The end of season 2 for the vegetable patch
Posted by DavidM in Gardening | 27 November 2007
This weekend signalled the end of my second season growing vegetables in the garden. I dug up the last of the carrots, pulled up the dead bean plants and turned one of the compost heaps into the now bare ground.
Overall it was a successful harvest. The runner beans were plentiful, the carrots were eye-wateringly impressive and the potatoes were easy to grow and delicious to eat.
The onions (now all consumed) and shallots were a treat and the single courgette plant just wouldn't stop producing. The lettuces survived the slug onslaught to produce a good crop, though we couldn't eat them fast enough to stop several rotting.
On the downside we didn't have a single tomato due to a nasty case of blight and, unlike last year, the green beans were very disappointing. The broccoli, again, came to nothing and the cucumbers took ages and only produced one fruit each.
It was also disappointing to use slug pellets - the only chemicals that go anywhere near my vegetables. But after losing so much last year I can't see the point of being organic but growing nothing. If anyone knows any effective non-chemical ways to combat the slimy pests, I'd love to hear about it.
next year I'll go with the potatoes, carrots, courgette, runner beans, onions, shallots and lettuce again. I also want to plant garlic and strawberries which are growing beautifully for my father-in-law.
