What were your successes and failures in 2009

Every year in the veg garden is different, so much depends on weather, bugs, diseases, time etc. What went well for you in 2009 and what didn't do so well?

My 'failures' -

Peas - Worst crop for years despite a lot of attention to soil preparation and successional sowing. Late sowings had poor germination due to drought and the whole crop developed a fungal infection.

Carrots - First outdoor sowing failed due to to either drought or very cold early May. Some of the later sowings forked due to drought.

Parsnips - Super crop by weight, but again forked due to drought.

Beetroot (golden) - Not a great crop, again probably due to drought.

Success -

Tomatoes - Fantastic crop of outdoor cherry toms despite virus in the locality. Regular spraying probably helped save them and we dried several kilos and still have the last dozen 'fresh' in a box in the fridge. Toms in the polytunnel did well too, though greenhouse toms were not all that great.

Leeks - Super crop this year with no sign of the rust that affected them in previous years.

Onions - Chuffed to bits to be able to grow a few to a decent size again. I can't grow them in the ground due to virus so tried 15 in a big box in grow bag compost.

Climbing French Beans - Bumper crop. What we couldn't harvest and eat fresh we grew to maturity and shelled and dried.

Cucumbers - Although we had a very bad infestation of RSM in the polytunnel and greenhouse we still managed to produce more than we could use. Swapped our surplus for eggs with a neighbour.

Peppers, sweet and chilli - Good crops of both. Have found that the 'pointy' sweet peppers grown from seed saved from ones bought from supermarket do very well in the tunnel. Loads of varieties of chillis grown this year are now safely dried and stored.

Butternut Squash - Just grew two plants this year but had a bumper crop, which was a big surprise considering the weather.

Brassicas Great crop despite club root. My 'beat the club root' strategies during early stages paid off and we've more brussel sprouts than we can use and red cabbage the size of footballs. Chuffed to bits, as last year the whole crop was a complete disaster.

 

Failures
I still cannot grow Basil
Purple sprouting was a loser
Lettuce...less said the better.
Radish were rubbish

The good stuff..
Tomatoes, still have jars of dried in storage.
Peas.. ended up growing over the garage roof with good crop.
Parsnips.. bit stumpy but much bettter then last year
Chillies. first year for them was a great success

 

Successes:

French beans (Purple Queen)

Carrots (Nelson)

Lettuce (Webbs Wonderful and Lollo Rosso)

Leeks (Carlton)

A bit iffy:

Cabbage (Red Drumhead)

Failures:

Radishes (Jolly)

German radishes (strange purple things shaped like courgettes)

The failures were due to insect attack but to be honest, even the few specimens that escaped being nibbled weren't really worth the effort.

 

I had a disaster - my garden is mostly flowering so any veg is in pots.

All the cut and come lettuce were infested with big snails - boy have they some appetite - plus I don't think I used the right compost mixture to grow them in the first place.

My French beans got to about 2 ft - a few red flowers then sulked - I think I am too far north to succeed with these. Will have another go this year and put manure around them.


Ruby Chard was good and so were the strawberries

 

You can't be that much further north than us leavesnbloom, so you ought to be able to grow french beans if you get the planting and after-care right.

You could try dwarf french beans, they only grow to about 12"-18" but don't give quite as good a crop as climbing french beans.

 

tomatoes as always a success, made lovely sauce out of 100 percent lottie ingredients (ok a drop of olive oil) courgettes, oregano, garlic, marjoram basil all goes in there
borlotto bean, never knew they so tasty

giant pumpkin grew only to 25kg , well i forgot to feed it :(

 

My peppers did amazing in 09.....however, my tomatoes ended up with blight, but i wasnt alone, it seemed that everyone all over North America had blight.......hopefully 2010 will be a great season for tomatoes.

Beans and peas did really well too.
I had one pea that did really well, called Linconshire Lad....heavy producer.

 

Seems like Aberdeen has more in common with Ontario than other parts of the UK ...! I lost an entire greenhouse of tomatoes to blight (third year running with no tomatoes, although each time a different reason... perhaps I should take the hint), but my peppers and aubergines did pretty well. Courgettes weren't great this year either.