The even newer good, bad and ugly of growing your own in 2021!

carinjo

My local W1ckes half price on spring flowering bulbs. Alliums, daffodils and tulips all £2. Had a nice selection.

MysteryMe

End of year report. C

Toms went OK but some suffered from blight. Cherry toms did well, beef toms better than last year and Ailsa Craig salad toms were rubbish.  Spinach a success, peas not a success, got about three pods, courgettes rubbish. I think it's largely my fault as I barely fed any of them.  

Next year, no more Ailsa Craig toms or peas.  Will try tumbling cherry toms for a change.

Suffolk_lass

Good idea - end of year report @MysteryMe - By the way, Sungold F1 hybrid is a good cherry tomato

Our end of 2021 report

Garlic and onions not great but adequate. Several strings of onions are gradually reducing. Did not grow shallots and regretted that.
Tomatoes were poor compared to 2020 and only the Sungold really cropped well. I had enough to make 12 jars of chopped tomatoes
Squashes were completely mad. I have thirty bags prepared and frozen plus several Crown Prince and Butternuts in my paper sacks in the larder
Potatoes we grew just 10 plants of second earlies but all good and we are still using these up
Sweetcorn was awful
Beans were a disaster
Salad crops went well
Asparagus was less good and the new plants were left
Roots were really poor
Raspberries, blackcurrants and gooseberries were all good.
First proper gages from a six year old tree
Just 4 Bramley Apples from a tree that was half buried in a hawthorn hedge - in the process of extracting it
Other apples were OK
Plums were a mix with so many Victorias but hardly any damsons. Plenty of Mirabelles

On to next year I will do my seed audit over Christmas so I am ready to order early

leftatthetrafficlights

End of year report:
Calabrese - excellent, best ever and tasted amazing! 
Beans - runner, French, broad - all good, need to give more space next season
Garlic - good - did well but I need to find better ways to dry
Leeks - disappointing- definitely nowhere near as good as last year, need to think about positioning
Sweetcorn- excellent! Nomnom
Beetroot- good - need to give ore space and plan sowings better 
Savoy cabbage- excellent but need better spacing
Chard - always good 😂 
Swede- disaster - all munched by creatures and far too closely sown
Turnips - lush need to look at spacing though
Salad leaves - brilliant- kept going for ages
Coriander - perfect! 
Squash - disaster 🙈 loads of growth, no fruit
Courgettes- poor
Peas - good - need more plantings
Tomatoes- poor
Aubergine- better than expected but not great
Peppers - disaster - eaten by creatures 
Chillis - pretty good! 

Next spring is my first opportunity to get the veggies sorted at the right time so I'm hopeful for 2022!!😁

bluesooz

End of year report:

Purple Sprouting Brocolli - excellent - the cooler/wetter weather during harvest time kept them going for longer than normal giving me time to harvest, and eat, before they turned into flowers!
Outdoor cucumber - excellent again due to the cooler wetter weather

leeks - good - both at beginning of year and current crop

Asparagus - ok
Squash - ok, but still a lot better than last year
Courgettes ok - only have 4 plants to keep me going - 1 cropped well, 1 cropped ok 1 not so good and 4th did nothing
red cabbage - ok
garlic - ok
rhubarb - ok
lettuce - ok 
spring onions - ok

Beans - broad/runner/french an ok crop from all but not as good as previous years
strawberries/raspberries - ok but not as good as previous years

peas - just got a few!
Blueberries - got 3 blueberries!
3 Apple trees - very few edible apples (although they are old and each has had a bracket fungus)

Outdoor toms got blight

Greenhouse:
Sweet peppers - excellent
chilies - good
cucumbers - ok
toms ok - tried the sungold for the first time, thanks to Suffolk_lass and they were lovely
Aubergines ok but a bit late and small

carinjo

End of year report:
Leeks doing well, will provide a steady supply over winter.
Ditto on the cavolo nero, chard and leaf beet.
Purple sprouting brocolli got 2 massive plants, no brocolli yet.
Maris piper, 45 chitted potatoes gave 14.5kg potatoes, a few of the fellow allotmenteers also got small sized potato harvest.
Tomatoes, 30 plants, all got blight, managed about 2 punnets of harvest.
"Large seeds" yellow courgette (very successfull), crown prince (2 pumpkins per plant), marrow (enough for the summer and some for the freezer), butternut (2 per plant), honeydew squash (small, but oh so tasty!), patti pan (no joy again).
Runner beans, hardly anything.
Broadbeans, planted at the wrong time according to fellow allotmenteers. Done an autumn planting for spring next year *fingers crossed*
Onion and garlic planting was semi successful, done an autumn planting, will see how it does next year.
William pear tree, about a dozen pears, unlike last year about 3kg. Fig tree gave loads of figs, but none matured, the weather was too cold, but still better than the 4 figs got last year.
Gooseberries, done a massive pruning beginning of season, hardly and gooseberries, better luck next year.
Same with the golden plums.
The herb box looks well established now: thyme, rosemary, sage.

Suffolk_lass

@carinjo I really sympathise over the tomatoes. I now only grow them in pots of fresh compost. IT's more of a watering overhead but I know there is a bit of blight in two of the beds as we get it in potatoes when they are in use.

ancientmum

i went to the allotment yesterday for the first time since Storm Arwen hit, and we've had Barra too since then.  it was much better than I expected, the dalek composter and cardboard over the beds were still in place.  We did not have any snow here in the deep south but the heavy rain has almost turned the cardboard to mush.
The past year has not been great, but I found some broccoli heads starting to form, so hoping they will provide a harvest in a couple of months.  
Potatoes and tomatoes got blight, the beans, peas and cucumbers were mostly munched by pigeons/slugs before they were more than a few inches high.  I did have some squashes which are waiting in the spare bedroom to be turned into comfort meals over the winter.  
I had some lovely apples from the tree I planted in 2019, but the figs didn't really ripen.  I planted a pear and quince tree last winter, and they look healthy.  Lots of blackcurrants and raspberries though.  

I've learnt a lot of lessons this past year, mostly to do with protecting the crops from pests.  I want to do this in a nature-friendly way so I'm looking at ways of encouraging helpful creatures onto the plot.  I am thinking of having a washing up bowl pond, and not tidying it up too much, leaving areas for over-wintering invertebrates (I'm not a naturally tidy-upper anyway).

Anyhow, I am still looking forward to next year, armed with more determination to be productive and be able to feed myself and my family some healthy food, whilst getting some fresh air and exercise, and enjoying chats with fellow allotmenteers.  What's not to love?

Good gardening everyone, best wishes for 2022.

Suffolk_lass

Hi @ancientmum - the washing up bowl pond is an idea I'm very taken with. It is worth putting some rocks in there so some stick out and they act like steps. We keep bees and in the Spring they were very keen on my bowl pond in the garden.

Your fig tree might need a shelter belt so that it is in open sun and protected from the prevailing wind. They tend to do well in this country if they are against a wall on a sunny patio, and are quite happy in a pot for a few years

ancientmum

Thank you for the tips Suffolklass.  I inherited the fig tree, it produced well last year but not so well this year.  I think I will give it a light prune in early spring.  It is anyway starting to encroach on my neighbour's plot.