Anyone going to bother with growing veg this year?

Broad beans are up and growing. Runner bean sticks are in and fennel is just coming through in the trays. I will also plant courgettes , spinach and chard. I may do tomatoes if I have room in the green house. Love seeing it all grow.

I've decided to forego veg and do great colourful flower beds everywhere. Seeds already coming along nicely and I've many plants on order which will arrive as and when from the nurseries. Really looking forward to this.

This year will be our first full year on our new allotment. We inherited gooseberry bushes, raspberry canes, mint and rosemary, and we've planted garlic, onions and two apple trees so far.
We'll be planting runner beans, cauliflower, strawberries, lettuce, radishes, and anything else there's room for.
We are really looking forward to the growing season.
I believe that last year was bad altogether for tomatoes.

I had been going to drastically reduce the amount of veg I grow this year, and put a lot of the garden back to lawn, because I am finding the work increasingly hard on my back.
However, given both the political and economical climate, I have had second thoughts.

Instead, I have put in more (dwarf) fruit trees - apple, pear and cherry - and will carry on growing tomatoes, parsnips, sprouting broccoli, brussels sprouts, beetroot, French beans, leeks, lettuces, courgettes, cucumbers and, if there is room, carrots.
Oh, and I have raspberries, rhubarb and gooseberry bushes.

I do get a buzz out of being able to serve some sort of fresh produce from the garden, and at the moment am using sprouting broccoli, Brussels sprouts and rhubarb.

Yes. In raised beds and a poly tunnel

Veggies and fruit. Had huge success with purple sprouting broccoli last year. Seeds have just germinated.

Love my supersized tomatoes too. First successful year with toms last year. I invested in tomato halos.

Lots of garlic and shallots in at the moment. Tried elephant garlic for the first time.

GillT57

I have to be clear; I am no great gardener, but a keen amateur. I have a small greenhouse and usually grown cucumbers, tomatoes, sometimes lettuce, sometimes courgettes. I have stopped growing courgettes because the plants take up so much room and I never seem to grow many, besides which, in the summer they are really cheap in the shops. But, I love UK grown tomatoes and generally have a few plants. Last year, like many, mine suffered from last minute blight so not only did I have a very small crop, no seeds, and had to bin the compost. This year, with gro bags at around a fiver each, I am wondering whether it is worth it, maybe just grow flowers for the house instead. Anyone else still planning on salad stuff or changed their mind this year?

I've just remembered your comment about tomatoes, and whether bit is worth growing them now.

I was thinking along similar lines, but have decided to put most of mine in the border this year instead of in pots, or rather to take the bottoms out of some medium sized plastic pots, sink the pots a few inches into the soil, and just put a few inches of compost in the upper part.
That way, the plants will still have some decent compost to start off in, but will then put their roots down into the soil. Watering them via the pot should be easy, and they will be slightly further from the ground than they would be if planted directly into the soil, so just a little less likely to get blight through splashback from the soil. That's my theory, anyway!

As I always say, whatever I am growing, they have two chances - either they'll do well or they won't. And I've been growing long enough to know that every single year has its successes and its failures, amd they are always different from one year to the next. It keeps us on our toes.

Yes, tomatoes, baby cu, chillies, peppers and aubergine in the greenhouse. I’ve a new small raised bed, a few new potatoes, beetroot, carrots, parsnips, spring greens, climbing beans and lettuce. Pak Choi depending on flea beetle.

My greenhouse was put back up today and I've got: Passanda mini cucumbers, Mini Munch cucumbers, a Cantaloupe melon, Money Maker tomatoes and mixed salad leaves waiting to go in once the frosts have passed. I'll put a couple of Tumbler tomatoes in hanging baskets too. At the top of the garden, in a sheltered spot, I have 5 bags of first crop potatoes- 5 potatoes per bag, so hoping for a decent crop. Peas, runner beans and onions are all lined up on every available windowsill waiting for frosts to pass. Chives, mint, rosemary and parsley are already well ahead in a trough on the patio.

My windowsill is knee deep in fledgling tomato plants, beetroot, chillies, kale and leeks. Nothing will be going in the ground for some time as we,'re still having frosty mornings. We'll plant peas, sprouts and lettuce eventually and I'll buy a cucumber plant to bung in a pot. And I fancy growing chard as the stems are so colourful.

We grow fruits all around the garden (well, they grow themselves) and freeze the excess for winter puds. I use large pots to grow veg in a sheltered spot. I’m experimenting this year... filling my pots with garden compost , water retaining gel and a bit of top soil mixed in, instead of buying peat free compost. Then I hope to use the mix later as my autumn mulch ?. Sticking to tumbling tomatoes, carrots, mangetout, mini cucumbers and nasturtiums to keep it pretty and pep up my salad plate.

we have garlic, onions, tomatoes, courgettes, carrots and a few varieties of potatoes on the go plus garlic
who know what will happen though

Ok, Gransnetters- you've inspired me. I'm off next week to buy some seeds.

I've set some calendula seeds too; you can eat both the leaves with salads, or the bright orange petals as a garnish or to colour rice or pasta. And they're a joyous riot of colour in the flowered.

flowered = flower bed!

For some reason neither garlic nor spring onions seem to grow well in our soil.
Leeks seem ok but not huge.

The parsnips are strange shapes and knobbly but runner beans, French beans and mangetout grow well as do courgettes.

I was going to try and grow some edible flowers last year.
My poor old passionflower; each time it starts to grow a bit, something happens.
I'm hoping it might pop back up this year.

I love my raised bed patch started putting the canes up for my variety of beans. Trays of seeds on window ledges it’s always hit and miss with some but I enjoy the challenge. I am planting in between rows more flowers for better pollination as Monty recommended on tv. Last two years had good returns for all the extra work I did in lockdown. My compost was really rich and produced some good veg too.

We had a passionflower but it started to take over.
I don't think it was the type with edible fruits (well, we never dared try them)

The fruits are lovely.
Really sweet, and the precision of the flower fascinates me.
Fishes, loaves, crown of thorns.

YES! I've had a rampant crop of rainbow and peppermint Chard that's continued to grow all winter! I love the colors of the stems .
Am going to try Butternet squash this year. Have bought blight free tomato seeds as the blight got all of ours last year. I love the tumbler ones in the hanging baskets too! Most of our salad is grown at height.
As a side note, found some sweet peas growing in the border that had self seeded, so put them in pots ready to put in the hanging baskets when we do them.

You can eat the fruit of fuschias MissAdventure. If you put a trailing fuschia in your hanging basket, they start to grow small black berries that are so sweet and delicious. Hardly anybody around here eats theirs which is good news for me cos I nick 'em!

Well, I never knew that!
My old friend, the fuschia.
I do like them, and I've one that's been with me for years.
It gets hacked back and regrows.

Oooooh I never knew that!! Will be trying that for sure, wow! Thanks Chewbacca. Are they seed pods or literal fruit?

I think it's a fruit OnwardandUpward they're a fresh tasting fruit, a bit like a stone less cherry.

Gosh ,I'm full of admiration for people who grow fruit ,salad and vegetables .

In the past, I've grown all sorts of edibles, but I don't have room due to my passion for flowers !

Yesterday ,I identified a spot - the old pond bed ,which was filled in a few years back .
So I might grow lettuce and rocket plus herbs in it .

I still miss the water lilies !