Penellype's 2015 Edible Garden Challenge

[Penellype]

Variety 103 is cabbage Pixie. Cut 1 of the 4 plants to be eaten as greens with my sausage and mash tonight, allowing the others a little more space. These are growing well in a trough under the blueberry branches in the fruit cage.

[BUFFS]

have you ever tried to cook unripe tomato? you can treat it as just like cooking apple

I have 4 bunches of tomato's at south east corner of the house and fence. hardly get any sun.. I do not worry about getting them ripen.

don't the yanks fry them to use them up, they even made a film about it didn't they?

[Penellype]

Update on Tomato Belle:
These do not behave like other tomatoes when picked (this may be charactaristic of beefsteak varieties, which I don't normally grow). Even though I left them on their trusses, all of the fruit quickly started to wrinkle and rot in places, although they did start to turn red. One fruit appeared to have ripened and only had a small rotten area on one side, so I attempted to eat it, but once cut open it was clear that the red was only skin deep and the rest of the flesh was hard, white and tasted horrible. I therefore threw the remaining tomatoes away. Bitterly disappointing, especially in view of the 5 large fruit that formed and the protection given in the growhouse.

[Penellype]

MAINCROP VEGETABLES - OTHER

Broccoli and Calabrese
A favourite of mine, although this year I have been suffering from overload!
- Broccoli Early Purple (raised beds) huge quantities of spears throughout March to May from 8 plants which was far too many. Problems with beetle damage on this year's seedlings meant I had to sow again later than intended.
- Calabrese Sakura (trough) 2 plants produced huge main heads and a couple of sideshoots before succumbing to beetle damage.
- Brokali Endeavour (pot) a cross between broccoli and kale grown for autumn spears. Sowed 2, one was eaten by slugs early on, the other is now quite a big plant but no flower buds so far. Yet to harvest
- Cauliflower All The Year Round (trough) was a complete failure. Zero yield and this is not unusual. I won't be trying these again.

Cabbages
Nice as fresh greens in spring, but I'm not bothered if I don't eat them in summer when there are other things available.
- Duncan (pot) an all year round variety grown for overwintering. Produced some cabbage over winter and spring but was far too vigorous for my requirements. I won't be growing this again, trying a smaller variety (Pixie) this year.
- Hispi (trough) a reliable old favourite, produced 3 decent small cabbages (all I need) quickly from a spring sowing. Heads sometimes have brown bits inside on the leaf edges.
- Pixie (trough) growing well from a summer sowing and now big enough to eat as greens. Some slug damage visible.
- Spring Hero (trough) usually reliable spring cabbage but was very slow to grow this year and overtaken by spring sown Hispi. 3 plants resulted in enough for just one meal. Very disappointing. More plants growing for next spring.
- Red Cabbage Kalibos (trough) currently owes its place on the list to a few spring leaves growing from an old plant that failed to make a head last year (too crowded). Growing 2 plants this year, one of which has a small head despite being grown for most of its life underneath a canopy of potato foliage. Nothing wrong with these as a variety (recommended) but much too big for my requirements so I won't be growing it next year.

Carrots
One of my favourites – I grow about 8 pots of carrots each year, always under nets.
- Autumn King (pot) old seed sown thickly has produced a lot of very small carrots, although some are a reasonable size. I prefer the nantes types and I probably won't be growing this variety next year.
- Eskimo (pots) finished off last year's sowing which were mainly small but kept me in carrots over winter (hardy variety). Not touched this year's sowing yet, but they look bigger as far as I can tell.
- Marion (pots) nantes type tried for the first time this year. Produced nice even good sized carrots with a good flavour. 2nd sowing produced smaller carrots as I had sown them too thickly. A 3rd pot was sown in July for use in winter and is growing well.
- Nantes 2 (pot) bought these to compare with Nantes Frubund Fastcrop last year but so far they have been rather small. Flavour is similar and size could be user error.
- Nantes Frubund Fastcrop (pots) my reliable old favourite. Forms good sized roots if sown reasonably thinly and can get quite big. Excellent taste and grows fast – a February sowing produced perfectly respectable small carrots by the beginning of June. Plenty of good big roots in the later sowing.

