What are we planning to grow this year?

[featherstick]

It's that time of year again when gardeners starts to itch to get dirty fingernails and an aching back. Seed catalogues have been thumbed to disintegration, in toilets, sofas, and train journeys around the country, fantasy crop rotations have been planned, crossed out, scribbled over, and planned again, and pretty soon now seed packets will start hitting doormats as orders arrive.

So what are we planning to grow?

I have over-wintering peas in the ground and will grow more peas this year. I'm going to grow more crops for winter as they were very welcome this year. For us this is leeks, swede, black radish, turnips, kale and chard. I'll be growing potatoes as I've brought more ground into cultivation, and also oca. I want to grow a good runner bean this year that I can dry for winter and for subsequent sowing. I'm going to try cauli as we enjoy it a lot. Some salads, squash, of course.

FOr fruit we will have raspberries - transplanted into their new site, gooseberries, redcurrants and strawberries. The gooseberry bushes nearly went under last year and I hope they will recover. The strawberries are a mix of early, mids and lates and should do better after a shaky start last year.

So what is everyone else planning?

[nickdutch]

dandelion and chickweed in growbags, plus a few other fun things. I am looking forward (strangely enough) to the dandelions the most, dehydrating the leaves with a puree of dried fruits, nuts and seeds on them and munching away.

[jansman]

I am growing all the usual stuff. However, I am going to grow melons this year in the polytunnel. I don't eat 'em, but the Duchess does. Also going to grow celeriac. We have a Polish neighbour who invited us to dinner. He served a celeriac mash, and it was bang on.
The tomatoes are through in the propagator. Cracking crop last year, and we are just on the last out of the freezer.

[poppypiesdad]

Half the ground 4 acres down to grass for haylage again this year , and hopefully get the same 43 bales again that saved us just short of £2000 in feed , and it lasted till just last week, going to trim the trees Apple and Cherry trees and in a spare corner put down some barley that has come out of the straw bales , to hopefully make some home lager ..... Might be a bit far but got to try

[MissPrep]

Still trying to decide apart from tomatoes, peppers, lettuce & spring onions but having just received some free seed potatoes & grow bags to use with them this morning, early potatoes are definitely on the list.

I might try cucumbers one last time but I'm not optimistic as they don't seem to want to grow for me.

I have herbs growing in a trough all year round & use them in cooking (parsley, sage, peppermint, thyme, oregano & rosemary are my most used), might add a couple more & a bay tree.

Plus the gooseberries, strawberries & blueberries that are already planted in the garden.
I'm hoping for more lemons from my lemon tree this year if the weather is good again. (It lives in the house in the winter as I don't have a greenhouse yet, the smell of the flowers is heavenly. I use my kitchen as a substitute greenhouse for starting plants in for now)
I did have some raspberry, blackberry & loganberry canes I planted last year but they disappeared when I was away so not sure if they died or got eaten by something, I'll be replanting raspberries.

I want to try to espalier a couple of fruit trees as I don't have room for normal ones - something I've never done before.
No. 1 choice is a self fertilising sweet cherry but I have room for 2 so I'm trying to decide which would be the second.
Maybe pear as I don't really like apples.

I prefer growing fruit as it's so expensive to buy in comparison to most vegetables & I have limited space.

[CynicalSurvival]

Got early potatoes ready to go and just starting tomatoes in my little propagator... Put in chilli seeds and peppers already but they haven't appeared yet.

Decided to try this stuff: komatsuna (see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/ho ... -2015.html)

Will be doing lettuce, carrots, leeks.. easy stuff really. I am just getting back to veg growing after a lull.

[PreparedKent]

My garden has a problem with other peoples cats shitting in it, so I'm starting to think about purchasing and putting up a greenhouse. Flower and veg beds in my garden would quickly become a toilet.

I'm a cat owner but I keep my cat indoors, my new street seems to have more cats on it per square mile than people.

When I get the greenhouse up and running it will probably be tomatoes (love them), peppers and carrots. Got a guy in my old village who sells tomato plants, etc. every spring so all the propagating will be done for me

[Waterbaby]

I've got raspberries in,thanks to jansman's suggestion,and I'm ordering and planting a fruit tree at a time -I've got a russet apple tree on order at the moment.
Always tomatoes of course too,and hopefully quite a bit more this year.

[TwoDo]

Also going to grow celeriac.

I have a lot of luck with celeriac and they always produce well for me - lots of people say they can't grow them though. Not absolutely sure why that should be, however, the things do absolutely love it wet so it maybe they dry out too much in other plots. Interestingly in a previous year I had a patch of celeriac butted up in the same row against a patch of Cabbage. The Cabbage closest to the celeriac was the least troubled by slugs (my celeriac rarely gets bothered by slugs). Last year I planted it intermixed with turnips as a companion plant to see what would happen and they both worked pretty well. Might try ringing the cabbage with them next year.

Besides all the usual stuff (peas, beans, potatoes etc) I am making a concerted effort to expand my knowledge of various other varieties of root vegetable. I am planting quite a few different types of turnip, swede and parsnip. I am primarily interested finding varieties that are both productive and store well or which can stay in the ground to feed my family through the winter and early spring. I am going to test various squashes as well and also things like various overwintering kale and cabbage.

Oh yeah, Mooli Radish. It forms enormous radishes although, in my experience, it does not store well. All white and the larger than the largest parsnip I have ever seen. They grow really quickly and are quite tasty. Great in stir fries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daikon Also called Daikon radish. Next autumn I will experiment with drying them. If you need to ramp up food supplies in a hurry it is a good plant to have seeds for - bang it in and you can begin to eat it in a few weeks.

[diamond lil]

I want to do turnips - not sure if I mean swedes cos I don't know the difference. I can't plant tatties until mid May up here though so I will be a long way behind you all. Got my special short-season tomato seeds all ready to go at the end of Feb on my bedroom windowsills.