2023 - the good, the not so good but hopefully not ugly of growing your own!

Kantankrus_Mare

Thanks for the new thread!! My plot is pretty tidy and we just managed to get a delivery of manure before the really cold spell which my OH and husband put into the compost areas for me. Still have a few things to do before spring like pruning the raspberries and if I can wangle some help......I want to move one of the raspberry rows to another area. I have two rows which do really well but they grow too closely together and block the back fence of allotment so I cant weed or get to a lot of the raspberries. A bit of weeding, cutting brambles back, compost spreading and Im good to go. 

Jazee

Thanks for the thread.  A change of routine meant that I didn't really do well in the garden last year, but I'm better organised now so have already been working on my seed plan and am aiming to spend 15 minutes in the garden each day when I finish the dog walk and still have my scruffy clothes on.
Today, I may harvest the last of the leeks and get them in the freezer.

YBR

Happy new year!

I've been in the current house for 8 years, and have a small veg garden plus herbs and a few fruit scattered elsewhere.

Herbs: There's a mature bay tree that I've been pruning and need to thin this year; Rosemary is being replaced as it collapses to block the path; thyme, chives, basil, mint in pots. my other half (main cook) doesn't use these as much as I hoped.

Veg: usually runner beans, sugar snap peas, lettuce, carrot, parsnip, onion, garlic. Tomatoes and Cucumbers in the greenhouse. Courgette I now grow up a structure so they don't take over the whole plot.
I've been doing kale while we had seeds from my mum, but the cabbage white butterflies/caterpillars eat them and we don't very much so probably won't repeat - I'd already given up on other brassicas. I've also tried capsicum (sweet pepper) and aubergine in the past with nothing much to show. Don't have enough space for sweetcorn as you need quite a few to be sure of a good crop.

Fruit: there are strawberries, raspberries and my OH has a grape vine which has done OK the last few years. Very dependent on a good summer though.

I'm very behind as I haven't got the beds cleared from last season yet - it's being held up by the compost - we have a series of 3 heaps and the first is overflowing as I haven't yet sieved the 2nd out into the third. It's been too wet and/or cold recently, so I should probably cover over no.2. Once that's done, OH will turn 1st compost into the 2nd layering properly, and I'll dig out the veg bed (I'll probably find some parsnips still in there!) and clear what's left in the greenhouse.

droopsnoot

I've got some seeds to start off a bit later in the year, mainly the same peppers, chillies and tomatoes that I grew last year but also some lettuce and other similar green stuff that I've had from the Wilkos sale. I've planted some onion bulbs a bit ago and I see that four of them are coming up. I've also got potatoes still in the ground, some of the plants above the ground have died off in the cold but as they're all from potatoes that have been there several years I expect there's still something there to eat.

I want to plant the chillies a bit earlier this year - one of the types never went red and they didn't really have much taste to them and I think it might be because they were planted later than they should have been. Also I want to try to stop the tomato plants from growing so long and gangly, so I'll have a go at pinching the centres out this time.

I'd like to tidy the greenhouse out. As my Mum started to lose interest in gardening it became a dumping ground for stuff, to the extent that it wasn't possible to actually get inside it without pulling some stuff out, and I could see plenty of plant pots at the far end but couldn't get to them. I've tidied it a bit, but it would be nice to be able to actually grow stuff in it. Fortunately I also have a lean-to on the back of the house that does provide a bit of growing space, but that's used to access the back door of the house so I am limited.

Dizzy_Ditzy

Going on holiday at the end of April meant that we didn’t have anything started until mid-May. Not ideal but most of it caught up. The highest temperature we had was 43° which was hard work watering 🥵 

I need to bring some compost in from the greenhouse so I can get some onions started from seed. I should have done that a couple of days ago 😂

What did well on my plot? Sprouts! We’ve never really had any luck with sprouts but we had some plants so chucked them in the unprepared ground and they’ve done brilliantly! We will still be eating sprouts in March I reckon 😆

Potatoes were just ok, courgettes did well, beetroot, shallots and dwarf beans did well. Onions weren’t great, all smaller than I’d have liked. Strawberries were good, bramley apples were fab but pretty wasted as we failed to use them in time, Beetroot was good although we didn’t use all of that either and there are still a few in the ground

We left a large part of my plot fallow last year so need to plan what’s going there this year. I might have a go at planning later today 

wit40iwtwan

I hope to move to my 'paradise found' in the next few months if all goes to plan and the garden is laid to shingle so I am hoping to set up a few raised beds and a green house and grow my own.  I have been living in a flat with a large patio and have successfully grown tomatoes, chillies, 

Dizzy_Ditzy

It’s a lovely sunny day here so we spent a couple of hours at the plot hard pruning the fruit trees- bramley, cherry and unnamed apple trees all done ✔️ 

Glittering_M

droopsnoot said:

 I've also got potatoes still in the ground, some of the plants above the ground have died off in the cold but as they're all from potatoes that have been there several years I expect there's still something there to eat.

Can I please check my understanding with this please? Are these ones you planted a few years ago and left or do they come back every year like perennials? If you harvest some but leave some? Although I guess that's kind of the same thing!

alicef

Not strictly GYO but today I finished planting the narcissus bulbs that I had bought in the sale 

For the remainder of this week I'm hoping to.....

Clear out the polytunnel 
Check over the propagators (will be looking at how much energy they consume) 
Prune the grapevines (3)
Put a bin over the rhubarb for forcing 
Start on the veg. plan 

curlywurly82

Last year was my first year with a garden and I managed to grow lots of tomatoes, I had three courgette plants and they did okay, I had 2 aubergines and 1 pepper of rhe aubergine and pepper plants.

At the moment I have leeks in the ground, they aren't doing that well. I started growing them early summer and they are still no thicker than a pencil.

This year I intend to start growing some herbs, I will probably give tomatoes and courgettes a go again and I'm mot sure what else.