Kohlrabi and Turnips
Useful in soups, but I can take or leave these. Probably just as well,given this year's performance.
- Kohlrabi Vienna Mix (veg garden soil, pot) a few were left from a July sowing which did quite well last year. Tried an early “catch crop” along with turnips, but most of the plants bolted leaving very little edible (probably too dry). Trying another summer sowing planted out into one of the raised beds, which is being attacked by slugs, and 4 more plants from a later sowing in a pot which will hopefully be edible over winter. Slugs seem to prefer the green ones to the purple ones so I may try an all purple variety next year.
- Turnip Atlantic (veg garden soil) grown as a catch crop under a net in spring, produced a few small turnips in June.
- Turnip Purple Top Milan (trough) old seed sown in July just in case it germinated, but was a complete failure.
- Turnip Snowball (veg garden soil, trough) sown as a catch crop in May. Didn't grow very big and what was there was attacked by cabbage root fly giving a very disappointing crop in July. Trying again with a July sowing under a net – forming small turnips but some are tough and hollow in the middle, so inedible. Disappointing.

Leeks
I use these for soups and as a winter veg, although I have never been able to grow big fat leeks, probably because they have to stay in their original position (this time a trough) until there is space for them, and they spend most of their time in the shade.
- Albana (veg garden soil/trough then raised bed/pot) Steady flow of leeks during winter and spring from last year's sowing. This year's have been transplanted from their trough seed bed into a raised bed and pot for winter use.
- Musselburgh (trough) old seed sown to provide another variety, but nothing germinated (did last year). Not a variety I normally grow at home.
- Oarsman (trough then pot) new to me last year, these produce very nice non-stringy leeks, but I do have issues with early sowings bolting. A few had survived to be eaten this spring, and I sowed more in February, most of which have bolted and been used for soup. They were also used to replace the Musselburgh after they failed to grow. Planted out into a 30 litre pot in October (still rather small) for winter use.

Spinach and chard
I love spinach and grow loads in the spring, but struggle at other times of year. Trying to fill the gap with spinach beet and chard didn't work at all.
- Amazon (pots) new to me and billed as bolt resistant. Sown late in spring and very little was edible due to caterpillars and bolting. Trying again with a late summer sowing under insect mesh which has so far provided a few leaves, but others have holes in (slugs?).
- Bloomsdale (modules) an old variety that tends to bolt quickly, so grown for baby leaf salad over winter. Using up old seed that will not be replaced.
- Chard Bright Lights (dustbin) first time growing this last autumn, but plants were seriously chewed by caterpillars and/or slugs leaving little edible. When I tried it in salads I found it tough and didn't like the taste. Will not be growing it again.
- Giant Winter (pot in growhouse) sown in early October and growing well. Yet to harvest
- Perpetual Spinach Beet (raised bed) survived rather better than the chard, but I found it similarly unpalatable. Will not be growing it again.
- Reddy (pots) marketed as a fast crop, but tiny plants have leaves about an inch long, making harvesting anything worth eating very difficult. Having tried growing this in various places with the same result, I will use up the seed for baby leaf salads over winter and not buy any more.
- Red Vein (pot, self-watering planter) much larger leaves than Reddy, produced more than I could eat from spring sowings, particularly successful in the self-watering pot. Bolted earlier than Tirza grown alongside.
- Tirza (pot, self-watering planter) my favourite variety, but seed (Unwins) now comes coated with some disgusting fungicide so looking for a replacement. Large, tasty leaves and slow to bolt makes replacing it difficult but hoping Amazon might fit the bill for spring sowings.

