How is all your veg doing?

Lots of talk on various threads about good year for x, bad year for y. Be nice to have a summary of everyone's successes and failures, see if there's any trends out there!

Me:

Spuds - average. Big spuds, but not many of them for some reason (even the earlies).

Climbing beans - brilliant (EVERYONE should be digging bean trenches this winter - it works miracles)

Broad beans - good

Carrots - fantastic!

Courgettes - rubbish

Toms - cropping well, but not ripening

Salad etc - is as salad does. Masses of it.

Brassicas - good / average. Bit caterpillary despite spraying.

Cucumbers - plants romping away but not really cropping yet.

Rasps & Strawbs - rubbish

Chillis - best ever. Overwintering is the way forward, people!

 

Andrew

Here's my score card:

runner beans (Polestar) - excellent

lettuce (Webbs Wonderful) - fantastic

beetroot (Boltardy - pretty good

carrots (Maestro F1) - excellent

early leeks (Musselburgh) - looking a bit tatty and have been chewed by onion fly, I think

onions (Sturon sets) - still a bit small

main leeks (Carlton F1) - looking a bit peeky

So, all in all, pretty good but I have to water them every evening because of the drought.

 

All good apart from the onions, didn't get them in till late, in the stoniest part of the plot & the storm blew most of them over.

Been living off french beans, spuds, spinage, salad & corgettes for past 2 weeks.

Toms just starting to ripen, peppers & chillis have set. Sweet potato is just sitting at 4inches though.

 

I should point out that all but the Runner beans are in containers :-

Runners - brilliant
French beans in plastic trough - excellent
Peas in tub - not bad, no grubs and nice and clean but too few to make it worth it. Note to self, more next year.
Courgettes in greenhouse - started off ok dwindling now, leaves pale and sickly looking although have had about 10 decent courgettes
Tomatoes - superb, been eating them for 2/3 weeks. ( various varieties )
Radish in troughs, ok ish, went to seed too fast
Carrots in deep pots - wonder if it's worth it as dont get many in a pot
Broad beans - some in pots ( dwarf ) and some in ground dotted in flower bed. Rubbish very few flowers/pods
Herbs - all fine
Onions - tried them in a trough, quite small
Garlic - in a trough, planted bit late, small bulbs but they worked !
Mangetout - planted a few in a large tub, quite successful
Cucumber - leaves dont look that great but has cucumbers growing. One will be ready in a few days
Chillis - in the greenhouse and 2 in a hanging basket. All have nice big chillis on especially the greenhouse plants
Peppers - great, have eaten 3
Spring Onions in a trough outside, prob wouldnt bother again, cant pull them up without them breaking

Fruit

Strawberries - in one of those large plastic planters, ok but very short lived
Blueberries - nice but birds a menace, not had many ( birds have ! )
Rhubarb - in a very large container, new plant so let it be but doing very well
Peach bush in container - got 7 peaches, taking forever to ripen, rock hard still, one large one fell off today

 

I forgot to mention my Bindweed.... miffed now coz I bet mine's doing better than yours shiney :hehe:

7 year old chilli plants? Do they just keep going? Interesting

 

Peas â?? OK, taste great, but not enough of them. Went with the dwarf variety so will change that next year.

Carrots â?? deeeeeeeelish, in tubs, baby variety, taste amazing - so chuffed with those.

Toms â?? lots of toms, just starting to ripen but the plants themselves don't look very healthy, we've been feeding them but the leaves are very yellow, bit worred about those.

Potatoes â?? we put our earlies in a bit late â?? pulled half of them 2 weeks ago and got about 8 stupidly tiny potatoes... other half are still going. will leave them for maybe another 2 weeks. Main crop are Purple Danube I think - all looking good, nice and healthy.

Herbs â?? thyme, rosemary, parsley, chives, garlic chives all going great. Coriander is bolting.... again. I give up with that. Basil is being devoured by caterpillars.

Strawbs - been and gone. Massive crop compared to last year so v.pleased. Runners are just starting to take.

Beetroot - very good. Harvested 6 or 7 last week, tasted deelish. The rest are doing great.

Fennel â?? growing well. Some have been seriously munched by the snails but are fighting back.

Swede â?? wow, first year growing swede. Big leaves. Caterpillars like them but again, fighting back.

Garlic â?? one of the Elephant Garlic has flowered... others are doing OK.

Shallots â?? looking OK, not as successful as this time last year.

Onions â?? first time growing from seed, they're v.small... we're not expecting anything really so whatever we get is a bonus!

Blueberries â?? looking fab! they're all mine this weekend â?? looking forward to that!

 

oo, glad you said blueberries, my last task for today is to take the blueberries out of the freezer & plant them & i'd forgotten to do that. Put them in there 3 months ago to make em think it was winter.

 

Broccoli: harvested my first tonight to have with roast chicken tmor. I have 6 or 7 broccoli plants all growing well!

Green Beans: 7 plants. FAB! I've probably harvested 8+ times now each time getting enough to accompany a meal for 2 adults & a toddler. However, something has nibbled loads of the leaves and the plants appear to be dying off :(

Courgettes: 3 plants, have harvested around 8 courgettes so far, but now they seem to be dying at the flower end before they grow much :(

Tomatoes: My plant is absolutely laiden but all toms are still green

Aubergines: 3 plants, they are all growing well but nothing producing as yet!

 

generally most of my lottie crops have been fab...I know you all listed yours seperately, but i'm wayyyy to lazy for that!!!
mostly...runners, french beans, cougettes etc have been superb:p
strawberries were far from good :(
everything else, cabbages, peas etc have been fair!
Oh...sweetcorn..................tremendous, at least 6' high and 4 corns per plant!
bindweed...poor
blackberry roots....hmmmm (those buggers go on for miles!!!)

 

Cherry Tomatoes... I only had 1 small plant but had around 50 Tomatoes off it and now theres new flowers on it so thats done quite well.

Mini Sweet Peppers... Lots on the plant... 1 has just turned Red I'm waiting for the others to turn now.

Chilli Peppers... better than the Sweet Peppers and the Tomatoes loadsss on the plant and now going from green to yellow... I love chilli's even eating the super hot ones raw! :D

Aubergine... as earlier thread I got 8 growing on 1 plant and they are now getting big... can't wait to eat them! :p

Radishes... beginners mistake I planted them too close together and thinned them to late so they've gone to the dogs! :o

Curly Parsley, Basil and Corriander... growing well.

Peas... Beetroot... Carrots... Spring Onions... French and Runner Bean plants growing well but don't expect anything much from them till October.

I sowed some Romenesco Broccoli, Purple Kohl Rabi, Cabbage (Hispi F1) and Fennel seeds about 2 weeks ago in my grow house seedlings doing well but I'm waiting till they are alot bigger before I plant them out... I've already lost 2 biggish pots of lettuce to Cabbage White caterpillars! :(