What have you learned this year ?

[Bren In Pots]

I've learnt you can't have to many Nasturtiums, I've grown them in amongst my veg beds the flowers look pretty and they taste good so do the pods especially when they've been pickled.

[KevinM67]

Yep, Bren - and so easy to grow also.

I edged a few beds with them, and they looked great.

I did say to my young lad and my nieces that they were edible and the next moment they were chomping on both the leaves and the flowers. It was great to see.

Who says they only want to eat chicken nuggets and chips.

[KevinM67]

Another, and again not in anyway original:

Having patience and sowing seeds / planting out when the time, temperature, sun levels, etc. are right.

Somebody on here mentioned a website called Garden Focussed. I pretty much stayed to their suggested times for sowing/planting and it was a great help.

It's great to experiment and take gambles, but when you are limited with time, space, greenhouse, etc then it pays dividends and saves the heartaches by having a bit of patience.

[Paulie]

This year I learned that butternut squashes are great for supressing horsetail, which is a horrible pest on my allotment.

[lolie]

I learned how important gardening is to me.

From September 2016 to September 2017 I had a few health issues which kept me from doing anything other than occasionally watering whatever was already in the ground and pulling stuff out as it became unproductive.

It's great to see the beds filling up again with the promise of things to come.

[rary]

What's a "grasp"...........................................

Raspberries with big thorns

[no_akira]

- Don't grow x3 different varities (Green, Yellow, Purple) of french beans next to each other in the same bed... doh

+ Squashes grew better (for me) in Dalek filled with compost and then trailed down a sloping frame.

- continue to see examples of veggie plants not liking certain plastics.

+ Outdoor Chilli plants continue to surprise.

+ Sharpening with a grinder the left scraping edge on my hand fork has been useful

+ clear poly sheet 2' ft high, Windbreak using sections of Heras panels staked through the tubes

+ My Heras panel lean-to-shelter is still standing and sheltering my x6 Gardeners delight toms, which produced right up until the beginning of October.

- My plot is a little bit of a frost trap unfortunately, did damage at various stages of year, lost all my Xmas potatoes to a cold night in mid October.

[KevinM67]

+ clear poly sheet 2' ft high, Windbreak using sections of Heras panels staked through the tubes

I'll need to try and create some windbreaks in the garden next year. With it surrounded with 6ft walls, it's like mini-tornadoes at times.

[Cadalot]

If you don't sow it the first place you don't get a harvest !

[Peteyd]

- Don't grow x3 different varities (Green, Yellow, Purple) of french beans next to each other in the same bed... doh.

It might be quite obvious but why's that?

[Bill Door]

Well I have learned nothing apart from time can weigh very heavy when you are not focused.

Bill

[Penellype]

The biggest thing I have learned this year is undoubtedly that little problems can become big problems remarkably quickly. The small issue I had in 2016 with strawberry leaf roller (tortrix moth) on my strawberries spread this year into a plague which affected the strawberries, framberries, blueberries, white currants, apple tree, leeks, calabrese, carrots, kale, cabbages, spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, fennel, primulas, acer trees, fuchsias, cornflowers and marguerites. So much for it being a "strawberry" problem! At one point I was catching the damn things in jars as they flew up off the leaves of the acer tree. Next year I am going to try pheromone traps if I see any sign of these.

Also learned that it is possible to grow melons outside in Yorkshire if you choose the right variety (Magenta) and plant in a sunny hotbed covered with a cheap plastic cloche. The result was 2 nearly 5 inch melons and several smaller ones. The better known "outdoor" melon Alvaro produced a couple of small fruit but nothing like the 2 big ones produced by Magenta in the same hotbed.

[Lumpy]

What I have learned - well..........

Camels can't walk on ice...err sorry wrong thought creeping in...........right

That dwarf raspberries and blackberries need much bigger pots than expected (as shown in the adverts)
"...................".............."...........hanging baskets are not big enough.

That 2 kale plants are enough for us so I don't need 8.
".........."..................." and the dog won't eat it either.

That there is an alternative to growing most things from seed and letting the pots take over all available space. I can buy a regular delivery of plug plants. They might not be the varieties I would have chosen but Hey Ho.

That gardening is not dependant upon 'doing everything from scratch' If you get joy however you do it thats enough.

Slugs like oriental radish more than normal radish

[Cadalot]

Slugs like oriental radish more than normal radish

How do you know that you have not oriental slugs?

We after all a multicultural society or so they keep telling me but the only slugs they keep going on about are the big Spanish ones!

[Lumpy]

^^^^^^^Don't you start!