What new veg/fruit etc are you growing this year?

[Nicos]

I spotted a packet of climbing yellow courgette seeds at the garden centre the other week and it stopped me in my tracks....
wow!
gotta try that!


so go on....over to you, what is/are your 'guest' fruit/veg for this year?

(it'd be interesting to see how you get on with them later in the year too!)

[Guest]

I am on a full on veggy year this year so new to try are:

9 star per. cauli.
japanese wineberry
bitter gourd
salsola
huauzontle
kailan
broc. raab
new zealand spinach
szechuan pepper

then there are a few to try again that I tried ages ago

watercress
rock samphire
marsh samphire
and the usual oriental veg

[annie8]

Experiments this year are celeriac and borlotti beans. Also back to garlic again after a few years. That is going well so far and given me the chance of having something growing over the winter. Am trying different varieties of usual veg - round courgettes, different pea variety and trying tomatoes outside. Also doing the mixed chilli seed experiment so have 47 chilli seeds growing with no idea what variety they are.

[Lumpy]

Nicos - I grew Sunburst? a climbong yellow courgette up an arch last year. I'm doing them again this year.
NG - that lot sounds like swearing.

I'n desparately trying to ignore the siren song of Saskatoon. Got nowhere to put it but with a bit of out of the box thinking I might just manage.

[burnie]

Trench celery is my first to try grow this year

[muck lover]

I might give cucamelons a go.

[Penellype]

I'm hoping my apricot Aprigold and blueberry Pink Lemonade (both bought last year) will produce a little fruit this time. I've also bought 3 minarette fruit trees - apple Bountiful, pear Concorde and cherry Sunburst, but these won't fruit this time. They came with a free pack of strawberry Fenella which I have not grown before.

I don't think I have any new varieties of veg, unless you count potato Maris Bard, which I thought I was growing last year but it turned out to be something pink!

[Small pumpkin]

Not much new going on for me this year. Lots of new varieties of chillies and tomatoes. Also trying sugarsnap peas for the first time.

[Trouvere]

New for me:

a few more winter squash varieties, including Porcelain Doll, Golden Hubbard and Marina di Chioggia; Real Seeds' various interesting tomatoes, like Latah, Feo de Rio Gordo and De Colgar; Tasty Treat sunflowers; Sokol breadseed poppies; shark fin melons and cucamelons (I know, I know, they're bland at best and horrible at worst); Crapaudine beetroot.

I also have an optimistic succession sowing cabbage plan, which should give me heads to harvest in every month except May, but this has already gone wrong unless the overwintered Wheeler's Imperial really pick up in the next couple of weeks.

I should also get my first fruits of Chilean guava and whitebark raspberry this year.

[SarrissUK]

I'm trying the following for the first time this year:
- Achocha 'Fat baby'
- Malabar spinach
- peas! I've never got the hang of shelling them, so this will be interesting!
- spaghetti squash
- cucumber lemon
- celtuce
- cucumber armenian long yard

[Snoop Puss]

I'm growing lots of new varieties of things I've grown in previous years.
Completely new to me this year are kohl rabi and turnips.
I'm giving celeriac another go after not bothering for the last few years due to dismal results in the past.

Fingers crossed...

[B Porcupine]

This years new varieties are:
- golden beetroor
- Gigante beans
- Purple Tiger chilli (decorative, for the patio)
- squash Thelma Sanders (to grow up poles)
- courgettes Midnight and Cocozelle
- sweet pepper King of the North

New veg:
- Kale Red Russian
- Root Parsley

It is always exciting at this time of the year - I hope I have some winners in there.

[Jungle Jane]

Ive got some potatoes Linzer Delikatess,they’re new to me they seem similar to Charlotte. I’m growing geraniums from seed again this year,I noticed they’re hardier,lasted through the winter when I grew from seed but I don’t know it only happened once,it’ll be good to know though. The garden centres do have some nice little plug plants in at the moment,some lovely purple & white fuchsia I nearly bought but it’s a bit early,are we going to get more snow like last year?

[chris_m]

I'm mostly growing the same as last year, albeit with a few changed varieties to see if they give better results than last years did. I'll also be starting far more off in rootrainers than direct sown, especially my second batches of calabrese and cauliflowers, which didn't do so well direct sown last year, even though the ground was well warmed up.

My principle changes are;
1) the sweetcorn will be Northern Extra Sweet because it's "supposed" to be shorter so hopefully the greenhouse plants won't jam themselves along the ridge of the greenhouse and the outside plants won't get so badly hit if we get strong winds.
2) I won't be doing Hestia dwarf runner beans, since they were stringier and less tasty than the Achievement "normal" size ones. I'll increase the quantity of Achievement (as well as adding another couple of feet to their supports) and put dwarf french beans in instead of the Hestia.
3) Having had encouraging results from the Emir melons, I'm doing them again plus trying Arava as well.
4) All the brassicas I tried last year will get longer before going n the ground. Last year, some went from the rootrainers into the ground and some (where the squares weren't vacant at that time) got potted on in the greenhouse for another 4-6 weeks. When those were planted out, they were monsters compared to their earlier planted siblings and produced better to boot.
5) I had no luck with lettuces last year, either poor/nil germination or poor growing on so I'll try starting them in rootrainers this year. The only ones that did do reasonably were a few I did in rootrainers and transferred to tubs in the greenhouse.
6) I won't be using growbags in the greenhouse this year (well, not the bags) as I found they were very difficult to get the watering quantities right. This year I'll transfer the bag contents to buckets with wicks in the bottom to troughs of water underneath. The watering timer will simply keep the troughs topped up. I'm also changing the plant supports. Last year I used string wrapped around the rootballs and tied to rails under the greenhouse roof then twisted around the stems as the plants grew - which worked OK until the strings rotted through. I've rigged up trellises down each side and will tie the plants to those instead.
7) I'm not bothering with aubergines nor squashes this year - neither produced mush worth eating and both took ages to do that little.

The only new crop I'll be trying is Broccoli Raab 60 day, the first of which gets sown tomorrow.

[Penellype]

Ive got some potatoes Linzer Delikatess,they’re new to me they seem similar to Charlotte. I’m growing geraniums from seed again this year,I noticed they’re hardier,lasted through the winter when I grew from seed but I don’t know it only happened once,it’ll be good to know though. The garden centres do have some nice little plug plants in at the moment,some lovely purple & white fuchsia I nearly bought but it’s a bit early,are we going to get more snow like last year?

Its far too early to say whether or not winter is over. Its going to be mild for the rest of February, but there are some model runs that have it quite chilly in the medium range. Snow is not uncommon at Easter but it is too far ahead to know for this year. I would definitely say that unless you can grow them in a heated greenhouse or in the house it is too early for fuchsias.

My local garden centre was selling tomato plants in January. Crazy.