Successes and Failures in 2009?

[Hayley1 10]

Of your harvest so far, what have been your successes and failures?

 

At our school gardening club today, we harvested some 10kg potatoes. All grown in containers. The ones we grew in potato bins yielded far mare than I managed at home in similar bags!

We also harvested around 12 onions, now hanging to dry, and just 4 runner beans.

I think the strawberries were picked during the holidays.

We lost our lettuce, broccoli, courgette and pumpkins to the slugs unfortunately, but our kale, despite an attack are hanging on....just, and I think I spotted one or two carrot tops lol

 

At home, we've been successful with tomatoes. Money-makers have finished now, but those I grew from the seeds of a tomato I bought are really going well. Some good sized fruit, just waiting for enough sunshine now to ripen. Tumbling toms in my hanging baskets are also cropping well (rather tasty too)

Rasberries and strawberries have done well this year too.

Lettuces have done well, and my next batch is almost ready to begin cutting.

Our peas went down well too...although next time I shall stagger the planting

 

Unfortunately my onions failed to grow much bigger than garlic cloves. My garlic was pilferred by the squirrel and my 3 butternut squash plants have come to a stop with hardly a flower between them, despite helping them pollinate. My peppers look like they might finally decide to flower in the next week or two....took their sweet time, too late now!

The boys entered a local competition with a pot of radishes, and even though one of them managed to get a 3rd prize, they're looking really sorry for themselves now (radishes, not boys lol)

 

Still, better luck next year eh?

 

How have you all got on?

[Bob Arctor 11]

Franceline potatoes, massive crop alert! Got seed spuds from Beanies, great spuds well tasty and loads and loads of em.

 

we also found out that when you thin out beetroots you can transplant the seedlings and they work, which the books say you can't do

[Bonjon 10]

Good:

Tomatoes, we have had about 30kg upto now and there are plenty still on the plants, did normal sized ones, beef and plum. Despite the plants now looking half dead(to be expected after all the work they have done) they are still producing loads. Unfortunatley there seems to be a bit of blight rearing its head .

 

Spuds were great 30ish kg

 

Peas we had loads, sugarsnap and normal types.

 

Beans have cropped us about 15kg upto now and still going v.strong.

 

We have had about 8-10 cabbages, about 15 corn cobs.

 

peppers and chillis are all going red. loads of salad stuff, turnips, spring onions, pak choi all did v.well.

 

Fruit wise, strabs(still flowering and picking!!), blackberry's, apples, figs all did well.

Bad:

 

Onions were tiny, parsnips got ate, cauli's got ate, carrots were tiny, mini sweetcorn was not worth the effort for the return, garlic was small, 2nd peas got ate. Pumpkins grew and grew but any little pumpkins just fell off(tried everything to polinate them).

 

Things still to come:

Sprouts(doing great although we have about 30 plants)

Broccoli doing good despite major catipiler damage.

 

But overall more good than bad. I have learnt loads this year and what to do better next year. Everything I have not had success with will be grown next year so I can learn from my mistakes and hopefully grow them.

[RobD1 10]

Successes:

 

Most fruit, especially gooseberries. Made loads of jam.

Onions - in danger of taking over the house at the moment

Peppers - grew some from seed kept from some bought in Tescos and they produced fruit.

Chillies

French beans (although a bit late)

Carrots - because I finally managed to grow some!

Potatoes - had many kgs so far this year and probably got a couple of sacks of maincrops still to dig up

Purple sprouting brocolli, survived the winter, cropped really well and tasted amazing

Peas - ate as many as the birds this year, which is a first!

 

Failures:

Tomatoes (although I think there could be a mouse 'issue' at play here)

Pumpkins, plants very slow to establish

Garlic - very small compared to previous years

[cornishmaid 10]

Fantastic crop of onions this year . Broad beans did well as did courgettes and sweetcorn. Tommies got blight so not very good and the runner beans have been poor but I think thats my fault for planting out too early . Butterflies got at the cabbage but the hearts are still edible !

[Evei 10]

I am pretty hopeless on the veg and flower front as I am a bit erratic with my watering! I managed to grow from seed and not kill:

 

chillis

salad + herbs

sweet peas

pansies

various rockery plants

 

I killed my tomatoes for the third year running. As you can see I can only manage to grow bomb proof plants

[jessm 10]

Successes:

Abolutely swamped with runner beans and courgettes. First attempt at carrots, parsnips and spuds - all did well (though the parsnips are a little skinny). Chillis still doing OK.

 

Mixed results:

First attempt at cabbages - some are looking quite nibbled - slugs, snails and catepillars (should have used some netting, methinks), but a couple look decent enough to eat.

 

Disasters:

Tomatoes - wiped out by blight :-(

Garlic - got waterlogged and rotted

[Debk 10]

My blueberries and raspberries did really well I have had some for breakfast every day since late june and just picked the last rasperries today.

 

My cauliflower and brocolli suffered from my erratic watering i think

 

First year i have grown courgettes - fantastic!!

 

Corn not worth the effort- small kernals

 

Good peas & potatoes & reasonable beans

 

Next year will be the first year I can crop the asparagus i planted 2 years ago- can't wait!