What AREN'T you going to grow next year

[bluemoon]

I won't be growing garlic any more.
This was my 3rd year of trying to grow it - it obviously doesn't like me. They put up their shoots then wither and rot.

Have you tried the spring planted ones? Buy the bulbs early and keep them in a cold place, get them planted by the end of February and they are just putting out shoots when the weather turns milder and drier (in theory, at least) and are less likely to rot. They also put out shepherds' crook shaped stems in early summer which can be cut and used to give a garlic flavour to cooking, or to oils and vinegars long before the bulbs themselves are ready.

[Alison]

They also put out shepherds' crook shaped stems in early summer which can be cut and used to give a garlic flavour to cooking, or to oils and vinegars long before the bulbs themselves are ready.

It's not a feature of autumn or spring planted that means that you get the stems (otherwise known as garlic scapes), it depends on the variety. The hard necked varieties have them and the soft neck ones don't and you can get both types for autumn and spring sowing.

[vegnut]

Asparagus pea. YEUCK. I like most stuff, but that was really bad. Sorry to anyone who likes them, each to their own and all that, but for me, they tasted foul.

[bluemoon]

It's not a feature of autumn or spring planted that means that you get the stems (otherwise known as garlic scapes), it depends on the variety. The hard necked varieties have them and the soft neck ones don't and you can get both types for autumn and spring sowing.

Yes, I should probably have made it clearer, this is our experience when growing a variety named Arno. The bulbs are bought in January by our SIL and the carrier bag they come in is knotted tightly by the handles and hung on a hook outside our shed for about 6 weeks - it means they get the cold needed for them to break (form cloves) without being in the soil to rot. On a day when I'm not going to be there in mid-late Feb, SIL goes up and plants them, and that's it, if the onions are being watered then I'll water the garlic too, but apart from that they have absolutely no care and attention because I can't bear the smell - which is how we originally discovered that hanging them outside in a tightly sealed bag helps. On another day in August when I'm not going to be at the plot, he goes and harvests them, and he picks the scrapes in June, also without me! Part of the deal is that he also digs over the area where they've been as the smell can linger in the soil for months if it's not immediately dug

[snakeshack]

patty pan squash for me ,Iharvested my only 2 of the season yesterday & had them for dinner tonight.
I was totally underwhelmed!
looks like a bumper harvest of J/A's as well,Ive never tried these before either,gotta be better than the patty pans though............aren't they?

[Lavenderblue]

looks like a bumper harvest of J/A's as well,Ive never tried these before either,gotta be better than the patty pans though............aren't they?

Well be prepared for a bit of wind up your end....they are not called fartichokes for nothing you know.

[StephenH]

Caulis. I like them, but not so much that I'm determined to grow my own in spite of the difficulty of getting them right. I tried this year, and lost the lot.

What I definitely will be growing every year from now on is courgettes. I only grew thenm this year because GYO gave me some free seeds, but I've had so many from just two plants that they are a deffo for the future.

[Newbie]

patty pan squash for me ,Iharvested my only 2 of the season yesterday & had them for dinner tonight.
I was totally underwhelmed!
looks like a bumper harvest of J/A's as well,Ive never tried these before either,gotta be better than the patty pans though............aren't they?

I'm not bothering with Patty Pan Squashes again either, they got to the size of a golfball and either dropped off or got eaten by Mice. I've had one this year so far!

[reetnproper]

Calabrese as they take up so much space, need constant decaterpillaring (is that even a word?) and it's a race to see if the pigeons get to the heads first.

Swede because the ones that grew nice and big got eaten by mice and voles. Those that didn't grow nice and big are too fiddly to use.

Kohl Rabi outside because the mice had them. Will grow them in pots in Greenhouse, as have done every year until now and they have done fantastically.

That's it for now. Ailsa Craigs are finally starting to redden, so depending on the next few weeks I may give them another chance.

Reet
x

[muckdiva]

Aubergine's & Peppers.. this is the second time i've grown them, i get them to the adult stage and then they just sit there in the green house doing nothing. Lot's of bud's but no fruit.

Snap, same here with the Aubergines (peppers doing fine). I've just hoicked the aubergines outside to see if the fruit will finally come to something though I suspect it's a bit late in the year now. Kill or cure.

[Demeter]

I'm NOT going to be growing King Edwards spuds this year. I grew a row of these and a row of Golden Wonder right next to each other and there is no comparison - the GW produced loads of lovely clean spuds, the KE produced a very small crop (about half as much) of manky-looking scabby tubers all covered in slugs, yuck.

I am abandoning the gooseberries - after four years I'm just sick of the sawfly. Won't resort to pesticides, would rather just grow something else.

On the brassica front I only grew caulis this year anyway and surprised myself by getting a fair few to maturity, and what's more to the kitchen before they blew... yay - apart from them I probably won't grow any brassicas since the effort involved will be better spent on other things IMO.

Probably won't bother with BNS again. In two years I have had two fruit, and both of those were last year - thought it would be better this year with a less awful summer but this year I've had none at all! All my other squash was brilliant so BNS will have to go methinks.

Can't think of anything else I grew this year that I definitely won't be growing again. Although I don't actually like chard or beetroot that much, I will grow even them again, for now, just because they are so easy and productive, and surprisingly popular when given to friends!

[Rabidbun]

Will be avoiding aubergines - solved the problem with flowering and germination this year thanks to all you guys on the forum, but decided that to get the fruit size I want the space/fertilizing/watering combo would be a bit too much cost vs reward. Not growing patty pans (way too much room needed), or spaghetti squashes (bit meh for flavour) as I want to try different squashes for the new attempt to cut down on mildew.

Also avoiding Tumbling Tom tomatoes (nice but not as productive as I would have liked, also a bit chewy), stringless sugar snaps (HA! *pulls strings out of teeth*), mini corn (still no sign of a crop, but would have been better with large corn anyways given the size of the plants), climbing bean Goldfield (went stringy and tough Way too fast and no real way to tell which were the older ones on the vines), dwarf beans (taking up too much room for their crop), brassicas and radish and spinach (all Badly eaten by beetles from the oil seed fields), most types of the mint (didn't use it much), any outdoor chilli plants (still no decent fruit). Oh, and russian tarragon - easier to eat grass if I want a disappointing naff flavour.

Definitely won't be growing raspberries (the autumn fruiting canes just went into the ground and died there, which was costly). On the plus side I hadn't thought fruit through, and don't want the garden to become wasp central if I can help it.

[Gwen11ian]

Won't be growing runner beans. They first three meals were nice.. but I'm so sick of them now I'm pulling them out of the ground (beans and all) and chucking them into the compost so I don't have to look at them any more. I think I'll do all french beans instead. I did some this year, and they aren't as productive as the runners.. which is fine by me!

[womble]

Won't be growing runner beans. They first three meals were nice.. but I'm so sick of them now I'm pulling them out of the ground (beans and all) and chucking them into the compost so I don't have to look at them any more. I think I'll do all french beans instead. I did some this year, and they aren't as productive as the runners.. which is fine by me!

That's exactly what I do, french beans only. I always seem to get offered enough runners anyway by other people and we only like them once or twice.
French taste nicer to me as well.

[shambayango]

For us it's going to be courgettes!

We were given 3 courgette plants by a fellow allotment holder and 2 were eaten by rabbits or deer. The remaining plant will not stop producing courgettes and we can't keep up with eating them.

We're both courgetted out of courgettes!

Shamba