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If you could only grow ONE thing...

orangecrush
orangecrush Posts: 264 Forumite
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in Gardening
Hello all!

After a fairly disasterous summer of growing (no)things, I've decided to narrow my focus for the next year. This years disasters include:
  • Brassicas were completely destroyed by caterpillars
  • Onions just didn't grow.
  • Courgettes got mildew and died.
  • Spinach and chard destroyed by slugs.
  • Blueberries... lord knows what happened but we got literally 5 berries and they were really sour.
  • Raspberries got beetle-d.
  • Morello cherries all split, then got eaten by wasps
  • Squash got slug-ed.
  • Potatoes were just pants.
  • I have 3 surviving leeks that may make it to adulthood :rotfl:
On the plus side, we had a good blackcurrant harvest, and the raspberries we got to on time were tasty.

I have little time to spare (working mum of a toddler) and I'm a bit fed up with it all - I scraped time here and there to grow stuff and its all been a failure.

So! Onwards. I'm going to grow less variety, and try to just grow one (maybe two) things well.

My question to you is: if you could only grow one crop, what would it be? (And is it idiot prood:huh:)
Thank you moneysavers!:beer:
«134

Comments

  • RelievedSheff
    RelievedSheff Posts: 11,313 Forumite
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    Apples.

    You really can't go wrong with apples.
  • DigForVictory
    DigForVictory Posts: 11,906 Forumite
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    +1 for an apple tree.
    Not least as you already have the blackberries & in the glut years you can do a brisk trade with all happy jam makers (as apples are wonderful for pectin & getting jam to set)
    Also an excellent tree both to learn to climb on and to throw accurately. (Happy childhood memories!)

    My rhubarb is doing pretty well for an ignored most of the time plant, but the jostaberry is doing brilliantly too. Son inadvertently "took a cutting" with a trimmer, but the cutting took so I forgave him. More jam & crumble filling!
  • unrecordings
    unrecordings Posts: 2,017 Forumite
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    On the basis that saying 'apple tree' is cheating (sorry peeps) I'd go for tomatoes. Grow indoors or outdoors, easy to go overboard or easy to be restrained, and many different ways to eat them

    Why am I in this handcart and where are we going ?
  • kazwookie
    kazwookie Posts: 13,842 Forumite
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    Cucumber for me.


    Others

    Toms
    Peppers
    Lettuce
    Chard
    Breast Cancer Now 2022 100 miles October 100 / 100miles
    Sun, Sea

    2024 7/28 lbs to go.
  • McKneff
    McKneff Posts: 38,823 Forumite
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    Taties

    Really versatile

    Thank you for giving us a smile.

    Buy lots of netting

    Plastic bottles and aluminium pie cases on strings.
    Bunting

    Good luck for next year
    make the most of it, we are only here for the weekend.
    and we will never, ever return.
  • orangecrush
    orangecrush Posts: 264 Forumite
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    Thank you all for your fabulous ideas!!

    Sadly some have reminded me of more failures that I had forgotten about 🙈 Cucumbers also got mildew and died, and lettuces were a slug banquet 😂

    I do zero pest control, which doesn’t help. We don’t have hedgehogs as its a stepped garden and apparently hedgehogs can’t do steps. Tempted to put in a ramp 🤔

    Winter plans include putting in a wildlife pond in the hope it attracts frogs that will maybe provide some predation on the pesky slugs and snails!

    I would love an apple tree, but we’ll be moving in the next few years. Wonder if it would live in a pot temporarily?

    Tomatoes and potatoes maybe for next year - we did get a potato harvest this year but I grew a different variety to usual and they just weren’t nice. Back on the pentland javelin for next year I think!

    Will start looking into tomatoes and putting pennies away for a mini greenhouse.

    Thank you everyone!
  • Silvertabby
    Silvertabby Posts: 9,022 Forumite
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    edited 15 October 2019 at 9:24PM
    Chillies. 4 plants of 'Ring of Fire' give us enough fruits for a whole year (they freeze well) !
  • DigForVictory
    DigForVictory Posts: 11,906 Forumite
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    You can get an apple tree for around a tenner from the supermarket about the same time as Christmas trees are being sold - although there are no guarantees it'll survive.
    Or you can buy online around now & get a "bareroot" tree of your choice of variant (ruddy ploughman, james grieve, allington pippin etc) which you dig a deep hole, add the growth hormone sachet they sting you extra for & it has more likelihood of surviving (as you'd hope at around £30.
    You then eventually sell the property with a viable tree & plan to buy with a tree, or plant a new one this time with bonus experience. Seriously - the apple tree is the busy mothers ideal plant as you really can dig it in & ignore it For Years. (Just have your toddler draw you pictures...)

    There are trees that can cope with container life but they're small & a bit fiddly, whereas a dig it in & let nature take its course bigger tree is much more robust.
    Best of luck!
  • Farway
    Farway Posts: 13,221 Forumite
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    unrecordings wrote: »
    On the basis that saying 'apple tree' is cheating (sorry peeps) I'd go for tomatoes. Grow indoors or outdoors, easy to go overboard or easy to be restrained, and many different ways to eat them


    Given OP disasters I'd not be growing a blight prone subject like tomatoes, wait a few months, then see them die with blight would be just too much IMO


    + 1 for rhubarb, slugs could scoff it but if big enough it'll survive


    + 1 for apple, some fruits could get maggoty but even then fruit would be suitable for pies etc
    Eight out of ten owners who expressed a preference said their cats preferred other peoples gardens
  • Mnd
    Mnd Posts: 1,699 Forumite
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    Crikey,that's made me think...I can't imagine what 1 thing I would grow, or more to the point, what wouldn't I grow.

    In the end I would grow. .carrots..
    No.79 save £12k in 2020. Total end May £11610
    Annual target £24000
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