First year success and failure

[Pies]

This was my first full season on an allotment I wasn't expecting things to turn out as well as they did but im pleased they did.Plenty of room for improvement though but ill list the highs and lows

The failures

Turnip totally hopeless not even sure what went wrong

Garlic not particularly good even though i used good stock from IOW.But i think the main reason was rust which seems to be made worse by nitrogen not sure if surrounding with fleece might help

Spuds,grew too many earlies and second earlies i'm putting the variation in size down to the lack of rain in the early part of the year.

Toms, grew too many and they split with inconsistant watering when i was i'll

Borlotto beans, never grown or eaten them before simply didn't grow enough as they are lovely

The sucesses

Squashes,i harvested 120lb in total including 70lb of butternuts from 4 plants

Sweetcorn massive early crop i started them of on the windowsill in rootrainers and they stayed in there until they were about 14" tall.If you grow sweetcorn next year start them in rootrainers 5" ones are better

Onions,shallots and winter onions all grew very well suffered a bit of rust but nothing serious

Cabbage grew "minicole" its a great "little" cabbage very versitile and easy to grow.once established it only needs watering

Runners, french and broad beans all great crops although the runners have stopped now

Early purple sprouting was excellent

Jurys out on leeks, brussels,parsnips and swede and winter PSP

Must get my sowing times sorted for growing cabbage all year round and finding some way of dealing with the rust

But all things considered a good year for a first year

[Nordmead]

Squashes,i harvested 120lb in total including 70lb of butternuts from 4 plants

120lb? whats your secret? i only managed 6lb of pumpkins (3lb each) from 2 plants and they had a bag of manure each

[gojiberry]

The severity of rust can often be reduced by giving each plant a little bit more room. Looks like a pretty good year for you, well done. Watering can always be a problem and it is always worth looking at ways to reduce the need to water. Other than on initial planting none of my stuff gets water, but I do use a lot of mulches, especially grass clippings and leafmould. Next couple of months is the time to be thinking about collecting leaves for leafmould.

Ian

[Wren]

hiya pies,

I am now firmly convinced that the secret to good garlic growing is that they need a long growing season. I always plant my cloves about now, and that gives them a head start, an my garlic crops have been the best on our allotment site, despite the poo pooing of me putting them in too early by my neighbors. A few handfuls of bone meal gives them the lovely phosphorus feed they need to get the roots growing to take up the other nutrients in the soil. My gorgeous garlic have a dressing raked in of fish , blood and bone, then a extra dressing of bone meal, on planting and in the spring.

hope this might help with you're garlic at least.

Wren

[nomis]

This was my first year for a lot of things. In fact everything other than toms peppers chillies pretty much, as I grew those at home last year.

Brussels have done amazing

As have summer squash, ive given away kilos and kilos.

Beetroot and Kholrabi also been fantastic.

Too many potatoes to eat.

All in all a good first attempt at running a plot, and we only managed to use up half so far


Massive fails were brokoli which seem to have hardly any of the flowering part, china rose raddish which we planned far too early, and carrots which seem to be going nowhere

[crazii_c]

im still waiting for my allotment, so im growing my fruit and veg in a tiny spot in the garden but mainly in containers.

My successes:

• Tomatoes- finally managed to get a successful crop without them being wiped out by blight! Ferline is a definate keeper!
• courgettes- first year growing and im happy with the constant supply of them (give it a few years of growing them and i might be fed up of them )
• broad beans and peas- lovely crop of both altho next year i need to grow more peas as none ever made it back to the kitchen
• lettuces/radishes- salad crops have been nice and growing well
• alpine strawbs- grown from seed- heavy croppers and lovely taste

my failures:

• winter squashes- got a major attack of black fly- only got 2 squashes from 2 plants
• cape gooseberry- my plants got some kind of disease so all the fruit dropped off before they had fully ripen
• aubergine- got flowers and tiny tiny fruits formed but then they just started dropping off (wont be trying them again)

[sbeneli]

This is my first year, too.

My failures:
Radishes - The scarlet globes did fine, but the ones I was growing for the seed pods kept getting eaten by flea beetles. Next year, I will cover with horiticultural fleece.
Celtuce - Bolted every time I tried.
West Indian Gherkins - Barely did anything. I had grown them in containers before moving them to the allotment; if I do them next year, they'll go straight to the allotment after the frost.
Sweet Corn - Some of them were fabulous, but most withered up (despite watering) and didn't do very well at all.
Dwarf French Beans - Barely did anything at all.
Cauliflower - All but one bolted. Not impressed.

Successes:
Fat Baby Achocha - So prolific! I've been eating them constantly and there's no sign of slowing down.
Crown Prince Squash - I haven't harvested them yet, but the vine is sprawling with several huge, gorgeous squashes.
Kale - Has grown absolutely beautifully, but we've had lots of whiteflies, which have left spots (or something, I don't actually know what) that we can't remove easily on the underside.
Tomatillos - I haven't gotten any ripe fruit from them yet, but the branches are heaving with them. Assuming all goes well, there will be lots of salsa verde in my future.
Golden Beetroot - Hey, I like beetroot! Who knew? Yum.
Cucumbers - We tried Prima Top F1, Marketmore, and mini white ones. They were all fabulous and so good to snack on.