[Bigmallly]

[Penellype]

Variety 104 is amaranth Red Army - a few shoots in my salad for lunch. These are grown as microleaves on the windowsill. They are certainly colourful, having bright red stems and dark red seed leaves, although I can't say they have a particularly noticeable taste. I think I will leave the rest to get a bit bigger before trying them again.

[Penellype]

Update on red cabbage Kalibos, which owed its place on the list to a few small leaves in a salad in early spring. I have now harvested the one plant that formed a small head (from 2 sown and grown in almost total shade). Given the conditions it did remarkably well and provided me with a nice cabbage and sausage casserole

[Martin H]

I grew Kalibos for the first time this year. We were quite disconcerted that it turned blueish-grey when cooked. It tasted fine but looked quite unappetising. Not sure I'll grow it again for that reason.

Well done on your challenge, by the way!

[Penellype]

SALAD CROPS

The final category, with a few things that have still not been harvested.

Cucumber
I'd never tried these before last year when I discovered you could grow little ones outdoors. I never buy one from the shops as most of it ends up in the bin, but the home grown ones last year were a revelation.
- Vega (quadgrow) 2 plants produced nothing but female flowers and studiously refused to set any fruit until the start of September. Flowers appear to rely on hand pollination. First fruit finally harvested just 2 days earlier than the final one last year, when they were edible from mid July. Made up for lost time with plenty of cucumbers from mid September and into October. Gorgeous eaten when about 4 inches long.

Flowers
I can take or leave these, although they do add colour to salads. The ones I grow are mainly as companion plants to deter pests.
- Calendula Art Shades Mix (flower border) a few petals eaten occasionally in salads. Tend to get mildew and grow a bit big for my garden, so I will plant a dwarf variety next year.
- Nasturtium Firebird (pots on fence) new variety to me. Pretty variegated leaves, but did a good job of attracting blackfly which killed them fairly quickly. Hopeless as a crop due to blackfly and also far too “hot” for my taste (the clue was in the name!). Won't be growing these again.
- Nasturtium Tom Thumb Mix (flower border) self seeded from last year's plants. A much milder taste than Firebird, and leaves and flowers both used in salads. Remarkably large and vigorous plants for a dwarf variety!

Lettuce
I like cut and come again baby leaf lettuce. I struggle to grow solid heads as I don't have space, and my experience of growing lettuce in the ground is that they tend to get full of slugs. An experiment in the autumn growing Relic and Valmaine in pots on a self watering tray in the fruit cage was a great success (the tray was on a shelf with bands of copper tape round the legs to stop slugs).
- Lollo Rossa (pots) reliable old favourite grown on windowsills. Doesn't develop much red colour when grown this way which suits me as the very red leaves are rather bitter. More lettuce than I could eat in spring and early summer.
- Mixed leaves (pots) old seed grown on windowsills in summer. A mixture of Catalogna (long green leaves), Cocarde (red oak leaf), Lollo Rossa, Grand Rapids (bright green curly leaves), Rossa di trento (like lollo rossa) and red salad bowl. Grew well and provided a good supply of leaves.
- Relic (pots) narrow leaf red variety grown in autumn as a change from Lollo Rossa, grown on windowsills and on a shelf under insect mesh. Very pleasant, soft leaves which are not at all bitter even when dark red, unlike Lollo Rossa, and therefore likely to replace that variety next year.
- Rosedale (pots) a free packet sent with a seed order. Red tinged cos variety grown on windowsills. Plenty of leaves, but some are distinctly bitter and soon even the young leaves were tough and stringy. I won't grow this again.
- Salad Bowl mix (pots, veg garden soil) a nice tasting variety that tends to quickly produce stems between the leaves and get leggy grown indoors. Performed ok in the soil under nets (much less leggy) but leaves were tougher and got aphids.
- Valmaine (pots) quick growing narrow leaf green variety grew well in autumn both on windowsill and outside under insect mesh. Nice slightly crisp leaves.
- Winter Gem (pots) started off last November but very small until February. Grown on windowsills, provided excellent tasting tender leaved “Little Gem” type cos lettuces from March to May without bolting. Grew again when cut. One of the nicest varieties I grew this year. Latest sowing (September) all emerged wearing seed cases which had to be removed by hand. A few of the seedlings have survived this.

