Vegetable Growing 2025

I think in general most of us had a poor-ish year last season, but we don't
give up and try again this Spring/Summer.

 

@Selleri we have been growing kohlrabi for many years but always in the polytunnel. We sow indoors and then transplant the seedlings into the soil in the tunnel. Last year wasn't a great year as with so many of our veg but we still have some rabi to harvest. We also grow carrots in the tunnel as well as pak choi. We tend to keep them all separate with no interplanting.

 

I might try potatoes and some kind of green beans in tubs outdoors, and maybe chillies started indoors. Not enough sun and too much rain put me off growing veg last year. Wonder what the weather will be like this year?

 

I grow them usually, they are half season crops so you can fit things in after or before them

For early ones I sow end of February inside, when germinated prick out and grow on in a module each for about a month in the unheated greenhouse. They are frost hardy. Then plant out start of April under fleece. Usually harvestable in June. For these pick when they are about tennis ball sized or they go woody as they go to flower

If you want big ones, then sow after the longest day and they will keep on growing into early winter and won't get woody as they'll want to flower the following year.

It's similar to florence fennel in that way

 

Thanks very much @On the Levels and @Hanglow , very helpful information! I'll give a go with an early batch starting in modules soon and then a later batch straight outdoors when there's room after other earlies are gone.

It must have been 20 years or so since I last ate kohlrabi

 

As I get older I too am changing what I grow, aiming for things that are tasty in season(don't freeze much) and things that are expensive in the shops.
Greenhouse has tomatoes, as shop bought ones just don't taste of much. I grow early crops as well. garden peas, lettuce, carrots, spring onions. I have grown Sweet Corn under glass in the past, but not doing so this year. Outside I have gone back to growing tatties as they taste so much nicer, not a lot, just for eating straight out of the ground. Onions, don't know why, but I just like growing them from seed, usually red ones.
I don't grow brassicas, sandy soil just doesn't produce any good ones. Broad Beans are a favourite, Bunyards Exhibition, been growing a dozen or so for years.

 

I am adjusting what I will grow too, partly because I have cut down to one plot at the Allotments, but also because some things just don't work for me on my site. A prime example is the Onion family, our site is infested with White rot so any suc crop is very ht nd miss even if you get a crop it doesn't store. So like others I concentrate on things that do work, are expensive or benefits particularly from being very fresh.

 

This was filmed last year, to give you a look at where and how I grow things.

 

That is a good selection you have growing, @burnie. How did your peas go in the end - did the slugs and snails get them all? The rain was relentless with me last year and the slugs and snails were multiplying all the time. I might try growing smaller tomato plants in hanging baskets, thanks for reminding me.

 

Does anyone know if Lidl have their veg seeds in again?

 

Not on display at my nearest store as at 04/02/25.
Last year were 'late' and incomplete range

 

They are in St. Austell Cornwall.

 

Yeah I seem to remember last year they came out at different times depending on location

 

Found some today, seemed to also still have last year's packets too or even earlier with a packed in 2022. I did pick up a few though that were listed as packed in 2024, lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, parsley, radish. Seemed a smaller range. No beetroot or squash for example. No climbing beans although I think last year I only got bush beans from them too. No tomatoes either

 

I got some golden beet seeds and I thought I saw some red beet though I can't be sure. They had Uchiki Kuri squash too. Perhaps they have them earlier down here because the season starts earlier (though you wouldn't believe that this year).
In previous years I have had Kinghorn wax beans which I grow in tubs and are really nice to eat. A packet lasts me 2 to 3 years.
One thing they did have too was pots of three hyacinths which I have put into bigger pots with a bit more compost. I find it is not worth potting your own bulbs when you can get them so cheap especially when I haven't loads of room to keep them over winter.