Allotments 4 All

This year having the allotment I've managed to grow a lot more veg than I'd usually fit into my garden. I tried growing just about everything imaginable. There are a few things I've decided just aren't worth the hassle, either we don't eat enough of them or they are cheap to buy and not worth trying to produce myself, or they are just plain difficult to grow perfectly.

I've also realised that some of the veg I've grown this year won't last us long enough and I could have done with growing much larger quantities, or I've been inspired by seeing what others are growing and plan to grow next year.

Must grow more of:
Maincrop potatoes
Peas
Onions
Garlic
Sunflowers
Carrots - mine failed this year so try try again.

Want to try
Giant pumpkins
Ornamental squashes and pumpkins
Spring flowers

Won't grow next year
Celery - drought took it's toll
Cabbages
Cauliflower
Sweet potatoes

So what changes will you make next year? :)

I will grow FEWER courgette plants  ;D   My celeriac doesn't look as if anything's happening other than lots of leaf so the jury is out on that until harvest time.
I will grow spuds again definitely
My cabbages look like skeletons so they could get the boot too  :)
Carrots were fab so I will grow more as I only did a couple of rows
Mixed lettuces were great but I will be better organised and sow fewer more often instead of millions all at once.  Doh  :)
I am definitely going to grow for the first time BULB FENNEL.  I think it's delicious. 
Don't know about sweetcorn.  Going to plot to check mine as I've been away for a couple of days and it might be ready

My main rule for next year is to be more patient. Wait until things are bigger before pricking out and planting out (especially courgettes and beans and anything else slug-able!)

I will grow more:
sweetcorn
carrots (in pots - they just don't work in my soil)
successional salads (in pots again so I can protect from slugs)
autumn sown broadies (no black fly)
garlic
1st early spuds
green manures (I keep having time with a bed empty, but as I haven't actually ordered any, I can't sow it!)
Jersey Sunrise tomatoes - the biggest trusses I've ever seen. Although they are yet to ripen!

I will not grow:
spring sown broadies (lost the lot to black fly)
parsnips (maybe - depends if my latest sowing actually germinates)
fennel

maincrop spuds depends on how my harvest goes - might grow more, might not grow at all (space limited). It's all a bit up in the air still really!

I reckon I have my balance approximately right, just slight adjustments.

First then, what won't I grow . . .

Swiss chard, very beautiful, just didn't enjoy it, more 'beety' than spinach.
Less pumpkins, I have a dozen or so, each the size of a dustbin . . .
The same goes for courgettes, eight plants really is too many !

and more ...

French and Borlotti beans
Peppers
Melons - had one small one this year !
Leeks, never seem to get enough!

That is about all, other than slight tweeks, but every year seems different, so it could all change . . .

Derekthefox  :D

Forgot to mention that I will be growing Japanese onion sets this year as they were so easy to grow and so tasty  :)

Aqui  I didn't get black fly on my broad beans but I did plant mine out later than everyone else.  I kept pinching out the growing tips and stir frying them.  I only did about 10 plants so it wasn't too onerous to keep picking the tops off.  The tops just got chucked in the wok with the other stuff  :)

We have had a very successful year, but next year I think I will grow less courgettes and squashes/pumpkins which have taken over a huge area of my plot.  I would like to try some little ornamental gourds instead and perhaps just butternut squash.   We will not grow Duke of York potatoes, which I didn't like but I will do more research and try something different.

I grew masses of lettuces, this year and will do the same next, especially little gems, which were great.  We will try some different varieties of tomatoes as ours weren't very tasty, and I would like to grow some flowers at the lottie,  that I can dry for ornamental purposes.  OH wants to have better success with melons and nurture his grapes  a bit more.   Quite an exciting thought, thinking of next year.  :) busy_lizzie

Hi Wardy, you said:
I kept pinching out the growing tips and stir frying them. 

Do you mean the tips of the beans, or the leaves.  Can you please explain.  I have got masses of flowers on my broad beans and don't know what happens next & how long.  I've never grown them before and spring has just started here.

Im a first timer.  :)
Anna

The leaves Annadl. I have a neighbour who used to pick and eat them straight off the plant. I have never tried them myself, not been inclined to try, I don't know why. Hope that helps ...

Derekthefox  :D

More of: onions, garlic, carrots, french beans and broadies, peas, successional sowings

Less of: brassicas (some did really really well like the cabbage - round ones and pointed ones, though a lot of other brassicas were dinner for slugs/snails and caterpillars), potatoes  (a lot of wireworm damage),

I need to get everything mulched in good time to suppress the weeds. There's no way I'll ever keep up in early summer otherwise with the annual round of marking.

Must grow more of:
French beans! they have been fantastic
Squashes

Want to try
Red Onions
Peas
Climbing French beans
Carrots maybe

Won't grow next year
Fewer Cabbages (rest of the brassicas we'll have to wait and see)
Peppers - they dont seem worth the effort

In my first year with the allotment, I have learned a lot:

I need to sow more of everything both at home and direct to allow for failures and munching
Cover all brassicas
Be patient with seed sowing and don't start sweetcorn, cukes or pumpkins too early.

