Chilli apache have done really well in GH two yrs running. I'm not impressed with golden sunrise toms. Tasteless and too watery.
Courgettes - black beauty and all green bush did well. Yellow Zucchini ok. After trying them in pots last yr, all grew better this yr in the ground after soil was well manured in autumn, will try all again. .
Aubergines - black beauty will grow again. Chad -any variety seems to do well. Betroot - detroit did well, burpus gold not so well but I'm trying it again next year and I've a new variety to try from France.
Might try fennel again to use up the seeds but I can't get the bulbs to bulk out best I've achieved are very flat bulbs with lots of top growth which is fine to use as a herb.
Could go on forever about veg, and don't like to say never again but brussels, carrots and big brassica's are a no, no for me.
Will grow foxglove again but not as many, didn't realise how big they'd grow. Bellis, cosmos and sweet william will all be grown again. I'm gonna grow sunflowers too but the smaller multi headed varieties. I've found flowers trickier to grow from seed and won't be growing anything which says sow in Jan, Feb or March in the flower department.
one I won't be bothering with again are Roma's. Very disappointing, watery and tasteless. They offer a lot of promise when they're all read and shiny but in reality a thumbs down from me. "
Heather, I only use Roma for making tomato sauce. I fry onions, peel the Romas, add to the onions and cook until a thick sauce. Then I freeze it in small plastic bags and ice cube trays to use in dishes for winter. My Roma are fleshy, not watery and don't have many seeds.
Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.
Grew White Lady Runner beans - very dis-satisfied with an almost no show crop. Will grow a courgette fron T&M called Venus again - fairly compact plants and plentty of tasty courgettes, also grew Floridor a yellow ball type and will do again if I can locate seeds
Disappointed with autumn raspberries - un tidy and the crop so far is not good. may dig them up, may just re-plant in a less obvious place
Aubergine - best yet - was Bonica
Am going have a complete re-think about tomatoes for next year, non I feel have been exceptional
Disappointed with autumn raspberries - un tidy and the crop so far is not good. may dig them up, may just re-plant in a less obvious place.....
Oh, what a shame - we're enjoying a fabulous crop from our 3 Polka autumn raspberries - picking enough for the two of us every other day. They get a bit windswept so I'm tying them to the fence.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Won't grow,Sungold,tomatoes again. Not a patch on gardemers delight, skins cracked (normal for Sungold apparently) and the taste was sickly sweet.
Grew white lady beans....think I have had better varieties
Grew monogerm Beetroot ......minimises thinning and been successful
Prob grow less, or even not grow at all, cosmos. Have grown them for years but perennials give better value. Grow more heleniums and cannas and add couple more grasses. To discard plants that dont perform.....mainly varieties. E.g. Couple of dahlias not good enough and will get rid of aster horizontallis (better varieties)
Grow more hot chillis.
Good thread Dove
And I'm going to grow them from seed for the first time ( previously I've always had some plants from a friend - now moved) - the GC near work was selling last season's seeds off cheap, and I found Cosmos Antiquity 50p for 30 seeds http://www.sarahraven.com/shop/cosmos-antiquity.html so I'll gve them a go - do they need a bit of heat to start? I might need to get a heat pad.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I did some toms from seed for the first time this year and was delighted with how easy it was Dove. Enjoyed the Moneymaker ones which have been very consistent so will grow them from seed I htink, but the Red Alerts were a bit watery. May have had something to do with the weather etc this year though.
Will grow Cupani sweet peas again (as usual) next year- not sure about Cathy. Scent was wonderful but the flowers were a bit muddy. May try some other whites/creams instead.
May grow more from seed in general I think.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Hungarian black chillies have done really well and are tasty without anaestetising teh palette so will grow again. However Habanero Tobago seasoning failed to germinate and produced just one plant that died early despite being sown and potted on in the same conditions.
Tumbler toms produced OK but were bland. Russian Blacks were good.
No success with home sown beets but good results with plugs. Ditto fennel. Home sown broccoli and purple sprouting all good and the red cabbages and radicchio plugs have done well too. Didn't get around to sowing courgettes or pumpkins cos of the new feet and haven't really missed them but I'll grow some next year in a newly cleared bed.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
we've still got sweetpeas coming through, and a shed load of them too. I've never picked them, just left them to do their own thing, they where planted as a filler against a fence until I got my sticky mitts on a thornless beackberry ..... perish the tought of what would have happend if I'd of picked them to encourage new flowers like my grandpa used to!
I did some toms from seed for the first time this year and was delighted with how easy it was Dove.
Doh, silly me - should have edited that quote - I was talking about growing Cosmos from seed, not tomatoes - I grew hundreds of tomatoes from seed this year - well, scores anyway.
