What will you do different next year?

[treepixie]

Not plant so many courgette plants, so far I have picked approx 70 of the flipping things, there is only so much chutney I can make.

[jayjaybee]

No more spuds, they're not worth the space.

[esbo]

Will look out for early maturing tomato seed. (unless the ones I have suddenly start ripening!! )

[kathyd]

Haha! I know what you mean! This is my 16' x 4' which contains 1 x spaghetti squash, 2 x courgettes and 1 x Grumpy George the scarecrow, busy being overwhelmed!

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So that's my resolution then - build a scarecrow! I want a grumpy george!! xx

[spanish_gardener]

I am not going to spray to prevent blight or any other pest or disease with a non organic product. I sprayed a few times and I felt guilty afterwards. I stopped spraying and even if my potatoes and tomatoes got blight, I don't mind.

[Chippy Minton]

Sow tomatoes, cucumbers, celeriac earlier, heater in the ghouse, more direct sowing (been better than the seed trays this year), better netting to keep the pesky badgers from eating the carrots and celeriac and potatoes, no French beans they ever work (probably will, don't like to be beaten)

Win the lottery, buy a big plot, retire, grow stuff, listen to cricket, talk to the plants, generally be happy

[WPG]

Going to do loads of things differently next year, but the top three are:

Stake my tomatoes properly, plant them in bigger pots, and remember to take the side shoots off. This years tomatoes (Sungold) ended up as huge thick bushes sprawling all over the place. Loads of nice tomatoes off them , but it's like hunting through the jungle to find them.

Am determined to do better with brassicas next year. This year I lost so many to cabbage root fly, the wind, the pigeons, the cabbage whites, the slugs, etc. So next year, from the time they leave the seed packet to the time they enter the saucepan I'm going to do everything right (easier said than done)

Last thing is to make better use of my comfrey. I've got 14 comfrey plants which take up loads of space, but I didn't get myself organised to make the concentrated juice. Only made a few buckets of the stinky comfrey tea and used a few leaves for mulch - but I didn't have the heart to cut them once flowering because the bees just love them.

Oh, and less courgettes.......

[Tiberius]

Not sow as early as I did as I just had to re-sow later.
Not sow as many Toms as I can't fit anything else in the gh.
Not bother with PSB or peas - OH loves them but doesn't appriciate how much work things take!
Pay attention to tatties and earth them up - might get a few more that way!!
Increase the depth of my raised beds so I might get a cauli next year.
Net the blueberries - again 3 plants specifically for the OH...I see a trend emerging.
Plant more courgettes and patty pan squash, but sow later as they started producing fruit whilst still in the spare room!
Plant a greater variety of squash.
Don't sow kale all at once as we're eating it on a daily basis!
Work out how the little flying critters got under the evironmesh to my cabbages and fix the poblem for next year.
This last one I'm not too sure about but I'm thinking about buying a few plug plants rather than sow everything to give me more time and space??

[shona_b]

well in answer to this question from last year I said I would be better at labelling my plants.....so this year I very carefully made sure each squash had an identifier......shame the stick is so short I can't see anything under the widerness of squash leaves so this year's resolution is to mark the differnt varieties on cane toppers!

[JustPotteringAbout]

Most of the work this, my first season was getting organised, working out what was where, what to rotate in, producing the AutoCAD drawings, building the spreadsheet of the plants and other garden organisms (systematics, origins, lifecycle, predators...)

The main thing to do is to have level surfaces for sitting seedling pots in trays of water. Had a load of trays shimmed to heck, so watering wasn't consistent.
More 150mm, 200mm and larger pots.
More broccoli, non F1s (a botanist friend said F1s tend to synchronise despite succession sowing, I didn't believe them, they synchronised)
Plant through cardboard
Put mesh at path edges so I don;t damage foliage.
Get some decent sun specs.
(Getting kicked out of library will finish post later)

[BUFFS]

i will get my salad blue tatties a lot earlier, although scottish bred,i had to get some from n. ireland,the weather has turned here and we had to lift them,tasted great,but only a fairly small amount from the first tub,leaving the other one til the village show end of the month,will put some in,just to be different..

[Normans Mum]

Next year I will:
Not be so impatient with trying to start things off early, because this year by doing that I've had such disappointing results with chard, pak choi etc.
Grow far more peas and beans
Just grow my tatties in bags
And....
Pray that it doesn't rain so much or be as cold at the start of 2014.

[Penellype]

Last year my resolutions were to buy another fruit cage to keep out the critturs, to put up nets to keep out the critturs, to be vigilant with brassicas to avoid the critturs and to generally keep an eye out and avoid the critturs...

This year I have been plagued with HUGE numbers of critturs - caterpillars of all shapes and sizes, cabbage root fly, carrot fly, raspberry beetle, lily beetle, vine weevil, aphids, slugs and snails

My local garden centre sells fleece at 49p/metre. Therefore next year I am going to:
Grow all brassicas under fleece to keep out the cabbage moths, butterflies and root fly
Grow carrots under fleece to keep out the cabbage moths, nameless brown caterpillars and carrot fly
Grow peas under fleece until they start to flower to keep out the pea moths, cabbage moths, nameless brown caterpillars, nameless black hairy caterpillars and other assorted pea munching critturs
Put my 2 fruit cages next to each other to try to stop the birds from eating the blueberries through the netting
No doubt the caterpillars will simply be replaced by slugs, but I can only try...

I also intend to try a different variety of bush tomato - this year I grew Totem (nice and early but tending to get greenback) and Bajaja (plenty of fruit but a lot of it the size of a pea). Any suggestions?

Not grow 2 rows of peas too close together. The Onward got blown over and covered up the Meteor, and I only found a lot of the pods when I pulled out the dead plants.

Put aphid infested peppers (if any) outside in their pots for a couple of days rather than planting in the soil. If the hoverflies and ladybirds do a similar cleaning job to the one they have done this year the pots could then come back inside

[Muppet194]

I might not bother netting my brassicas. The butterflies got to them regardless. I will also be ruthless and chop off tops of cukes when they hit the greenhouse roof to avoid a repeat of this years jungle effect inside.

[hellybore]

Like a lot of other peeps, I will make another brassica netting cage to keep out bugs and pigeons. Will sow my own tomato seeds next year, it's not the same raising someone else's babies! Also will sow several different types of climbing beans, this year just did French beans and I miss the runner beans. Want to try some of those purple jobbies.