The seed order
for 2022 has arrived, and the packets have been sorted by sowing date, along
with the (many) packets, opened and unopened, left over from last year (and
years before that). As promised in my
post earlier this month, I have cut back on varieties ordered, with a view to
only growing what I need to (plus a very few ‘can’t live withouts’); and some
of the oldest seeds that I’d been keeping have been thrown out, along with a few that I've decided I'm really not going to use. In this post I’m going to review the edibles,
leaving the ornamentals for another day.
I took a long,
hard look at what has been successful and what not, and what got eaten and what
didn’t. And what never got sown at all,
and whether I actually needed them. Admittedly it wasn’t the best growing year weather-wise;
a cold spring, right to the end of May, delayed sowing and growing, and the
rest of the year was mostly indifferent at best. And I have to admit that I let too many other
things distract me from looking after the garden. So for next year, my plan is to stick to as
much as I can manage and very little more.
First, the
greenhouse crops. The tomatoes did
reasonably well this year, not as well as last year but quite a good crop. I tried a new (to me) variety, ‘Apero’, a
mini plum tomato, which was good to grow and eat, plus ‘Harzfeuer’ and 'Cherrola', both of which were less productive than last year, and of which few seeds are left. I thought I’d add another full-sized fruit variety, ‘Costoluto
Fiorentino’, to my sowing to ensure a reasonable range of types next year. I can only
accommodate 6-7 plants in the greenhouse so shall have to be rigorous as to how
many seedlings I keep. Much of this summer’s crop had
to be picked green before we went away for an autumn break, but they ripened
nicely in the kitchen and were very welcome come November.
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Tomatoes ripening in the kitchen |
The other
greenhouse crops, aubergines and red peppers, were less successful and less useful in the kitchen, and I’ve
decided not to bother with them for a year or two at least. The aubergine crop was small; this was
probably my lack of attention to their needs, as I gave some of my surplus
seedlings to neighbours who grew them quite successfully. The peppers produced fruits so small that
they were pretty but not actually worth bothering with. And the chilli pepper plants died on me;
again, almost certainly my fault. I
still have lots of dried chillies from the year before anyway, so no pressure
to grow more.
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Aubergine 'Slim Jim' |
I grow my
courgettes outdoors, after sowing and bringing the plants on inside the house. Mixed results this year. I ended up with three viable seedlings, two of
which I planted on the patio in the brown plastic tubs which I’ve used before;
this time, though, I didn’t bother to remove the miniature daffodil bulbs that
occupy those tubs in the winter. The old
compost was left in there and only a little fertiliser added. Whether this wasn’t enough feed, or whether I
didn’t water them enough, I don’t know, but they didn't grow well and produced no
usable fruit. (The daffs are still in
there, and it will be interesting to see what they do, if anything, in spring.) Peat-free compost retains its structure well
enough for re-use, but I need to remember that it’s low in fertiliser and I
ought to feed, feed, feed. The third
plant eventually went out into the veg plot, where it did fairly well; two
squash plants planted nearby were totally unproductive, and I won’t be trying
them again for a while (the 2020 ones produced several fruits which rotted off
on the plant, and the two survivors lasted just long enough to serve as
Christmas decorations before suffering the same fate).
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Courgette in the daffodil tub - it never got any bigger |
For a few years
now I’ve grown my garlic and shallots from bulbs saved from the year before,
but my pathetic 2020 crop made me think of buying new sets. My chosen varieties were unobtainable,
however (a result of Brexit, I think; they’re European varieties), so I made do
with my own old bulbs again. The 2021 garlic
crop was, once again, dismal; admittedly the plants were seriously overshadowed
by the parsley and probably suffered from lack of water in the dry spring; but the
shallots did surprisingly well. So this
autumn I bought new garlic bulbs (they come in packs of two, and I’ll share
with a neighbour) but will plant my own shallots again – and take care to water
them.
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Shallots, drying off in the greenhouse |
Leeks: total
failure. Probably my fault for sowing
them in relatively unimproved soil and not watering sufficiently; but they only
reached transplanting size (just) in late autumn. They’re still sitting out there. I might try transplanting them in spring and seeing
what they do, if anything. Usually I’m
fairly successful with leeks, but this was a wake-up call to pay them more
attention. I’ve bought new seed for next
year, anyway, so have a fall-back if transplanting this year’s runts doesn’t
work.
I’ve become
disinclined to plant potatoes, which don’t seem to do too well in my shallow
and dry soil and which are cheap enough in the shops. However in 2021 I found myself with
half-a-dozen ‘Pentland Javelin’ seed potatoes hanging around in the greenhouse
well beyond the usual planting time. I
tried a ‘no-dig’ method with them, planting them shallowly with a pile of old
compost on top of each, which I added to once the stems started to come up,
thinking that I had nothing to lose and that I might get a few new potatoes for
Christmas. In fact they grew very well,
and I pulled them up in late summer (to my surprise, they came up easily when I pulled on the stem; very few tubers left in the soil, and those were
easy to remove). The result was a nice
little crop of tiny new potatoes, the sort that are relatively expensive in the
supermarkets. I might do that
again. In contrast, a few ‘Belle de
Fontenay’ tubers grown in the normal way did nothing at all.
