August Garden

This is my first year of using raised beds and I've had successes, failures and mixed results. The main failure (let's get it out of the way first!) was parsnips (White Gem). Last year I just chucked my seeds into a fairly scraggy patch of ground and had reasonable results. I thought, therefore, that planting seeds this year in my beautifully soiled and composted raised beds would be no problem. I planted them with "tracers" of French Breakfast radish and, although I had good radishes, I've not managed to grow a single parsnip. Mmmm, back to the drawing board on that one. Another issue, but not really a failure, was salad leaves which just seemed to bolt away. Next year I shall plant these more sparingly and pick them much quicker.

Successes though, have been numerous: garlic (Thermidrome), onions (Senshu Yellow) perpetual spinach and Swiss chard (Bright Lights - see below) have been fantastic as have my lollo rosso and, to a lesser extent, iceberg lettuce (Saladin). My carrots (Amsterdam Forcing and Early Nantes) have also done well, although I made the mistake of planting my rows too close together this year - raised beds are meant to allow this, but I went a bit too far (or, more accurately, too close!). Next year I shall plant things a bit further apart. My ground grown new potatoes also did very well, although my experiment with growing them in sacks didn't work very well and the suppliers' claims for them were extravagant to say the least.

Mixed results include Broccoli Romanesco and Autumn Calabrese, some plants of which are really thriving whereas others just haven't taken at all. Spring onions (White Lisbon) proved to be a bit disappointing and didn't grow particularly well. Also I grew two types of broad bean, Aquadulce and Express which did OK although my dwarf beans (Sprite) have been a bit disappointing.

Having reflected while writing the above I reckon that I need to streamline things a bit more next year and not grow so many varieties. I also need to plan my crop rotation a bit better (particularly as I'm planning to plant some stuff now for "summer growing"), to think about spacing a bit more and to make myself keep better records of planting, germination and harvesting times. It's also important to keep some outline climate notes because, although it's hard to remember now, March and April were very cold and wet and this has to have had an impact.