Microleaves and sprouts
I've really only just discovered how many of these there are, having been familiar only with mustard and cress and bean shoots. These are delightfully quick to grow and make you feel something is happening in the winter months. I find the recommended method of using a tray lined with kitchen paper difficult and purchased some “gro trays” with lids which are designed for microleaves and are much easier to use.
- Alfalfa (jar) small shoots tasting of peas are ready within a week. I grow loads of these in winter, less so in summer as there is plenty else to eat.
- Amaranth (microgreen tray on windowsill) produced very tiny bright red shoots which didn't seem to taste of much, although they added colour to salads. Not particularly impressed.
- Cress Curled (microgreen tray) Not tried yet.
- Mustard Green Frills (on paper in tray/pot) found these very difficult indeed on kitchen paper as the seeds are very small and dry out fast. Did better in compost in a small pot.
- Pea shoots Hurst Green Shaft/Onward (pots) grow well under lights and nice in spring and autumn salads.
- Radish Sangria (on paper in tray) easier than mustard as the seeds are bigger and don't die as fast if they get a bit dry. Radish flavour without as much “bite” and red stems add colour to salads.
- Broccoli Early Purple (on paper in tray) eaten at seed leaf stage, didn't taste of much.

Oriental leaves
- Chinese Celery Kin Tsai (pot) strong celery flavour. Growing well in a 30 litre bucket under a net to deter caterpillars.
- Choy Sum (self watering planter) last year attempts to grow this in soil were annihilated by slugs very quickly. This year I had eaten 2 baby leaves from the modules before they were wiped out by beetles. The ones in the planter went the same way. Tried again under finer mesh for harvesting as baby leaves, but soon damaged, presumably by slugs.
- Komatsuna Comred (self watering planter) Colourful dark red leaves. Same problem with beetles as choy sum. Better under finer mesh and harvesting as baby leaves. A little slug damage.
- Komatsuna Torasan (self watering planter) grown under fine insect mesh, harvesting as baby leaves. A little slug damage.
- Mibuna (self watering planter/pots) same problem with beetles as choy sum. Very pleasant taste as baby leaf. Trying again in pots on the windowsill, eaten as baby leaves, but the plants really don't like this very much.
- Mitsuba Mashimori (modules) very slow to germinate and grow (related to parsley) yet to harvest
- Mizuna Red Knight (veg garden soil, modules/self watering planter, pole garden, raised bed) useful winter hardy salad plant (not tried cooking it), seems tolerant of any position including growing for baby leaves in the grow light garden (most brassicas don't like this). Survived the slugs over winter and produced more leaves than I could eat. Leaves still edible even when flowering, so continued to crop right through to June. Some beetle and slug problems with summer sowing, better under finer insect mesh.
- Namenia (pot, modules/self watering planter) loads of salad leaves from a spring sowing in a pot. August sowing in modules transplanted into self-watering planter under fine insect mesh and producing plenty of leaves from mid September. Quick growing and highly recommended.
- Pak Choi mix (veg garden soil, modules/self watering planter) just about useable as baby leaves when grown in soil, but attacked by slugs and bolted young even from a late sowing. Same beetle problems as choy sum this year, tried again under finer mesh and some baby leaves harvested from mid September, but showing signs of bolting by mid October. Disappointing.
- Provencale Salad mix (modules) a mixture of rocket (not keen), pak choi, mizuna and komatsuna grown over winter for salad. Very pleasant baby leaves and I decided to grow the components separately, without the rocket.