I grew lots and lots of heirloom varieties - including Golden Queen, Marianna's Peace, Soldacki, Jaune Flamme and Anna Russian - we've had the best year ever for tomatoes Fantastic crop - I'm roasting loads in the oven just now, and there may well be some tomato soup happening shortly.
Of all the varieties we grew this year the absolute favourite is Anna Russian, an amazing Pink Ox heart variety, solid fleshed and with a lovely sweet flavour and beautiful to look at. My Russian daughter-in-law was ecstatic when I took her a bowlful - my son was forbidden to use them for any recipes, DIL just ate them as they were and smiled beatifically
Hopefully I'll have some AR seeds again next year
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Posts
Chilli apache have done really well in GH two yrs running. I'm not impressed with golden sunrise toms. Tasteless and too watery.
Courgettes - black beauty and all green bush did well. Yellow Zucchini ok. After trying them in pots last yr, all grew better this yr in the ground after soil was well manured in autumn, will try all again. .
Aubergines - black beauty will grow again. Chad -any variety seems to do well. Betroot - detroit did well, burpus gold not so well but I'm trying it again next year and I've a new variety to try from France.
Might try fennel again to use up the seeds but I can't get the bulbs to bulk out best I've achieved are very flat bulbs with lots of top growth which is fine to use as a herb.
Could go on forever about veg, and don't like to say never again but brussels, carrots and big brassica's are a no, no for me.
Will grow foxglove again but not as many, didn't realise how big they'd grow. Bellis, cosmos and sweet william will all be grown again. I'm gonna grow sunflowers too but the smaller multi headed varieties. I've found flowers trickier to grow from seed and won't be growing anything which says sow in Jan, Feb or March in the flower department.
What did I do wrong? My bit (above) is included in the quote. Should have a blue background.
Grew White Lady Runner beans - very dis-satisfied with an almost no show crop. Will grow a courgette fron T&M called Venus again - fairly compact plants and plentty of tasty courgettes, also grew Floridor a yellow ball type and will do again if I can locate seeds
Disappointed with autumn raspberries - un tidy and the crop so far is not good. may dig them up, may just re-plant in a less obvious place
Aubergine - best yet - was Bonica
Am going have a complete re-think about tomatoes for next year, non I feel have been exceptional
Oh, what a shame - we're enjoying a fabulous crop from our 3 Polka autumn raspberries - picking enough for the two of us every other day. They get a bit windswept so I'm tying them to the fence.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
And I'm going to grow them from seed for the first time ( previously I've always had some plants from a friend - now moved) - the GC near work was selling last season's seeds off cheap, and I found Cosmos Antiquity 50p for 30 seeds
http://www.sarahraven.com/shop/cosmos-antiquity.html so I'll gve them a go - do they need a bit of heat to start? I might need to get a heat pad.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I did some toms from seed for the first time this year and was delighted with how easy it was Dove. Enjoyed the Moneymaker ones which have been very consistent so will grow them from seed I htink, but the Red Alerts were a bit watery. May have had something to do with the weather etc this year though.
Will grow Cupani sweet peas again (as usual) next year- not sure about Cathy. Scent was wonderful but the flowers were a bit muddy. May try some other whites/creams instead.
May grow more from seed in general I think.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Hungarian black chillies have done really well and are tasty without anaestetising teh palette so will grow again. However Habanero Tobago seasoning failed to germinate and produced just one plant that died early despite being sown and potted on in the same conditions.
Tumbler toms produced OK but were bland. Russian Blacks were good.
No success with home sown beets but good results with plugs. Ditto fennel. Home sown broccoli and purple sprouting all good and the red cabbages and radicchio plugs have done well too. Didn't get around to sowing courgettes or pumpkins cos of the new feet and haven't really missed them but I'll grow some next year in a newly cleared bed.
we've still got sweetpeas coming through, and a shed load of them too. I've never picked them, just left them to do their own thing, they where planted as a filler against a fence until I got my sticky mitts on a thornless beackberry
..... perish the tought of what would have happend if I'd of picked them to encourage new flowers like my grandpa used to!
Doh, silly me - should have edited that quote - I was talking about growing Cosmos from seed, not tomatoes
- I grew hundreds of tomatoes from seed this year - well, scores anyway.
I grew lots and lots of heirloom varieties - including Golden Queen, Marianna's Peace, Soldacki, Jaune Flamme and Anna Russian - we've had the best year ever for tomatoes
Fantastic crop - I'm roasting loads in the oven just now, and there may well be some tomato soup happening shortly.
Of all the varieties we grew this year the absolute favourite is Anna Russian, an amazing Pink Ox heart variety, solid fleshed and with a lovely sweet flavour and beautiful to look at. My Russian daughter-in-law was ecstatic when I took her a bowlful - my son was forbidden to use them for any recipes, DIL just ate them as they were and smiled beatifically
Hopefully I'll have some AR seeds again next year
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.