Success, failure and lessons you have learned

[Laura Hillier]

Hi all,

As this season is coming to a close, we were just wondering what have been your best successes, what didn't work out, and what is the most important thing you have learned to take forward into next season?


Answers may be edited and published in the January 2015 issue of Grow Your Own magazine.

Laura

[KevinM67]

Sorry, but this is not really answering your question, however for me...

It's about looking after and providing for your soil - this has been a learning curve for me as a newbie, greatly helped by joining this forum last year.

I had fantastic results in the first year of taking over my plot, but subsequently poorer years by doing the same thing but not actually doing anything with the soil or plants apart from watering. I've now realised that the ground was probably in great condition due to the previous tenant and nature (as it was unoccupied for several years)

After learning on here about the "cost-free" ways of adding benefits to the soil - such as nettle/comfrey teas, mulching, how to water plants properly, using weeds (thanks Two Sheds), etc. yield and results have been excellent this year (apart from carrots and parsnips).

Anyway, sorry for the ramble - I will think of a more coherent answer this evening.

[Guest]

Successes- peas, beans and toms. If I do not manage anything else in the veg patch these are my must haves and haven't let me down yet (hopefully they won't play up next year just to spite me)

Failures - sweetcorn, aubergine and melon yet again, next year is the last chance with aubs and melons and I have got some new variety seeds to try.

Things I have learnt - lots since joining this forum Weed control, lots of poo and cardboard. New veggies - will be trying carosello from the VSP and amaranth. Gardening diary - to keep records and with planting sowing reminders (will try using it to see how much it helps me instead of relying on my baby brain), Nasturtiums, make more with them (salads, pesto and poor mans capers etc.) and there are and probably will be more

[Bigmallly]

Tomatoes have been an amazing success this year along with Courgettes. I also managed to grow my first ever Parsnips in a 2' high bed which are delicious. Being my fist year on the current plot, I have encountered Voles for the first time. They destroyed 80% of the Potato crop so next year I will be growing them in builders bags which I am preparing at the moment. Also to combat Voles & the likes, I have also increased the depth of my raised beds to approx 10" & will be planting Garlic cloves round the perimeter of all my beds as this is supposed to deter mammals. I will only know next year if this works.

[noviceveggrower]

Poor year all year round but have learnt a lot over the growing season. Best things I have grown have been some little cherry tomatoes, they have been very popular with everyone, a few runner beans and a pumpkin. My pumpkin has been the best ever. Always wanted to grow one and even though I have only had the one it has weighed in at one and a half stone

[arpoet]

Not so much lessons learnt, but tips.
Before ordering seeds, plan out where each crop will be going for the next 18 months and get the soil ready while the weather is still ok.
If you are planning winter veg for 2015/16 make sure you remember to order those seed too.
Try to get an area where you can grow beneficial plants and flowers that will attract bees and other useful insects.

[bearded bloke]

Not so much learned, more a memory jog I got from a tip by another grape who reminded me (& doubtless others) about how we grew beans in jars at school, the tip was to chit beans between two sheets of damp kitchen roll (blotting paper back in the day), I can't remember who it was that posted it, but Mrs.BB wants to say thanks very much, we have had a bumper crop of her favourite Portuguese climbing bean this year Due to the vastly improved germination rate over different methods in previous years

[Guest]

a tip by another grape who reminded me (& doubtless others) about how we grew beans in jars at school, the tip was to chit beans between two sheets of damp kitchen roll (blotting paper back in the day), I can't remember who it was that posted it

Teakdesk mentioned it in the thread Ideas to encourage children but that was only a month or so ago. Maybe Teak has mentioned it before

[alldigging]

Failure: Always remember the slugs will eat the plants you really love best.
Success: The best nasturtiums ever. Without trying.

Plan: decide what you want to grow and get organised.
This is for me for next year as I'm afraid I've not managed to plant any sprouts this year.

[Penellype]

Ooh I do like this sort of thread

Successes:

Cucumber - never grown these before because basically I dislike those horrible tasteless things you buy from the shops, and even half of one is always far too big. I also thought they were difficult and required a greenhouse. Then while looking through the seed catalogues I noticed one called Vega which was small and described as tasty. Gave it a go, loved it. Loads of cucumbers that actually tasted of something and small enough to eat a whole one.

Calabrese - Sakura. Never had room for summer broccoli, but found this variety which is suitable for pots on the patio. Was expecting tiny heads (probably 1-2 inches), what I got was 6 inch heads which were far too big for just one meal. Not only that, having expected to be pulling them out in July, I am still picking the sideshoots, which are about the size I was expecting the main flowerheads to be!

Raspberry Allgold - grown in a pot for 3 years with lousy results, rather than throwing it away I split the plants up and planted them in almost total darkness, in the corner between an 8ft fence and a garage wall to the east and south, and under some shelving. The soil was holding the shelving (blowaway greenhouse) up, and is about a foot deep on top of paving slabs. I didn't even bother watering them as I was convinced they wouldn't survive. Beautiful crop of tasty raspberries without even bothering to net against birds. Utterly astonishing.

Peppers - 3 plants bought from the garden centre (red, orange and yellow) have produced a superb crop of large fruit in the greenhouse. Snackbite Orange, grown on the windowsill indoors, produces beautiful sweet chilli sized and shaped fruit.