Will grow more of:

International Kidney spuds - mostly ignored by the slugs
Maincrop spuds
Peas
Broad beans, both autumn and winter sowed
french beans - again to allow for slug munching
Fennel - haven't even tried any of mine, but it looks so pretty  :)
Parsnips - sowed too early, only one got to a decent size

Won't grow
Rocket spuds - the slugs had a feast from them, not many left for me!

I vow to grow less bind weed, nettles and that stuff that has slightly grey/green leaves and really lon squiggly roots.  ;D
seriously, I will try peas (again),more cues, toms, soft fruit, salad stuffand chinese veg.
Less green courgettes but maybe one or two of the other types.
Mainly less weeds.

Quote from: BAGGY on September 01, 2005, 14:57:19
I vow to grow less bind weed, nettles and that stuff that has slightly grey/green leaves and really lon squiggly roots.  ;D

Yep, I'm going to try for that as well Baggy  ;D Well the bindweed at least, don't mind the nettles so much cos you can make stinky nettle feed out of em, and they seem to attract ladybirds  :)

Will grow more of, everything! Except the squashes n courgettes that I think I have kinda balanced now!  If I had more room more sweetcorn, we are picking at the mo and at is delicious as per usual!

Wont grow, international kidney pots, yield was rubbish, Tomatoes, they all got the blight again even the Ferlines!  DP

Will try and grow more onions. And for the first time: cardoons & asparagus...

Won't try and grow less of anything except bindweed!

My plans for next year are a bit woolly at the moment but 'bigger and better' pretty much sums it up.

Yes Redclanger, next year is always going to be better . . . ha haha!

Derekthefox  :D

I'm pretty much pleased with how it has turned out this year, apart from still being jinxed about sprouting broccoli (hopefully Dobies will fix this!) and relieved I *didn't* grow more French beans. I'm drowning in beans and courgettes/marrows.

LOTS more butternuts. I was going to have a butternut bed this year but gave away some plants as others didn't get any germinating... and slugs ate one so I only have two plants and one of those is hopeless. Oh well.

Another variety of onion - fed up with pathetic tiddlers which cost a fortune (Marshall's heat treated New Fen Globe) while half the lotties are growing walloping great ones.  Autumns were v. good this time (Swift)

Same amount of garlic, cabbage,  runners, carrots, beet.

More parsnips now I know how to get them going.  (Been collecting loo rolls all year!) but this time I *will* plant them up as soon as they are off, and will NOT thin out the rolls until the slugs have had a chomp...

Potatoes - same amount but have NO clue as to which varieties -  will be at HDRA in January...

More cut flowers. Gladdies have been great but sweet peas suffered in the dry.  I want to grow everlasting ones.

moonbells

Not going to bother with:
broad beans (blackfly and mice)
swedes (slugs and flea beetle)
celery (drought)
bulb fennel (bolts)

Grow some, but less than this year:
courgettes

Grow more:
peas
carrots
salads

more: definately french beans,
                           broad beans
                           onions from seed (best this year so far)
                           smaller cabbages
                           soft fruit
                           melons
less: runners (yuck)
         pumpkins (take up too much room for me)
         alpine strawberries (not quite this same....)

Hi everyone,
                     my main plan for next year is to grow a lot less spuds and a much bigger variety of everthing else.I've been growing loads of spuds for the last couple of years and they have helped to improve the soil,as well as giving me plenty of food-and excersise!
  My biggest problem this year has been that a lot of the crops I planted never made it out of the seed or module trays.
So next year i'm going to concentrate on getting my seeds and plants in on time.
I've had far too many failures to mention.My successes have been:-onions,shallots,broad beans,potatoes,lettuces and sunflowers.
  As i said,i'm hoping to get a better mix next year,but my basic list of 'easy','must grow' crops will be:-A few spuds,a few broad beans,runner beans(which I absolutely love),onions and shallots(from sets),leeks,parsnips,courgettes and marrows, sunflowers and salad vegetables.
If I manage to grow most of the crops on this list I'll be well chuffed and anything else will be a bonus.
   Hope you've all had a good harvest and best of luck for next year.
              Marky
 

Six courgette plants have swamped us this year...back to four.
I will sow peas next year..thought I had this year but they were all Mangetout

Broad beans...yes please..love em

Kidney beans..reduced number this year still too many.
French beans...two lots in succession...just right

The salad stuff did very well, lettuces, spring onions etc, still picking oodles of tomatoes (three varieties)

Carrots...success for the first time in raised beds...I think I have cracked it there

I will be trying different varieties of many things that were successful

Brassicas...I have done better this year but will hope to do better next

Sweetcorn...well the half that the badger left, I fenced and netted...they continued to grow but it looks as though mice have chewed the lot.

Derek