What's Worked and What's Not,

On the whole I'm very pleased with this summer's efforts especially as I took over my overgrown allotment during the last week of June , a few failures but that's only to be expected and if nothing else they help highlight the things that have gone well.
Potatoes - I'd planted a few bags of earlies at home which came good but then risked planting what were marketed as Christmas potatoes in August, they came up and looked good until they were wiped out by blight - so no re-planting there for a while
Sweetcorn - an absolute delight, I bought an F1 that I can't remember the name of, they matured at about 5' and each is giving me multiple cobs of sweetcorn
Carrots - F1 Resistafly planted 04/07 and harvested from 04/09 superb results large healthy carrots. I might try a different variety next year because if I'm being ultra fussy they were slightly down on flavour
Celeriac - just pulled my first one, a little small but it's looking good for the rest.
Borlotti Beans - I planted these more in gope than expectation but they're up and the beans are forming, hopefully I'll have some before the weather turns
Leeks - going like trojans eaten a few thinnings so unless something really untowards happens I'm looking good for Leeks
Onions - I planted some sets three weeks ago which are just pushing up they're shoots, Monday I planted 150 more so fingers crossed they'll follow suit.
Brassicas - All looking good White Cabbage, Cavalo Nero, Sprouts, Purple Sprouting and Red Cabbages. It's incredible how determined the Cabbage White butterfly is,I netted them completely with 8mm netting but still some got through to lay their eggs! I've taken off the netting now because the down side of the netting is that once the caterpillars hatch in there they are protected from the birds who would eat them - so now any remaining can run the gauntlet of hungry blackbirds and robins.
As for my home garden
Runner beans were particularly good this year as were my courgettes - I always plant too many and end up with marrows. Strawberries and black currants were bountiful but the raspberries, goosberries and tayberries were less than impressive.
In the greenhouse I planted far too many tomatoes for the space I had but still had over 26lb of fruit - compared with one solitary chilli pepper.

That's been my season, I hope you all had successes and any failures were not too crushing

 

My august planted Charlottes were blighted a few years back so I didn't bother to check them.

When I dug the bed over in the spring, they'd formed decent sized new potatoes, only they weren't new anymore, the skins had hardened

If i'd dug them at Christmas, then I could have had new potatoes after all

 

Make sure you rogue out any volunteers next year - otherwise they may be carrying Blight, and spread it to your new-season crops, and you neighbours' :(

I prefer to plant to flavour and net against carrot fly, rather than pick a resistant variety

I put a bird net, rather than a tiny-mesh Cabbage White net, on now. The tiny-mesh netting is a liability when it snows - the whole structure collapses under the weight, but without a bird net the pigeons eat the lot :(

 

One tip given to me many years ago(when I was about 14,,76 now)by my friend's father who worked in a market garden was to plant 1 row carrots 1 row onion (he said carrot fly don't like the smell of onion and onion fly don't like the smell of carrots. My mum had a very large garden to look after,when we lost my farther who was only 37 years old.I asked this man what was wrong with my carrots as they had all flopped,carrot fly lad and there's nowt you can do,this is when he gave me this tip,and I've done this ever since with good results.

Ian

 

I very much enjoyed reading your report Andrew thank you!
This year I've learnt that dwarf French beans in pots are great, I nearly threw them out after the first crop because I thought that was all they did, but they kept going for ages producing masses of lovely beans. My first ever potatoes were a big success, thanks to everyone on here that gave me advice about growing them. They gave me a scare by taking forever to get started but did well in the end. My first sowing of kale and chard were completely munched and I've only just managed to plant out the second lot I grew in the greenhouse. They're looking very sad at the mo but fingers crossed! I had tons of cherrys (all eaten suddenly overnight one night - pigeons??), tons of plums, tons of huge cooking apples and RUBBISH raspberries (quantity and flavour). Tomatoes were very good too, quite a few are still green but I think they'll get there. The ones outside did better than the ones in the greenhouse.
Next year I'm going to be much more ambitious!

 

PS. Andrew, how big is your allotment and is it all dedicated to fruit/veg.? How many years have you been working it for?

 

Thanks Ian; I'll put that tip to good use next season

 

I've never thought of beans in pots but I'll certainly give it a try next year.
Well done on the potatoes - unearting your crop is something akin to childhood Christmases because unlike most other crops you don't actually know what your going to get until you start digging.
Sounds like your Kale was a victim to our old friend Mrs Cabbage White. Even with a complete covering of netting I still saw the odd one get through to lay her eggs to be followed up by dozens of pairs of voracious jaws. Fingers crossed your second attempt will miss most of the butterflies and should be ok.
I'm at aloss as to what could have eaten all your cherries over night but lets hope whatever (or whoever) it was got a good dose of the runs from all that fruit!
Seems were not alone with the rubbish raspberries maybe they didn't like the long hot dry weather; if you like raspberries try Tayberries, their like a cross between a really nice raspberry and a really good blackberry - delicious.
Well done on your tomatoes, don't worry about the green ones they make a superb green tomato chutney, let me know if you want a recipe.
To answer your other question, this is my first year at the allotment and I took it over (in an overgrown state) on the last week of June.

Good luck for next year!

Cheers

Andrew

 

Not doubting that that works, probably even to a good extent, but I take a different view which is that even a few carrot flies getting to the carrots (and parsnips) are too many as the damage that even a few can do can be significant.

So I prefer to net mine against carrot fly using enviromesh (including a "roof" as I also think that the saying that they can't fly very high is all very well, except for the few that get lifted over in a guest of wind and then damage the carrots :( )

I think that carrot fly is also a problem on Parsnips. Whilst they don't damage them like they do on Carrots I think they cause enough damage that the site of entry is then more likely to be infected with canker.

 

Hi LindsayH, Re your vanishing cherries,Some years ago I had a similar thing happen to me,but mine where my gooseberries.I had at that time 5 big bushes which where loaded with fruit,about 3 weeks before I was going to pull them they did a walk over night.One of my palls at that time heard what had happened and came to see me,and told me that he had seen who took them,I went to see the chap who said he had been know where near my plot and said what a fuss about a few berries.My reply was I'm not bothered about the fruit it is what could happen to the person who took them Iv'e only just sprayed them and they could make someone very ill.

A few weeks later I was out fishing with one of my fishing palls who worked on the dust carts and told him the tail.He said before you say any more I can tell you who he was, we emptied his bin last week and it was half full of gooseberries

Ian

 

Not only does he steal them then, he can't even recycle them properly.

Needs a revenge hit here.

Good call though