Every year I
buy carrot seed – it doesn’t seem to store well – and fail to sow it. Must Do Better.
My 2020
brassicas, while not a great success, at least produced three quite usable
Savoy cabbages, which encouraged me to persevere this year. I learnt two lessons: pick broccoli heads as
soon as they become usable, because they run to seed very quickly; and be
meticulous about protection from butterflies and pigeons. The cabbage white butterflies got in under the netting and their caterpillars turned most of
my plants to lace curtains – at least there ought to be plenty of butterflies
next year. At least one broccoli plant
produced a lovely head, but I left it too long on the plant and it flowered (I
ought to have cut it off anyway to encourage sideshoots). I shall try to be more attentive next
year. Some of the new varieties did
better than traditional old Purple Sprouting, just as the new types of kale
seemed to be doing better than ‘Nero di Toscana’ (at least until the pigeons
ate them – another lesson for next year).
I never got round to sowing any Cima di Rapa (a multi-head brassica for
cropping young as stir-fry leaves); my 2020 crop ran to seed very quickly, and
I guessed that it does better sown later in the year, but, as with so much else
in the veg plot, late summer sowing didn’t really happen. I did sow a couple of kale and cabbage varieties in modules in autumn, and they're still in the cold frame; I'll try planting them out in late winter, under protection.
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Broccoli - just before it flowered! |
Broad beans
didn’t do too badly. Last winter I
ordered a pack of ‘Superaguadulce’ for winter sowing, but it turned out to be
out of stock; it eventually arrived in summer, much too late for 2021 cropping. Instead I sowed the last of my old seeds –
not a bad germination rate considering their age – and some of the remaining ‘Luz
di Otono’ ones; both lots were reasonably productive, although the latter had
fewer beans in the pod. ‘Luz de Otono’
is touted as good for summer sowing/autumn cropping; I tried this but the
plants succumbed to rust (a common problem with late-sown broad beans,
apparently) and I won’t be bothering with that variety again. I don't need broad beans in autumn, when there are still French beans to be eaten. Instead I’ve got seeds of ‘The Sutton’ for normal spring sowing – a
low-growing variety, good in windy sites apparently, so let’s see.
Being away in late
May (and early May still being cold), I sowed my summer beans in situ in early
June, rather than under cover for May planting out. The non-climbing French beans didn’t do too
badly, especially ‘Rocquencourt’ (from which I managed to save some beans for
sowing next year), but the climbers took some time to get going. I harvested a few of the latter, but their
support blew over in early autumn and I didn’t manage to get it upright
again. Ah well, the wildlife will have
enjoyed the beans. Fortunately they aren’t
hardy so won’t self-seed, and I still have seed from 2020 for use next year. Reminder to self: need firmer bean poles!
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The summer beans (and a row of peas in front) - before the supports fell over! |
Given my
experience with the climbing beans’ support, perhaps I’m being too optimistic
in having bought in seed of the traditional old pea ‘Alderman’, which climbs to
6ft (just under 2 metres). This year I
got round to sowing some maincrop peas late, and managed a small but decent crop. I also sowed some rather old seed of pea
‘Early Onward’, with the intention of using the pea shoots in salad assuming
any of them germinated; in fact they germinated well, and quickly, so I planted
them outside and ended up with some actual peas as a welcome result.
Lettuces –
several varieties – did well, but as usual I didn’t get the succession right
and had a gap in the middle of the year when the first sowing had run to seed and there were no new plants ready for
eating. Apart from a small amount of
rocket, I didn’t manage any other salad leaves; a matter of finding time and a
suitable place to sow them in. I
particularly missed not having any radicchio, which did well last year. I’ve stopped trying to grow salad leaf mixes,
as I find that the different varieties germinate at different rates and some
don’t germinate at all. The 2020 leaf
beet plants overwintered and I got a few leaves from them early in the year,
but then they ran to seed; a little of this has germinated in situ, and I’m
hoping that the seedlings will survive into 2022, though I still have seed in
the packet for a few more plants.
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A lettuce head ('Bronze Beauty'), about to flower but very prettily |
I notice that I
haven’t kept much of a record of my veg seed sowing in my blog posts this year;
perhaps an indication of how little attention I had paid to it, although in
fairness I had spent some time over the year sorting out the layout, the paths
and the weeding – the sort of basics that I’m wanting to focus on in the coming
months - rather than the sowing. Maybe once I get that in a
better state, I’ll be able to concentrate more on actually growing food.