choosing your vegetables (bumped from 2005)

[Jaxom]

As a person who is new to growing vegetables and having to learn as much as I can from books each year, I thought it would be good to know what others thought important when choosing the crops they grow each year?
Jax

[dni_dave]

I think that we matched for requirements exactly. As we have a tap on the plot and also a water butt (looking to extend and try to use soaker hose this year but unsure of quite how we are going to do it) drought resistance isn't yet a problem.

I have yet to compare any new F1 varieties against heritage ones, but the home grown taste is far superior to the stuff the supermarkets fly in from around the world anyway.

[Lesley Jay]

I grow for taste every time. There is no point growing vegetables that taste of nothing.

[andrewo]

Taste

Has to be taste for me, the heritage varieties have been leaders for me at the moment for this. I don't care if a carrot is purple or a tomato is black as long as it tastes good, grows well and crops.

Andrewo

[Anita Plot]

Choosing your vegetables

We usually grow much the same basics each year, varying the varieties from time to time. We also try to grow one crop that we have not tried before.

it is usualy all eaten as we only have veg plot in back garden about 12' x 36'.

Never get enough beetroot or onions

[Lottie]

Choice of crops

Taste is the tops for me

Drought and desease resistance as we have no water on our allotments and in Norfolk we get less rain fall.

Good topic

[dragonz]

taste is important but I'm usually swayes by the pretty pictures or if its something unusal that I havent tried before

[Ja9]

Taste for me too,but disease and pest resistance is useful as I try and grow organically.
Thankfully I have access to water with no threat of a hosepipe ban. Pretty and unusual veg are fun but a good reliable variety is the most useful with limited space.

[Kaiya]

Ideally taste, but I find it hard to actually choose based on taste, as either you try everything once or you believe the words on the packet, all of which are generally positive. So I tend to base it more on low maintenance, since I'm not around during the week. I did buy some purple mangetout which have since heard is not so tasty, but I like them because I can see them on the plant.

[The Large One]

Disease resistant then taste for me
we are lucky enough to have clubroot on 1 plot and onion white rot on the other, can't swap as the white rot plot has all the fruit and asparagus
no point spending all that time bringing stuff on for it to die off/fail