Other
Some miscellaneous items which don't fit into the categories above
- American Land Cress (pots) similar to watercress and very strange. Most of the seeds germinated wearing their seed cases, and died. The 2 surviving plants grew well on a shady windowsill until getting infested with aphids in June. Pleasant in small quantities in salads.
- Beetroot Boltardy (pot) my first attempt at beetroot, growing well from a July sowing and roots starting to swell, but yet to harvest.
- Celeriac (pot) grown for my friend, I sowed a lot of seed as they have a difficult reputation, and most of it seemed to germinate. Used some of the thinnings as celery flavour in salads, and continued using the leaves of plants in the hugely overcrowded original pot for soups until they got aphids in July.
- Corn Salad (pot) autumn sown and growing well. Yet to harvest

[Nicos]

Absolutely fantastic!
Well done- a very interesting and stimulating thread!

[Penellype]

EXPERIMENTS

Now for an assessment of some things that I tried for the first time this year.

Early crops indoors/under cover
Carrot (Nantes Frubund Fastcrop) in growhouse – sown in February in small but tall pots and germinated in the house, grew slowly but produced earlier carrots than the more conventional March sowing outside.
French Bean (Purple Teepee) sown in March and grown on windowsill – worked well although the plants were a little unruly. Expected these to be finished early but produced beans into August.
Pea (Half Pint) sown in January and grown on windowsill – too crowded, but did produce some peas.
Spinach (Bloomsdale) sown in autumn in growhouse – not really ready any earlier than spring sown spinach. Trying again this year with a proper winter variety (Giant Winter).

Verdict – all the above are worth trying again. Tomatoes and peppers sown in January were overtaken by the same varieties sown in March, so I will stick to later sowing dates for these.

Early potatoes
This was an attempt to use buckets and a very fast growing variety (Rocket) to produce potatoes in areas of the garden which were waiting for later crops such as tomatoes, bedding plants and courgettes. The idea was to “steal” a crop from spaces which could not be used for more permanent planting as nothing would be ready in time. Potatoes were planted in the garage in February and were moved outside under cover with no foliage showing on 1 April, as I hoped the sun would warm the buckets. Late frosts in mid May were a major challenge, requiring creative use of fleece and clothes pegs – this was also true for the regular potatoes which were all showing foliage by this point.
This worked better than I expected, with superb crops of Rocket from buckets that were relatively easy to move around. The buckets also enabled a sunnier start than previously for later crops which could be moved into permanent shady places once they had grown decent foliage.

Verdict – brilliant.

Replanting potato haulms after harvest
Attempted this with some Sarpo Mira haulms which were still slightly green after harvesting at the beginning of October. There weren't many visible potato buds on the stems. The leaves soon died back. When I dug them up in mid November there were 5 pea sized potatoes, and several small bumps on the buried stems.

Verdict – might be interesting earlier in the season with an early variety.

Late crops
Lettuce Relic and Valmaine sown right at the end of July and grown in pots outdoors did well for cut and come again leaves well into November.
Potato Charlotte planted in early August produced some nice new potatoes in November.
Runner Bean Red Rum sown in June and grown in pots did quite well.
Spinach Amazon sown in August grew ok, but was damaged by slugs leaving few edible leaves.
Turnip Snowball sown in July was awful, with almost nothing edible

Verdict – very mixed with some good results, but the autumn was mild and frost and blight free. These crops might not do so well in a more "normal" year.

Types of pots
30 litre buckets for potatoes – worked very well, producing some bumper crops and easier to move around than bags. Useful for almost everything else too.

Verdict – excellent

Flower tower for strawberries – This is a narrow tower with a perforated pipe in the centre, and takes 30 plants. 2 towers, one of Marshmello, one of Elsanta started well but proved a disappointment and several of the elsanta plants died. I think there is simply insufficient root space for strawberries. Transplanting is going to be entertaining.

Verdict – disappointing

Pole tower for a variety of veg and herbs. Cheap and space saving. Tried chives, garlic chives, mizuna, nasturtium, parsley, chervil, 2 sorts of french bean, strawberries and wild strawberries. Worked surprisingly well and reasonably easy to re-stack if something needs replacing. Watering was the main problem and I would not like to bank on this in a hot summer. Experimented later on with double pots with a water slice inside the bigger one, but this provides a nice slug hotel unfortunately. One of the poles (with 7 pots on) eventually bent in autumn gales.

