Earlier in the year I got slightly obsessed with repeated failures of various bean sowings so like fool kept trying. I thought that a dozen or so purple dwarf french bean plants wouldn't give much of a harvest - they have been prolific! Similarly with the climbing green beans, can't keep up. At least the runner beans were so late getting going that there won't be too big an overlap with the other beans.
It wouldn't have been so bad if the yellow courgette plants had died but no - another bumper crop of those. Three plants was a mistake but if I had only planted two both would have surely died. Now resorting to incorporating courgette into every meal and recipes which didn't mention them. They are good sliced raw into salads.
Carrots have done OK, better than previous attempts. I know they are cheap in the shops but freshly harvested taste much better.
Biggest failure was turnip and was my own fault. I sowed them far too close together and failed to thin them out. Every seed grew giving a congested mess with few decent roots. I only sowed them because I got them in a pack of seeds as a pressy and any veg seed was hard to come by once lockdown got going. Will try them again though as the few that did produce were nice.
I always leave one of my globe artichokes for the bees. They do love to dive into the centre of the flower in their quest for nectar, behinds wriggling with delight.
Ah that was another of my failures but could also be seen as a success? I grew my globe artichokes next to a tree, the branches of which conveniently served as a ledge on which our garden squirrel could perch in order to rip the flowers off. Bit of a shame for me but somewhere there was a well fed squirrel...
@CazzieT your garden looks beautiful. So green. You must feel a real sense of achievement.
@Jenny-R that's miserable about the wind. I've lost so many plants to it today. Cosmos seedlings are funny things - I was lucky this year. Did you feed your roses?
@sarinka I was at exactly this point a little while ago re: rain and water butts. In the end I put out some giant "tuff tubs" from B&Q (and on the advice of Fairygirl have put some chicken wire on to stop the wildlife falling in and drowning). They have caught enough rain for me to water the demanding hydrangeas (and yes you're right I should use it for the camellias and for the blueberry bushes)! At some point we will graduate to water butts.
@steephill I'm impressed at your success with carrots. I tried for the first time this year in grow bags but not sure what I did wrong. Maybe the soil was too rich? Or they were too close together? Do you put yours in the ground?
Thank you @Treeface. I have some heuchera lime marmalade and wildberry that I'd quite like more of so I will try this tomorrow! I'd taken cuttings but only one of six made it!
Last year I bought two dwarf weigelas for pots: Pink Poppet and Picobella Rosa. This summer one was kind of a failure: Pink Poppet had only a few flowers for a couple of days. So disappointing, but at least the plant grew well and looks healthy.
But Picobella Rosa - a complete success! It started flowering late April, early May. And it still is flowering now (though less prolific). It grows in a hanging basket and seems to be coping well with a bit of neglect, though I do try to feed and water it regularly.
I will try to take a few cuttings before it goes dormant, would be good to have more of it.
@Big Blue Sky I love weigelas - what lovely colours. Looks v healthy. I'd never heard of them until we moved in and inherited a large, mature one which is beautiful when in flower. I recently saw a dwarf one on sale called ebony and ivory and was very tempted.
@Jenny-R that's miserable about the wind. I've lost so many plants to it today. Cosmos seedlings are funny things - I was lucky this year. Did you feed your roses?
I fed my roses in March with granular rose food and then mulched them with a compost/manure mix I got from David Austin. I didn’t get round to feeding them again in June so I’ve since watered them a couple of times with diluted tomato feed and it seems to have worked well as I’ve had some really good second flushes. Next year I will buy my cosmos as young plants.
@Big Blue Sky love your weigela hanging basket. I didn’t realise you get get one that dwarf. We’ve just taken out a huge one that was taking up too much room but I’m very tempted to try a small one now.
@Big Blue Sky I love weigelas - what lovely colours. Looks v healthy. I'd never heard of them until we moved in and inherited a large, mature one which is beautiful when in flower. I recently saw a dwarf one on sale called ebony and ivory and was very tempted.
Definitely try a dwarf weigela - especially if it’s on sale. I got mine last autumn in sale for only £2 - and now it’s one of my favourite plants in the garden 😍
We have been starting our garden again pretty much from scratch as our lockdown project. Created a veg. patch and the Russian kale did so well we are heartily sick of eating it now. Same with the rainbow chard. But the yellow courgettes didn't yield much of a crop - overshadowed by the leaves of the edamame bean plants we put in as young plants - they look to be cropping well but not ready until next month. Looking forward to the carrots too. Failures - the sweet peas were probably sown too late. Most didn't germinate and we only have a few plants of mauve and white ones. The broad beans had a very low yield. Flower wise - the dahlia Dahlegria Bicolore has been magnificent and covered in bees. But the two other dahlias bought as tubers and put in pots have been a bit pathetic with most of the tubers of Annie Joy rotting. I've fallen madly in love with heucheras and they have all done really well, except for the most recent purchases of, I think, Jerusalem which got scorched by the strong sun.
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@Jenny-R that's miserable about the wind. I've lost so many plants to it today. Cosmos seedlings are funny things - I was lucky this year. Did you feed your roses?
@steephill I'm impressed at your success with carrots. I tried for the first time this year in grow bags but not sure what I did wrong. Maybe the soil was too rich? Or they were too close together? Do you put yours in the ground?
This summer one was kind of a failure: Pink Poppet had only a few flowers for a couple of days. So disappointing, but at least the plant grew well and looks healthy.
But Picobella Rosa - a complete success! It started flowering late April, early May. And it still is flowering now (though less prolific). It grows in a hanging basket and seems to be coping well with a bit of neglect, though I do try to feed and water it regularly.
I will try to take a few cuttings before it goes dormant, would be good to have more of it.
Next year I will buy my cosmos as young plants.
@Big Blue Sky love your weigela hanging basket. I didn’t realise you get get one that dwarf. We’ve just taken out a huge one that was taking up too much room but I’m very tempted to try a small one now.
Failures - the sweet peas were probably sown too late. Most didn't germinate and we only have a few plants of mauve and white ones. The broad beans had a very low yield.
Flower wise - the dahlia Dahlegria Bicolore has been magnificent and covered in bees. But the two other dahlias bought as tubers and put in pots have been a bit pathetic with most of the tubers of Annie Joy rotting. I've fallen madly in love with heucheras and they have all done really well, except for the most recent purchases of, I think, Jerusalem which got scorched by the strong sun.