Veg and Fruit review 2007

I’ve officially declared this year a dead-loss when it comes to veg. The wet weather and the slugs & snails have taken their toll.

A summary of the fruit and veg ‘production’ for 2007:

• Blackcurrants – did well, a fair few bunches and were tasty.
• Cherries – a handful of good-looking cherries – all eaten by birds.
• Chilies – not a great success. However, the long peppers which I’ve not grown before are still doing ok and I’m waiting for them to go red now.
• Courgettes – a few started growing but were eaten before they were big enough to eat.
• Gherkins – small gherkins started to form but were eaten by slugs.
• Grapes – only one bunch was allowed (it’s still a young vine) but these were the first we’d had and were very tasty.
• Greengage – no fruit yet but we did get a bit of blossom this year.
• Hazel nuts – did ok, we got roughly 15 smallish nuts.
• Lettuce – did well in separate pot. Really tasty.
• Parsnips – healthy looking leaves, no sure about the roots yet…. I’ll let you know after the first frosts.
• Peas – most plants were eaten but we got a few pods.
• Plum – some blossom and two plums, both disappeared just before they were ripe (probably birds again.
• Purple beans – all plants eaten, we literally got three beans.
• Radishes – a couple of small ones.
• Raspberries – loads of great tasting large fruit – as usual 🙂
• Rhubarb – great success, lots of stems.
• Runner beans – total disaster, of the 15 plants I planted out only one made it to 6ft and even then all the beans were eaten by slugs and snails (actually climbing up the canes to get to the beans).
• Squashes – all plants got attacked by slugs. One Scallopini plant made it through and supplied one good sized squash plus another four that are still growing. The Uchi Kuri plant looked good but was eaten when flowers started forming.
• Spinach – did ok actually.
• Sweetcorn – started well but was stunted by cold damp weather. We had a couple of 1/2 cobbs.
• Tayberry – no blossom or fruit.
• Tomatoes – lots of green tomatoes, most ended up with blight.

Although the above looks gloomy there are a few positives to take out of the fruit and veg growing this year. We’ve grown a number of things we’ve not tried before and some of the mre longterm crops (e.g. fruit trees) have started blossoming and fruiting.

Also, the cold frame I built worked really well for starting things early. I now can’t wait for the arrival of the greenhouse.