The ups and downs of growing your own dinner 2016...

Dizzy_Ditzy · 1 January 2016 at 4:43PM

Hello folks and welcome to the 2016 grow your own thread

Everyone is welcome. Come and tell us about your growing shenanigans

What do you like to grow?

Are you going to try anything different this year?

Do you have any tips for growing?

Do you make anything with what you grow?

Happy new year, and happy growing!

Ken68 · 1 January 2016 at 4:59PM

Thanks Queen, definitely will NOT be growing Celeriac, apart from being small and awkward to peel, wrong sort of land.
Still behind, main job to do is fruit tree pruning and compost sorting.
Freeze and preserve most of what I grow. Bottling was a big thing in 2015, mainly early plums and early pears. Microwave method.
With all the rain shenanigans is the right word.

Narc0lepsy · 1 January 2016 at 9:06PM

Thanks for the new thread. I've been a bit intermittent on posting lately, but intend to do better!
Highlights of this year: runner beans, broad beans. White and red currants. Greengages.
Reasonable: beetroot, although they were small compared with my friend from Somerset; his were like swedes! Tayberries ok. Basil and parsley good.
Hopeless: mange tout did ok but most ripened while I was on holiday. Sprouts have lovely tops but minimal actual sprout.
The new goji plants produced lots of long stems with leaves but no flowers or fruit.

Currently growing: still picking apples off an actual tree (freezer is full).
Still cutting spinach/chard.
Curly kale looking good.

those are what stands out - other things like tomatoes, peppers etc were ok too.
This year I have some raspberry canes, newly planted last year. Blueberry plants: 4 survived and gave a handful of fruit last year (their second year from being a twig!). Hoping they will be good this year.

We've had barely no frost this year, no floods but fairly wet and warm. The hanging baskets I brought into the greenhouse in Nov are now flowering as if it was June!

zafiro1984 · 2 January 2016 at 3:58PM

Thanks Queen of Cheap for the new thread. I shall be posting as the year unfolds but at the moment it's just rain and more rain. I really shouldn't complain as we have not been flooded.

7_week_wonder · 2 January 2016 at 10:01PM

Hello,
I've never posted on this board before, but I'd like to join you this year if that's ok. We've attempted to grow our own with varying degrees of success over the last few years but this year will be different:

On the plus side we will have more time as we have fewer family commitments and OH has taken early retirement.

On the minus side OH will be mostly out of commission for the first 4 or 5 months of the year (hip and then knee replacement :eek:)

Last year's highlights were baby turnips and plums, plums and more plums

Aims for this year: carrots and beetroots that actually germinate!

I guess we've got off to an ok start as we've just had fresh chard and leeks from the garden with our supper, but let's see what the spring brings! I'm looking forward to reading and learning

savingpennies · 3 January 2016 at 5:30AM

I've posted intermittently in the past but early retirement this year should see me more active in the garden.
I grew salad leaves, turnips, strawberries, raspberries, tomatoes, plums, carrots, beans and a few courgettes this year.
I didn't have much success with beetroot (tiny), spring onions (didn't germinate), radishes (some leaves but not much else) and cucumbers (only 4!).
I intend to try more of the same but aim for more success this year. Wish me luck:D

fuddle · 3 January 2016 at 8:45AM

Ken68 wrote: »

Thanks Queen, definitely will NOT be growing Celeriac, apart from being small and awkward to peel, wrong sort of land.

Would you mind posting about the difficulties you had Ken68? I was thinking of growing celeriac myself but I'm dealing with a 6x1 metre raised bed so space is limited. Well draining. Pretty much a south facing patch.

Any feedback would be very much appreciated.

Ken68 · 3 January 2016 at 12:41PM

Hi Fuddle....curious about Celeriac, smells like Celery, so you would think light land would suit. But the plants came out forked and small. Also curious are the leaves, almost identical to Parsnip.
Anyway will buy Celeriac from the greengrocers in future. Not worth growing for me, maybe stronger land with more sand would be better.

Dizzy_Ditzy · 3 January 2016 at 4:15PM

I was fairly pleased with most of what I grew last year. Swedes didn't do too well, as did yellow onions or garlic.

Beetroot, two varieties of potatoes, peas, sweetcorn, cabbages, brocolli, strawberries all did me nicely

Pentland javelin potatoes did fantastically well - we had over 30lbs in weight from 18 tubers so I've ordered 60 for this year

king Edwards did ok but not fantastic. Sarpo Mira were crap and I won't be bothering with them again. I tried some Jazzy potatoes from T&M but they were doubly crap.

We did beef tomatoes and plum tomatoes. The beef ones were huge but the plums were disappointing. Cucumbers failed miserably. Chillies did well but we didn't bother with peppers.

There's loads I want to grow this year, probably just as well I have two allotments to do it all on :rotfl:

unrecordings · 3 January 2016 at 5:52PM

Well...

To summarise last year: Tomatoes were fantastic this year in the greenhouse, but outdoors they were hit badly by blight. Potatoes were pretty good, but again, towards the end of the season they became blighted. Oca did really well as did my kale, but I somehow messed up the broccoli & sprouts - they're still really small. Despite the scary spiders that took up residence, runner beans were pretty good, but the French beans were not so good. On the herb front my lovage took hold, as the fennel - I'm hoping they'll be back again this year.

As for 2016: I have big hopes this year for wild garlic, and fingers crossed my damson tree will fruit for the first time. This time I'm planning things a little more meticulously, but I aim to go for plenty of potatoes, oca, peas, beans, brocolli, sprouts and i'm determined to finally conquer radishes and beetroot

Scottish_Mike · 4 January 2016 at 12:54PM

Happy new year! Hopefully this year will be better than last (it was a weird summer last year here in the Midlands).

Fails of 2015:
Giving up the allotment - sad about that, but it was too far away, I don't drive and just didn't have the time.
Tomatoes - Tumbling Toms weren't that prolific, and didn't have much flavour.Trying Sungold this year. Also, I scorched and almost killed all our tomatoes following an aphid outbreak, so going to try and leave alone this year!
Pumpkins - last year wasn't the year I guess. Had 3 types in the garden, none yielded particularly well, but they were all grown in tubs/bins. Going to try them in the ground this time.

Raspberries were moderately successful, so hoping to improve on that this year. I also planted a loganberry which has grown great guns in the last year, so hoping it'll yield well this year.
I need to get a rhubarb crown in ASAP and get a load more strawberries.
Also, planted my quince tree in the ground (it was not happy in a pot) and want an apple tree and a grape vine too.
All these plans! I love this time of year, it's quite exciting planning all of this!

The ups and downs of growing your own dinner 2016...

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free