what're you growing next year...?

[Erik]

so, out of interest, who's into growing their own food?
and what're you into growing?

this year, i've had french beans, yellow courgettes, a couple of different kinds of kale, cauliflowers, chinese chives, mints, three kinds of chilli peppers, various kinds of mustard and mizuna, various kinds of rocket, and i now have a houseful of garlic-babies waitin to go out in early spring. and i'm growing lemongrass too, thats great fun and the pinnacle of simplicity!
and for next year i've got the kales and chillies again, a couple of new chilli varieties (as you may guess i'm a complete chilli fan!), leaf beet spinach, a different cultivar of french beans, a couple of different kinds of spring onions, petrewski turnips, tsoi sim, turnip greens, some new centiflor tomatoes and rainbow quinoa.
and i'll grow the couple of different kinds of rockets again, and the mizunas.

and i'd like to try growing raspberries too, but thats a total non-essential so i'll see how it goes

[smileyt]

Sometimes in the Spring, Aldi and Lidl do cheap raspberry canes. I got some and they have been fantastic. So if you have pennies to spare, it might be worth keeping an eye out. Or see if you can pinch some roots from established canes - they tend to sprout up in places where they're not wanted.

I'm not sure what I'll be growing yet. Tempted to give up on the tomatoes as they've been killed by blight for the last three years running I need to go through my seeds and see what I've got, and then put an order in. Ooh, what a lovely way to spend an hour or so, sitting in front of the fire with a seed catalogue

[smileyt]

What are petrewski turnips? And rainbow quinoa? How easy are they to grow, and how would you harvest quinoa? Sounds interesting!

[diamond lil]

I grow tomatoes inside smiley, on south facing windowsills. I have 6ft windows and can squeeze a lot of plants in, using cut-down plastic milk cartons.
I will do some Kale, not cos I like cos its bloody horrible stuff, but at least it survives our weather up here! And some tatties, some lettuce, some onions, and I've got rasps and strawbs. This will only be my third year of growing veg. Been in here over 20 yrs and got a big garden -but just never bothered when I was working, had no time or energy.

[Magz]

Next year will be my 1st try at growing, going to start with garlic, herbs,onions, chilli, and some fruit, think tomatoes should be easy enough if I manages that I'l move on to more veg, little steps for me, I don't have green fingers, I can't even keep flowers alive.

[Carrot Cruncher]

I started my first attempt at veg growing too late this year to grow stuff i really like but next year I have planned for Sprouts (I love 'em), Swede, Carrots, Spuds, Peas, French or runner Beans, Parsnips, Onions, Beetroot and whatever else I can fit in.

Fruit wise I picked up 3 Red Currant and 3 Black Currant plants from Lidl so hopefully they will give us something, planted an apple tree a few months ago but have been told to pick the flowers to prevent fruiting next year, also got a Raspberry plant and a few Strawberry plants.

Hopefully I will do a little better than this year....which won't be difficult

Also going to try some Nematodes next year to try and give the plants a fighting chance against the slugs

CC

[Huorn]

Hmm, I think it's fair to say we grow a good proportion of the fruit and veg we eat. I've been struggling to do justice to the allotments over the last couple of years though as the youngsters prevent me spending as much time there as I'd like.

We grow a fair range of crops with apples, plums, gooseberries, currents (black and white), a variety of raspberry canes. We've a small greenhouse which produces plenty of toms and cucumbers. We tried some chillies this year with some success, so we'll grow them again. We have a patch of wild strawberries and cultivated ones too.

Veg wise, the standard spuds, leeks, sprouts, cabbages, onions, garlic, jerusalem artichokes, carrots, beetroot, parsnips, shallots, pumpkins, perpetual spinach, beans (broad, runner and french), never enough peas, salad stuff like radishes, spring onions etc. We tend to eat spinach instead lettuce as it's hardier and has more flavour.

Next year I plan to grow gherkins for pickling, more varieties of pumpkins and plant a medlar, quince and conference pear trees when I find suitable places for them.

H

[Erik]

ooh, i LOVE knowin what other people have got goin on in their gardens and allotments and whatnot

[Erik]

oh, and regarding the quinoa harvesting...it seems dead easy to harvest on a small scale basis.
as soon as the seeds are at their best you cut the huge seed heads off, dry them indoors for a couple of days hanging up somewhere dry, them give them a good rub with your hands and the seeds come out readily.
they then get soaked in cold water overnight to get rid of the soapy-kind-of coating they will still have, then another good rub-through with your hands.
then laid out inside to dry for the day and they're ready to go
each plant will produce at least half a pound of grain, and the colours that the heads go when they ripen is amazing

[Erik]

and the petrewski is a kind of polish turnip. good to grow in cold wet places like the north of england.