they were the only ones on our site unblown.   

I stake mine so not chance of them rocking about and loosening the roots, and I really jump on the soil before I plant them out.

[boydzfish]

After some disasters with swedes I planted Brora this year and have been amazed, even after ravaging by Cabbage white catties they are putting on leaf again and look like they will over winter. I also tried leaf beet as well, Bright Lights variety, very tasty and colourful as well. 

[campanula]

mmmm Oarsman leek for sure.
Kestrel spuds - never missed a year for the last 12 (although I have enjoyed Bluebell and one year I almost had to settle for Osprey)
Long Red Florence onions (have to grow these in special beds because whoite rot is endemic across the plot)
Black Cherry, Ferline and Sungold - (do these every year)....oh yeah, the potato leaved early, Matina (2012, these were the only tomatoes I had)
Scorpio broadies