What did you learn from your garden this year?
8000wildflowers
Posts: 278
Hi all,
Wondering what your key learnings and tips are from 2016, now autumn is almost upon us..
For me, it's: Maybe stick to the tried and tested vegetables you know work.? Or just add one new per year.
I tried some different tomato, courgette and cuc varieties this year:
-Round, yellow cucumbers, a bit like apples (yes really-Crystal), and a different variety of green as I lost my crop of Zeina and had to dash to the shop for new seeds and take what they had. The first was high cropping but tasteless, and the second low cropping (3 cucs from 2 plants). Back to Zeina next yr.
-Yellow plum tomatoes, and a new dark red/purple red cherry. Again the first tasteless and the second very yummy but poor cropping (and v.late) so not worth the effort. Back to Sungold and Gardeners Delight next yr.
-Yellow courgettes and green courgettes. Again - the yellow courgettes largely tasteless. Green all the way next yr.
One bonus for me this year was trying sweetcorn again, but for the first time hand pollinating (as recommended on this forum). What a difference, and so easy, just bang them together once or twice. Lots of full corn. Definitely doing corn again next year.
What's your lessons from the year?
Posts
The main lesson I learned this year is not to underestimate the amount of staking and support that Sunflowers need! Related to this, by the sunflower seedling to fully grown ratio, is slug protection - I am going for nematodes next year as I lost countless young plants to the massive population of slugs who call my garden home.
Success stories were - Geums (new fave - pretty, long season and not slugged) and scented pelargoniums (bought small from April's Cardiff RHS Spring Show and they still going strong).
I too discovered the longevity of geums: my new love. I also learned that crocosmia lucifer doesn't like it dry.
That extra bit of land you could do with, ,why not ask the council if you can take it over then with the neighbours say so of coourse.?
Think how nice a garden YOU could turn it into .you could transform it .!!!!
What I learned from my garden this year is never to stress about getting it perfect. It will be here a long time after me so I just seize the day and enjoy tweaking and re-doing and falling in and out of love with plants.
Liking the tips so far all
I have a crocosmia on the edge of dry shade that's not really flourishing, good tip there
Sowing my tomatoes early this year has worked really well; I've had the best tomato crop I've ever had.
On the other hand all of my fruit trees have failed, I've had only a handful of apples and plums (and on two of my plum trees none at all). I don't know what the lesson is here, though, I'm not sure what's wrong.
Lastly I hate slugs but I don't want to kill anything in my garden, so I'll be growing fewer things they like next year. It's not quite as restrictive as it sounds; there's plenty of things they won't eat and I still have many pots for Dahlias that deter them well enough (given where I put them).
The satisfaction of digging out shrubs that I've tolerated for years and freeing up space to plant what I like.
bit of an offensive slur on " council house tenants" Is it ok on "planet hortico" for owner occupiers not to care about their gardens?
Just what I was thinking Hosta. I could cite the home owning cretin across the road from me who cuts his tiny front lawn with a strimmer once a year and infests every other garden with his weeds until that point....
Whereas my dear Grandpa lived in a council house all his life, and tended his lovely little garden endlessly.
I've learned that I'm getting slower at creating my garden, but considering it was non existant three years ago, I haven't done too badly.
Last edited: 05 September 2016 10:26:59
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Don't be in a rush Fairy. After more than forty years I am gradually recreating mine to deal with reduced time/ energy and fitness.
That's the good thing about gardening. . . . you are not stuck with the one planting scheme.