A long hard look at the veg seeds

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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!

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. 

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.