Grow your own dinner 2014

Little_Vics

Given that MBE has resigned from his position of leadership, I have started a new thread for 2014.

So, let's start.

What do you hope to grow this year? What worked well last year and what didn't? What will you try again?

And, as always, can someone please tell me what to do in January - or come and do it for me?

xLV

Dizzy_Ditzy

Thanks for the new thread!

I've got some test spuds on the go in my greenie, and some more in my parents greenie. Theirs are doing much better than mine :mad:

I've got garlic in pots waiting to go in, onions waiting to go in and chillies ready to sow.

I'm getting very impatient that it's not really garden time I even have new hunter wellies and new gardening gloves and am itching to get out and dirty them up!

wallbash

Success of last year goes to crystal apple cucumber,lots of fruits, over an extended season.

Have planted a new soft fruit bed, plants were reasonable but had to buy posts / wire / straining bolts which got expensive.

grandmasam

Followed MBE's thread last year, so looking forward to doing the same here.
Last year the raspberries, loganberries and bramleys did really well. The squash and courgettes got off to a slow start but had a good crop at the end, should last me a couple more months.Tomatos and salad crops were good as were climbing french beans and broad beans.
The failure was gooseberries, with sawfly and leeks with rust. Heres to a great year for growing fruit and veg.
Caz

seemasfriend

Happy New Year to all you green fingered MSEers. I was an intermittent lurker last year, silent but inspired by all your efforts on the growing front.
I have been given a half acre plot to use for growing fruit and veg. In other words a mega allotment. The task is daunting but my financial situation makes it a real necessity. I have three large raised beds in my own garden which gave and gave last year. I had French beans, dwarf beans and runner beans coming out of my ears for weeks on end. The only real disaster was the sweet corn which matured but took up a great deal of space and overshadowed my courgettes.
This year will be very different - ad hoc just won't do so I need a plan. But where to start?

Help!!!!!!

annie123

Little_Vics wrote: »

What do you hope to grow this year? Same as last year, What worked well last year? most things, and what didn't? Watermelon What will you try again? watermelon

And, as always, can someone please tell me what to do in January - or come and do it for me?

What to do?
Decide what potatoes to grow and buy seed ones;) start saving cartons for seed sowing, check through seed box to see what you have.
I keep a 'I DO NOT NEED' seed list, so if I see something I fancy trying (like watermelon) as long as it's not on my list I can buy it guilt free

Fay

Sorry I went AWOL last year. I really lost my mojo in the garden and did minimal work to let it tick over. I could kick myself because of course this means I now have a lot of work to do this year.
I found last year frustrating re:growing. But successes-raspberries romped away, black currants did well, French beans, broad beans and runners were good, peak were ok.
Not good: potatoes and may not do them again, my worst year yet for chillies and pepper to. Toms were ok but not great, either in or out of the greenhouse.
So, what to grow this year???

zafiro1984

FOUND YOU :j Thanks Little Vics

Didn't grow anything last year (due to having to have 2 hips replaced), but managed to forage quite a lot from what was already growing on the place so this year the veg plot should get back in production when I find it under the brambles.

I intend to grow only what we eat and to freeze the surplus. At the moment I'm working my way through some seed catalogues.

I had saved up for a polytunnel but unfortunately I've already spent the money on a luxury (a new foal - my other passion) Ah well, I'll have to start saving again.

I'll certainly be popping in here on a very regular basis to keep up to date with 'jobs to do'
Have any of you ordered your potatoes yet?

Little_Vics

I'm going to try to grow potatoes in tubs this year - I've got 2 old bins that should do the trick. I daren't put them in the ground after what happened a couple of years ago! I was still digging them up last year!!

I am useless at varieties of things though. We like a good roaster/masher - any suggestions?

I had a very successful year with courgettes, but less so with other things. I'm hoping to replant all my strawberries into a better position where I can net them, and also have a bash at using a cold frame properly.

You might remember from last year that we kind of inherited some land - sadly there's no news on this because the lawyers are dragging heals. I'm not overly bothered just yet because of the insane amount of work to do there.

Having said all that, this is Yorkshire so I'll probably only have 2 sunny days in 2014 to do any gardening at all!

Lavendyr

We have three raised beds, a fruit bed and a couple of borders with berries in.

Raised bed 1 is already well underway with autumn-planting red onions and three varieties of garlic. All of these are shooting and got a good amount of growth done before the cold weather set in so I am hopeful of a good crop!

Raised bed 2 still has some salad from my last planting in October. This year half will go for more salad, and I will have a think about what to use the other half for.

Raised bed 3 is asparagus - the crowns were planted last year when they were one year old, so now they are two. Still nothing to be cropped this year (or possibly one or two spears from the better performing crowns), but we can be patient :-D I have a bag of chicken manure waiting to be spread on this bed in late Feb or early March to give the plants a good feed.

The fruit bed has raspberries - which have never fruited amazingly (they were here when we moved in) given the amount of space they take up. Still we will persevere! There is also a rhubarb crown which does well enough for a couple of rhubarb crumbles each year (about the right amount for us!).

Finally we have redcurrants, blackcurrants and whitecurrants - all new bushes planted a year ago so no fruit as yet, but I am keeping my fingers crossed that we will get a crop this year.

Fay

Lavendyr wrote: »

We have three raised beds, a fruit bed and a couple of borders with berries

The fruit bed has raspberries - which have never fruited amazingly (they were here when we moved in) given the amount of space they take up. Still we will persevere! There is also a rhubarb crown which does well enough for a couple of rhubarb crumbles each year (about the right amount for us!).

Are they summer or autumn fruiting raspberries? You might not know. But I would be tempted to give them a hard chop back and if still nothing, get new canes. They're so expensive to buy it's well worth growing them.