Successes and failures 2010

SteveV2

I grew this year,

Strawberries - Great crop and plenty of runners for an even better crop next year!
Tomatoes - 4 big plants with plenty of green toms on, want these to go red! Have a smaller plant that grows smaller toms, again, loads of green toms.
Potatoes - Still in barrels, have flowered, flowers died but new flowers coming. Going to wait a little while longer. Dug up at this point last year and had loads of really small potatoes
Runner beans - 5 healthy plants growing from my old green recycle tray thing. Had plenty from it with even more on the way.
Carrots - Planted about 15, first year at trying. 1 has grown
Cucumbers - Started some off in the house, put outside but all died Will try again next year.

Cucumbers only the fail, but then I didn't try too much this year.

edit: also carrots not to good either

~~Diane~~

This year was my first proper year growing fruit and veg, so far so good only a couple of failures

Success

Cherry tomatoes (golden variety, not sure which) loads and loads
Plum tomatoes, still green but again loads
Strawberries
Raspberries (just beginning to ripen)
Petit poi's peas
loads of different lettuce
Spring Onions
Carrots
Cucumber
Apples (newly planted dwarf tree, wasn't expecting anything this year but got a good few mini apples)
White Pumpkin ( only for Halloween though)
Chillies
Corn

Disaster

Courgette (just died, don't know why)
Potatoes (my fault for being impatient)

Next year I hope my Apricot will produce fruit, bought along with the Apple.

I might try growing some Sprouts, and some more different fruits.

Money_maker

unhappy_shopper wrote: »

Bramley apple - B&Q £9.99 - tree planted 2 years back, loads of apples and the branches are drooping due to weight of the apples, guess they will be ready for picking soon, as they are already the size of a tennis ball. Last year had only about 10 apples.

Please someone tell me how to know that the Bramley apples are ready for picking?

Not ready til about October so use props to help avoid damage to the branches. They sound lovely.

Chimera

Sucesses
Corgettes - just harvesting now, have far too many plants
French Beans - harvesting a good few handfuls every couple of days
Peas - had lots of tasty fresh peas
Bright Lights Chard - great stuff - just keeps coming - lovely in stir fry
Pak Choi - picked em young for stir frys
Radish - they just keep on coming
Tomatoes - non ripe yet, but loads of green toms
Carrots - wasn't going to grow but got free seeds so thought I'd go for ickle ones, lovely and sweet
Spring Onions - take their time, but worth the wait - wish I'd sown more
Coriander - easy stuff to grow
Parsley - as above
Beetroot - Just a couple coming to harvestable size now - maybe roasted tomorrow
Gooseberries - bought a bush in spring for 4.99 and had about 1kg of fruit off it - good stuff


Had Problems with
SAlad Leaves were fantastic, but then got mass infestation of green fly - all seems to be good now though
Strawberries - loads of plants, but half ripped by puppy (did grow back, but not great for this year) and had green fly on best ones
Basil - wouldn't germinate earlier in year, but now I'm overrun with it.. lol
Blueberry - was looking amazing, but had a severe haircut from puppy - still a few left so may get some for fruit pudding
Cucumber - two avrieties, kept looking good as seedlings then dying at about 2-3", finally got some to grow though and have 3 tiny cucumbers so far
Don't Know yet
Aubergine - wasn't expecting to do much, but it has, have one fruit growing nicely, but hoping it stays that way!!
Raspberries - autum fruiting, had a few of last years canes, and new canes looking good so fingers crossed
Runner Beans - looking good, not ready yet though
Pumpkin, Squash etc - looking ok, but no fruits set yet
Brasiccas - have purple sprouting, kale, cabbage which seams ok, but been attacked a bit by caterpillars - will have to wait and see
Potatoes - had a quick look and got some out of ground, vest tasty, but not huge amounts, am going to leave a few more weeks
Sweetcorn - well, it looks good, but not counting my chickens and all that
Japanese Wineberry - looking healthy - hoping for a good crop

Failures
Broadbeans - puppy ate most of plants and two left have one pod on each
Chives - about 2 out of 100 seeds germinated
Aronia Viking - only has one berry, but I know why this is - was sent in flower!! at least one survived to get pollinated
Turnips - sowed straight to ground, assuming seeds got eaten - as no sign!!
Garlic - most rotted in ground, others haven't split - am still trying again though!!