Nasturtiums grown next to the peas appeared to completely eliminate pea moth, which had been a real problem last year.

Failures:

Pea Early Onward. Got about 10 plants from a whole packet of seeds treated identically to Hurst Greenshaft, which produced the usual numbers of healthy plants.

Mangetout Shiraz. Lovely crop of pretty purple podded baby mangetout soon turned into ugly distorted and discoloured looking pods. Both sorts tasted of very little, the description "mealy" best fitting the actual peas. I removed the plants well before they had finished. Horrible.

Onion Red Baron. Sets grown next to Sturon, which produced a lovely crop of big onions, could only double in size in the same time. The few that were big enough to eat soon succumbed to neck rot.

Aubergine - a plant bought in flower from the local garden centre and put in the greenhouse produced one fruit the size of a small egg before curling up and dying.

Tomato Chocolate Cherry. I had high hopes for this one, but it was late to fruit, and although there were loads of medium sized tomatoes (rather bigger than Sungold in size), they never really turn purple, staying green at the stalk end (not greenback) until they become obviously over ripe and soft. Taste is disappointing too. Made loads into chutney.

Tomato Tumbling Tom. These were supposed to be hanging basket type, and I expected them to survive in the same volume of compost that I grow my indoor Shirleys in. The foliage soon turned a sickly greyish colour despite being fed and watered regularly. Fruit was tiny and tasted of nothing much. Waste of space.

What I have learned:

Don't expect to be able to do on a farm what you can do in a suburban garden! Slugs and snails will eat anything you sow directly, even in pots on greenhouse shelving. Rats will eat anything that is edible even in a greenhouse. Weeds will grow through just about anything. A different approach is required, just not quite sure what...

Don't try to be clever and construct a walk in enviromesh cage over the frame of a cheap fruit cage. The structure was marvellous for a week and fell down in the first strong breeze, breaking the corner fittings. Oops.

Clematis alpina looks lovely growing up an archway, but siting the archway on the sunny side of the veg garden isn't a great idea. The clematis will have to give way to something less bushy. Cucumbers?

[Noosner]

Sweet peas were my success this year. I'd never grown them before and did everything by the book: sowed them in January in root trainers and pinched out the tops after 2 sets of leaves had developed. The harder seeds didn't sprout so I resowed those after giving them a little nick on the side. The result: two big bunches of flowers every single week between late June and now (late October). And they are still flowering!

Not successful were leeks: mine are only just getting to pencil thickness now, six months after being sown! This happens every year. I think I'm probably not giving them enough room.

What I've learnt: to net my brassicas from the get-go. I did it very late this year, following advice here, and the poor decimated broccoli, cabbages and kale that I'd been about to give up on immediately perked up and two heads of broccoli are now nearly ready.

[Bill HH]

I have learnt not to plant things too closely together, its taken me 40 years to learn this. Tiny plants look to have lots of room but then a couple of months later they are competing with each other for light, water, air etc and you cant weed them, the slugs and other pests are hard to control. All in all half as many plants will produce 4 times as much if given the room.

Dont just water, soak your plants, but do it less often. Water just sprayed on top briefly simply evaporates.

know when you are beaten, I have a long list of things that just wont do in my garden, yet I keep trying and waste valuable space in doing it. mostly the reason is mildew, I cant grow cougettes, peas or beans, squash or outdoor cucumbers, even sweet pease suffer. This year i grew a mildew resistent variety of peas and had one cup full of pease before the whole lot went white. A gorgeous display of sweet peas turned white in mid July. So now i am concentrating on things that do not suffer. My garden is in a sunken hole just like the polar bear compound at a zoo, maybe I should raise some of them.

Learn tolerance, my wife specialises in buying veg after I have told her i have plenty of. She comes home with tomatoes and cucumbers etc and then gives mine to our children and passing nomads.

Don't expect to save any money by growing your own on a small plot. If you seriously count all the costs, greenhouses, water butts, compost, tools, your time at minimum wage, GYO subscriptions etc particularly if you give a lot of your produce away. Just do it because its good to know its chemical free and tastes good.

Avoid garden centres unless you really have to, if you have to then make a list and stick to it. This is advice i am unable to stick to however.

[KevinM67]

I'm another one who wants to extoll the virtues of watering properly.

I struggled with growing my favourite veg - broccoli/calabrese.

For the last 2 summers, it has been really quite dry in our part of the UK - however, I stuck to the regime of giving the root area a good soaking once a week on a Sunday evening, adding nettle tea every 2nd week once the plants were established.

Fantastic results - even better this year due to covering with adequate netting to deter butterflies.

[Lumpy]

Success - beetroot, cabbage, mustards and celeiac.
Failures - toms, radish, DFB's and cucumber.
I have learnt that buying cheap seeds is not always a good idea - that whatever I plot and plan nature just giggles at my audacity and to enjoy what survived and mourn the plants that perished in my attempts to produce something edible.
Sue

[Snow]

Failure : Buying debris net because it's cheaper but then having no good plan to easily and cheaply do away with the holes for fixing that occur every meter or so. Hopefully next year I can resolve this and have a success with debris netting.

Success: potatoes in containers. So easy. Just wished I had more pathway to fit them on!