Verdict – worth repeating.

Rootrainers – sound a good idea but I'm finding that the tops of the plants get too crowded before the roots have filled the compost. Tomatoes tend to get leggy even under growlights. Difficult to water. Tried again pricking out some small brassica seedlings into these. Again I found that the plants had to be transplanted before the roots had filled the compost, because the tops were too big.

Verdict – bitterly disappointing

Watering
Watering by plastic bottles with holes in – probably an improvement on sloshing water in. Used for potatoes, tomatoes, french beans and courgettes. Works well where you can easily get to the bottle to fill it, not so good with dense potato foliage. Comfort bottles have a bigger neck and are easier to fill than milk bottles. Holes tend to get blocked and water is then stuck in the bottle. Upended 2 litre bottles tended to fall over. In general bottles work better in pots as they tend to fall over if used in open ground, and can blow around in the wind.

Verdict – ok for plants which can't use self watering pots (see below)

Self watering pots – quadgrow type – these consist of pots of various sizes with pieces of capillary matting fed through a hole in the bottom to act as a wick between a lower water reservoir and the compost. Used for tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, peppers, spinach, salad leaves. With the exception of melons crops seemed to grow very well, although the smallest planter (chiligrow) seemed too small to cope with full sized cordon tomatoes (bush ones did ok). Awkward to move around.

Verdict – excellent but expensive.

Self watering pots – mat type – these are water trays with a shelf covered with capillary matting dangling into the water, on which the pots are placed, the idea being that the compost is in contact with the mat and acts as its own wick. Used for tomatoes, peppers, melons, lettuces, seedlings, peas, french beans, celeriac. Both purpose made and home made varieties were used. Much better than having pots standing in a puddle or drying out, and overall a great success. Home made ones tended to have open areas of water, and became mosquito breeding grounds. Roots grow into the matting, which can become smelly and green with algae. Purpose made covers prevented some of the algae but didn't stop the roots.

Verdict – good, better with a cover over the matting.

Weather and pest protection
Cloche greenhouses (2ft x 4ft x 2ft high) – Used for protecting potatoes in the spring. Need to be well anchored with plenty of pegs or bricks, and the frames also work well covered with netting for brassicas.

Verdict – useful.

Walk in plastic greenhouse/insect mesh fruit cage – greenhouse rocked alarmingly anything resembling wind and cover was permanently removed within a couple of weeks for fear of breaking the frame. Attaching veggiemesh from the inside, using detachable hooks worked well – the top does not need to be anchored to the apex of the frame for it to be high enough to walk into. Putting it up without knocking the fruit off the blueberries was quite challenging but easier than I expected and in some ways easier than putting a net over the top of the frame. Zip entrance strips (really designed to grip bird netting) need careful fixing to the mesh and will not grip the selvedge so this had to be cut off. Also used as protection for strawberries (good), carrots (good), lettuces (good), cabbages (ok but some slug damage), spinach (slug problems) and brassica seedlings (destroyed by flea beetle).

Verdict – hopeless as a greenhouse, great as a fruit/carrot cage.

Fleece jacket - attempting to protect the gooseberry bush from sawflies with this simply resulted in protecting the caterpillars.

Verdict – useless for this job, may be useful later on when it gets cold.

Spider mite predators – predatory mites were used on the indoor tomatoes, probably far too late. The plants still died.

Verdict – expensive and not particularly effective.

Experimental Crops
Brokali is growing well in a 30 litre bucket and is nearly ready to harvest.
Melons were a complete disaster in a very poor summer.
Microleaves were rather mixed. I probably didn't sow them thickly enough and found them tricky to cut. Tended to dry out quickly until a purpose made tray with a cover was used.
Namenia grown for salad leaves in spring and autumn was a great success.
Oriental veg including chinese celery, choy sum, mibuna and mitsuba mashimori were variable. Choy sum seems to be a waste of time as the slugs love it. Mibuna didn't seem to like growing indoors and may be better outside next year. The celery is useful as a salad leaf, and the mitsuba is not ready to eat yet.