First year of growing so have been trying lots, amazing how much has actually grown - am excited for next year - planning already!!!

wssla00

Succeses:

-Carrots
-Spinach- tons and tons
-Salad leaves
-Oriental salad leaves
-Basil
-Tarragon
-Lavender
-Chives
-Mint
-Rosemary
-Spring onions
-Leeks- doing really well
-Parsnips- such an early harvest in June!!!
-Rocket
-Coriander a BIG success as all my previously sowed seeds had failed
-Chillies
-Raspberries
-Gooseberries
-Spring onion
-Kale
-Strawberries
-Black currants
-Red currants
-Peas
-Corn Salad
-Beetroot
-Red Basil
-Parcel
-Pak Choi
-Cat mint- for the cats!
-Courgettes
-land cress
-watercress

Don't know yet:
-Toms- loads of them growing but hoping the blight stays at bay!
-Dwarf beans- planted a late crop so not ready yet but tons and tons of small pods
-pumpkins/squash still growing
-all my overwinter stuff as only just sowed

Failures-
Potatoes- Some got far too wet and rotted away others, the yeild was so small I wont be bothering next year for maincrop and only doing one small bag of earlies.
-Radish- were damaged by the wind and just didn't do anything
-Aubergines- My greenhouse collapsed and it now looks very sorry for itself
-Green pepper- as above with the greenhouse

Nikki

Success

Peppers
Chillies
Tomatoes
Peas
Runner Beans
Beetroot
Chantenay carrots
Borlotti beans
Courgettes
Squashes and Pumpkin
Sweetcorn
dwarf beans
raspberries
blueberries
gooseberries
blackberries
blackcurrants
worcesterberries

Ok, but not great

cucumbers, possibly the seed was too old. Last year we had great plants and loads of cucumbers, this year the plants seem a bit lethargic and are only producing a few cucumbers

Melons - was beginning to despair of these, the plants are dominating the greenhouse - but finally seem to be producing the odd melon.

fruit trees, battling peach leafcurl, apples are looking ok at the mo, plum tree not much on that, cat or pidgeon snapped off one of the varieties on the triple cherry tree . But they are all still very young trees.

Potatoes - small crop but had to dig them up as it looked like they had blight - a neighbour had the same trouble.

Our only real faliure so far was the garlic, mainly due to leek moth - but now we know how to try and combat it we wil try again next year. Celery and leeks could well be added to this list soon:(.

cazziebo

This will make you seasoned gardeners chuckle...

Bought loads of plants from t'internet, encouraged by you bad lot on here, and planted everything out. To set the scene, I live in a street surrounded by small, beautiful gardens.

I've been wondering what the plants were that I planted into my borders - they were growing tall for bedding plants. I thought I'd planted giant fuschia, but expected the actual plant to be small, with large flowers.

Just realised my front garden is filled with tomato plants.....:rotfl::rotfl:

I'll be the laughing stock of the street. Considering whether to whip them out while it's dark....

katholicos

cazziebo wrote: »

This will make you seasoned gardeners chuckle...

Bought loads of plants from t'internet, encouraged by you bad lot on here, and planted everything out. To set the scene, I live in a street surrounded by small, beautiful gardens.

I've been wondering what the plants were that I planted into my borders - they were growing tall for bedding plants. I thought I'd planted giant fuschia, but expected the actual plant to be small, with large flowers.

Just realised my front garden is filled with tomato plants.....:rotfl::rotfl:

I'll be the laughing stock of the street. Considering whether to whip them out while it's dark....

That's fantastic, don't remove them, nowt wrong with a bit of fruit and veg gardening in the front garden. If you get a lot of toms on them you could even share some with the neighbours....alternatively if they laugh at you you could wait for the toms to go a bit off and then throw them at your neighbours for being so dour!

j/k.

katholicos

The onions i sowed from seed all perished and came to nothing...the onions i sowed from onion sets came to nothing....the strawbs i tried to sow from seed nevr germinated....the rosemary i attempted to grow from seed came to nothing...the cobnut squash seemed to come to nothing when i planted them in the ground but i'm holding out a shred of hope that they might actually produce...maybe.

Basil was decimated by pests and never grew much....spring onions didn;t do well, carrots have been a waste of time too.

But i have successfully grown mangetout, courgette, salad leaves, strawbs from roots, rhubarb, patty pan squash, pepper plant, tomato plant, radish, turnip, swede, potatoes, parsley, mint, celery par cel, broad beans and lots more.

Mutantk

Fab thread! This is my very first year and I'm in Southend, I really wanted LOTS of everything, so far been a little disappointed but still early and maybe had too high expectations!

Success

Broad beans (just didn't like them as much as we thought)
courgette (but thought they would fruit for longer than they did)
strawberries
summer squash - very impressed with these, had a few and more growing, they look impressive too!

Failure

potatoes - for the expense of buying the compost and doing them in tubs - small harvest!
runner beans - loads of flowers, just not happening!
french beans - same as runners
peas - only a few pods across 8 plants
onions/shallots/garlic - just didn't do a lot
blackcurrant - approx 8 across 2 bushes (although heard first year not that great)
chives - died after first chop
pumpkins - not getting bigger than golf balls then dying
butterut - same as pumpkins
babycorn - got really tall then nothing
sweet bell pepper - 8 plants, 2 peppers size of small orange!

Yet to see...

squashkins - growing well now but so were pumpkins!
tomatoes - got a few on there so far but all green and not as abundent as one had hoped!
chillis - just flowering now
broccoli/cauli/cabbage - not looking too healthy if I'm honest
cucumbers - have had one, very nice and lots of flowers on others...

Still, got an allotment for next year so sure will do better there - should have said, all of the above done it makshift pots (old baby bath, sweetie tins from xmas, old kids sandpit!) so may have not helped!!