With only a couple of months, if that, to the end of the growing season (without cloches/greenhouses, etc), I have started to reflect on the successes and failures of this year.
Success - garlic, both overwintering and spring planted; autumn sown broad beans (Aquadulce and Meteor); beetroot - Barabietola di Chioggia; Carrots look to be very good this year; the 2 calabrese I planted out; the one Neckarperle cauli that I got round to planting out; mystery squash and the round courgette thing; potatoes seem to be doing well; winter radish & swedes & parsnips look good; runner beans look good, except seem a bit late.
Failures - sweetcorn; onions (though I had some); leeks (though there are some); peas (didn't get round to picking for meals - probably because my son picked them and shelled them for me to eat on the plot); tomatoes (I do have some, but am not loaded with ripe ones); melon; shallots (had some so not a total failure);....
Biggest success - sweetcorn. Thrilled to bits with that. Others, greenhouse toms, aubergines and chillies. On the plot, squashes, salads, spring onions, autumn planted onions and garlic, radishes, kohl rabi, red and white cabbage, beetroots, carrots, parsnips, french beans, swiss chard, runner beans, winter sown broad beans, peas.
Failures, shallots - white rot! Fennel and rocket bolted. Caulis and brocolli - caterpillars and inexperience. Lottie toms - blighted! Spring sown broad beans decimated by Jays. Lottie melons - slugs! Pak choi and mustard - flea beetles! Red currants - birds beat me to them!
Still to come, celeriac bulbing up nicely, salsify looking lush, late peas and french beans, leeks and more spring onions. Witloof - Ina, should I be lifting this yet??
Things to remember for next year - get finer mesh to keep the butterflies off. More fleece to protect things prone to flea beetles. Set up watering system for my salad leaves so they don't run to seed quite so quickly.
All things considered, we are thrilled with what we have harvested this year considering it is our first year and we tried lots of things, just to see what thrived and what died.
Successes - compost - it's been my biggest harvest - I've made loads! Hopefully that'll mean my successes next year increase! My toms are doing great guns now - there are loads of fruit, but I'm still waiting for it to ripen. I have my first ever aubergine actually producing something (one thing!) edible! My sage has gone mad. Garlic didn't get huge, but is really yummy. Carrots - never done before, small but gorgeous. Spuds - again a new crop for me - got some ok harvests, some pathetic, but I refuse to see it as a failure - it's taught me loads! Beetroot - small but yummy. Radishes - some ok, some bolted, some too woody.
Failures - squashes - left in pots too long, then got munched by slugs. Peppers - the snails have left me bare stalks. Sweetcorn - turned red and died. Courgettes - still only tiny plants with one tiny courgette on. Runner beans - got eaten by snails and black fly and then halo blight. Broad beans - black fly. Parsnips didn't even germinate. Fennel - half bolted, half hasn't swollen up.
But even my failures I refuse to see as any kind of defeat. Gardening is a learning process for me and I've learnt so much this year, which I will put into practice in future years. If we always had successes we'd never learn anything!
More successes - the roots mainly to add- Parsnips, salsify, scorzonera. Jerusalem artichokes, swedes doing ok, turnips ok, another calabrese plant is heading. The leeks are looking good now, and a late sowing of florence fennel looks ok as well.
Failures to add- July sowing of peas - one pod! Tomatoes have been very disappointing :(
Celeriac to add to my list of successes. Sowed them in modules and planted out a row, I can't remember when, but they went inbetween spuds and runners, and they have had to look after themselves. Well, I pulled the first a good few weeks back when it was tennis ball size, and boiled it with a couple of spuds and made mash, and delish it was to! They are now growing bigger and bigger and looking great, altho darn ugly!
My successes were courgettes, french beans, runner beans, lollo rosso lettuce (slugs hate it), beetroot, chard.
Failures were parsnips (not even one), pumpkins (very frost damaged early on, then limped on to produce pathetic tiny pumkin), rocket (fell to flea beetle), potatoes (too dry early on).
EJ - I really want to grow celeriac next year. Did you find the seedlings a bit weedy? Years ago I tried growing it, but the seedlings were too weedy to do anything with. Was it because I did them on a windowsill and not in a greenhouse? This is all I have available to me again this year.
Sarah.
Successes - potatoes (all three varieties), runner beans, courgettes, tomatoes, cucumber, aubergine.
Failures - beetroot (lovely foliage, no beets!) peas (don;t know what happened, but probably lack of water when I was away in August), brassicas all chewed.
Waiting on Celeriac, which is looking good - Sarah my initial plants were tiny but when planted out they grew strong very quickly, leeks were in late but hope I'll get a crop before I have to move. The fruit trees were all wonderful after a fairly hefty pruning.
Can't go on....getting sad again!
CL xx
PS Celeriac is yummy just mashed with black pepper and a dollop of cream!
successes:peas, tomatoes, peppers, chillis, raspberries, gooseberries, strawberries, runners, onions, potatoes, carrots, beetroot, cauliflowers, squash kind of, not as many as i had planned for.
failures: garlic- did not really bulk up, bulbs tiny, disappointed there.
cucumber-well, just 'died'! broccoli, brussels, cabbage-all succumbed to caterpillars and cabbage root fly. note to self-make root fly collars and consider what to do about caterpillars.
i am thankful for my successes, and hope to learn from the failures, and certainly did better than last year. so here's to the next!
Sarah-b, the celeriac was rather weedy, just like little celery plants, and as this was my first year with them, I just planted them at the same level as they were in their modules and left them to it. The ground has received some pelleted chicken poo in early spring, but that was all. No extra water as we have no piped water on site and they were planted right up the far end of my plot, and I am just toooo darn lazy to carry watering cans all the way from the ditch to the celeriac. Have the in-laws for Sunday lunch this weekend so will pull a couple and mash them and see what they think! ;D
Sarah when you put your seeds on the windowsill, put some silver foil around the back of your container and it will reflect even light, and your seeds will be fine i do it all the time during sowing time.
Cheers Rosebud.
Thanks - Rosebud - what a great idea.
I have got Celeriac Ibis seeds from Kings - will let you know how it goes this time next year (hmm might have troubel remembering to do that...)
sb