Verdict - a mixed bag.

Wormery
Intended to provide additional composting space and to produce rich, crumbly worm compost for potting. The implication was that compost would be ready in 3 months – it has taken more like a year. Slugs can get into the wormery, so the compost is not ideal for potting unless it is sterilized first.

Verdict – does what it says on the tin, but not as quickly as advertised.

[Penellype]

PROBLEMS AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

I'm always on the lookout for ways to improve things, so I make a note of problems as they appear and try to think of ways I could do things differently. Any suggestions gratefully received! This is this year's selection:

Pests
Slugs & snails – were a problem later in the season on various greens including cabbages and spinach. My fault for forgetting to put copper tape around the pots! Will have to be more careful next year.
Ants/aphids – ants farmed aphids on the apple tree leading to serious infestation (they prevent predators from eating the aphids). Barrier glue will be used round the trunk next year. Blackfly were quite a problem on nasturtiums and french beans in the summer, although they were eventually controlled by the local hoverfly population.
Red spider mites – these completely killed the indoor tomato plants, and were probably worse than they could have been due to me failing to notice the cause of the problem until far too late. Predatory mites didn't save the plants. More vigilence required next year and an "organic" oily spray (SMC) will be tried if necessary – this proved quite effective against the aphids on the apple tree in autumn. I suspect spider mites were also responsible for damage on strawberry and french bean plants outside (and definitely on strawberries in my friend's greenhouse), in what seems to have been a bad year for these pests. I have never had trouble with them before.
Beetles – small grey beetles 3-4mm long caused absolute havoc with summer sown salad greens (brassicas) in the fruit cage, eating them bare despite being under insect mesh. I could not identify these pests on the internet. Some flea beetles (much smaller) also caused damage, but nowhere near as bad as the larger grey beetles. From around 40 seedlings of 5 different crops, absolutely nothing was edible. Some damage was also seen on broccoli and calabrese seedlings, but they seemed to leave the cabbages in the fruit cage alone. Finer mesh was effective at keeping the larger beetles out and will be used for brassicas next year.
Caterpillars – the odd one managed to sneak under nets and eat carrot foliage, chard and spinach (mostly dot moth caterpillars), and the nasturtiums suffered badly from large cabbage white larvae, but the main caterpillar pest was sawfly. 2 sorts of these (one green with black heads and one bluish with black spots) completely annihilated the gooseberry foliage despite my best efforts to pick them and their eggs off every single day. Fine mesh netting will be tried next year, after repotting the bush and washing off all the current soil which may be harbouring pupae.
Wasps – didn't cause any damage, but were a serious deterrent to me picking my raspberries as they love the flowers and I didn't fancy getting stung. Unfortunately autumn fruiting raspberries have ripe fruit and flowers on the same truss, making avoiding the wasps difficult and the only solution I could find was to pick the fruit in late evening when it was almost dark and the wasps had gone home. Netting won't work as the flowers need pollinating.
Cat – I have a constant battle with next door's ginger cat using any bare patch of soil as a toilet. I've tried various deterrents such as bits of stick, bottles of water and orange peel, but the only things that really work are fleece/nets covering the soil or "prikka strips" which are strips of plastic covered in small plastic spikes. I don't like using the prikkas, but they are useful in areas where netting is not possible.

Apple tree
My poor little apple tree had real problems this year and produced hardly any edible fruit. After a very dry spring with several late frosts (fleece was used to protect the blossom and developing fruit), the tree was badly attacked by aphids (see above). Although there was initially plenty of fruit, it soon became distorted with a strange lumpy skin. The fruits then started to fall off, and when cut in half the flesh under the lumpy bits was brown. I could find nothing remotely like it on the internet. The few fruits that survived until they were a bit larger gave me hope that I might be able to eat something, as the parts that did not have lumpy skins were developing normally. I did eventually get about 5 partly edible apples, and deduced that the problem was likely to be bitter pit. This is a problem with very dwarf trees (mine is on M27), but I have never had it before. However, it is apparently made worse by drought, and we did have a very dry spring and early summer. More watering is clearly needed in dry weather.

Strawberries
Apart from the spider mites, my main problem here was probably trying to fit a quart into a pint pot. I don't have space in the ground for strawberries and in the past I've found they get eaten by slugs on the ground anyway. I like the idea of growing them in towers, but I'm struggling to find a system that works and is easy to water. I'm thinking of moving some of the plants into large hanging baskets, which have flat bottoms and will therefore sit on a shelf (I haven't anywhere to hang them).

Melons
My attempts at growing 2 outdoor F1 varieties of melon (Alvaro and Magenta) were a total failure – I couldn't get the things to produce female flowers at all. I grew a total of 6 plants (3 of each), one of each outside, one in the growhouse and one in my friend's greenhouse. All were the same – they produced loads of growth but nothing that looked like a female flower. I tried nipping off the ends of the shoots in the growhouse, which you are apparently supposed to do, but it didn't seem to help. Watering was not the issue as all of the plants were on self watering reservoirs or trays. They were in 10-18 litre pots so pot size shouldn't have been a problem. The inclination is to blame the weather, but other people have grown melons this year and while the outdoor ones might have been a bit cold, the greenhouse should have been fine, and we had plenty of summer sunshine (above average every month), so that can't be it either. I'm stumped.

Fruit cage access
My attempt at an insect mesh fruit cage worked better than I expected, but there was one slight problem in that it was difficult to get at the blueberries at the back of the cage, and some got wasted as a result. I have a spare zip and will make another entrance at that end for next year.

Veg garden soil
The veg garden is on top of the foundations of an old patio and is therefore on sand, so it drains like a sieve. Plenty of compost has been added for each of the 4 years since the patio was taken up, but it was quite noticable that this year the tomatoes, courgettes, leeks, onions and turnips that I grew in the long back bed all did relatively badly. The soil is above the level of the paths, particularly on the side away from the hedge as the land slopes a little, and water simply runs off onto the path. In addition I've noticed the soil is now full of tree roots from the leylandii hedge, and these will be taking water and nutrients from the veg. I'm going to try and stop the water running off by putting a plastic edge onto the lower path side and adding some topsoil and compost. However, I expect the tree roots to grow up into this fairly quickly, so I don't think it is going to be a solution to that part of the problem.

Feeding
I'm very bad at remembering to feed plants and I think some of my yields suffered as a result. One for the new year resolution, perhaps!

[Jungle Jane]

Years ago,I had a problem with the neighbours cat messing right by my front door,I was always clearing it. Then I read that they don't mess where they're fed. So I'd give him little pieces of ham,it worked,we became friends,he slept round here whilst the owner was at work,he was lovely. It might be worth trying it's a relief when there's no mess. I've got my own cat now,he only knows to mess here,the raised bed & troughs most at risk but they do look like litter trays,I lay sticks & stones,plant pots etc in them so he can't get in.
I read recently that liquid seaweed sprayed on spider mite infested leaves helps,haven't tried it hopefully we won't need to! When the aphids gathered on my nasturtium I had to keep squashing them & removing them but they were a great trap crop & kept my runner beans clear of aphids,so worth growing.

[Penellype]

Thanks for the tips Jungle Jane, I will give them a go. My nasturtiums are also decoy plants, and they did a good job this year distracting the blackfly from the beans.

[Penellype]

Variety 105 is Mitsuba Mashimori (Chinese parsley) - one leaf in the salad today. Clearly related to parsley, but with bigger and differently shaped leaves than the flat leaf parsley. Similarly slow to germinate and grow, and tastes similar.