Plans for next year

I'm already thinking about some radical changes for next year.   I think this is an annual event, which gets thoroughly forgotten in the first flush of excitement of sowing in the spring.
I hope to reduce the work involved in the garden. P isn’t as able as he once was and I'm past my sell by date    I'm planning to drastically reduce the number of tomatoes I grow. Reduce the toms in both the gh and outside. Although i love growing them the freezer isn’t big enough, plus the amount of 'from scratch' cooking I do is getting less and less. I also don't think that I need 6+ cucumber plants, that's just ridiculous for two of us. Same goes for 10+ courgettes/squash.  The 4 or 5 courgettes sown in July after my faux pas with the sprayer, are producing more than enough fruit for two of us.

This year I grew mainly DFB with just one row (instead of 3 or 4 rows) of CFB, which weren't that successful as it turned out.  I put up a 15ft long 'A' frame with MT one side and CFB the other. The principle worked reasonably well, the baking weather at the wrong time did not. The DFB were fine early on but then succumbedto drought or summat so weren't keen on producing a second flush.  

I say it every year but next season I'm going to try and concentrate on successional growing and sow courgettes and beans in two batches. If I reduce the gh plants I may be able to keep a potting station active all year in the gh. Usually I fill up the gh's then haven't got a flat space to sow, prick out etc. 

The upshot is, fewer cucs, toms, beans and courgettes. I wonder how much of this I will achieve. 

I've been "thinking" too. This year has been a disaster for me. Not sure why its gone so wrong as I haven't done anything different - so I'm going to blame the weather
My "essential" veg are toms, courgettes, cucs, beans and mangetout - plus lettuce, rocket and salad leaves. Rhubarb and fruit too.
Because the harvests have been poor, I have not had any surplus to worry about storing - either frozen, dehydrated or in preserves. In some ways this has been a relief.
I've been able to pick and eat fresh and have built my meals around whatever I can pick that day. I've liked that! Not worrying about fruit & veg going off because I've haven't got around to processing it for storage.
My aim for 2025 is to be able to pick (and eat) something every day even over winter. My 3 weekly sowing, growing plan that I've been trying out seems to suit me and I will continue with this.
I always say this but I'm not going to be tempted by growing anything that is doomed to failure - aubergines &, peppers for example. Brussels sprouts and brassicas that are in the ground for many months. The same with parsnips and swede.
I'm aiming for easy, reliable crops that are quick to mature.

I've been "thinking" too. This year has been a disaster for me. Not sure why its gone so wrong as I haven't done anything different - so I'm going to blame the weather
My "essential" veg are toms, courgettes, cucs, beans and mangetout - plus lettuce, rocket and salad leaves. Rhubarb and fruit too.
Because the harvests have been poor, I have not had any surplus to worry about storing - either frozen, dehydrated or in preserves. In some ways this has been a relief.
I've been able to pick and eat fresh and have built my meals around whatever I can pick that day. I've liked that! Not worrying about fruit & veg going off because I've haven't got around to processing it for storage.
My aim for 2025 is to be able to pick (and eat) something every day even over winter. My 3 weekly sowing, growing plan that I've been trying out seems to suit me and I will continue with this.
I always say this but I'm not going to be tempted by growing anything that is doomed to failure - aubergines &, peppers for example. Brussels sprouts and brassicas that are in the ground for many months. The same with parsnips and swede.
I'm aiming for easy, reliable crops that are quick to mature.

Ditto, with the addition of the tenderstem broccoli,  sweetcorn, kale and carrots. Subtraction of salad greens, they just don't get eaten here and more often than not run to seed. Fruit will have to look out for itself. One strawberry bed outside a cage is due to be dug up, I am not growing  strawberries for mice and squirrels!

Plans for next year. So so many! Unfortunately 90% of those plans hinge on ifs and buts.
Have at least one more of my tunnels in place. Have my garden shed also in situ. Possibly the first raised bed in the veg garden. A lot more cottage garden planted up.
As for things that are quite possible.
Rhubarb split and replanted.
Plant lemon, orange, pomegranate and avocado in their own bed. Grow a lot more marsh samphire grass.
Definitely get advice from you lot again on what varieties of tomato to grow. I’ve had one of the best, if not the best tomato growing season ever.
A couple of things I won’t grow again next year, a couple of things getting a second chance .
Grow a lot more to sell.
I’m sure there are other things that I’ve forgotten I want to do.

Six cucumbers and ten courgettes for two people sounds like a nightmare!

This year has been terrible for a lot of things, Veggie, so it's not just you.

Probably not going to bother with climbing beans again. The frame takes a while to build and they're harder to pick due to the height. They also don't last very long, and two years in a row they've finished in August. Bush beans are finer and taste better, I can get multiple successions in and grow them in big containers I have no other use for. This would free up 1 square metre of a raised bed which I can use to grow onions/shallots instead.

I've really gone off mangetout peas, they just don't interest me much anymore, we don't use them much in cooking, and I find them annoying to pick in terms of timing and frequency. It's also another frame I have to build.

I've had two terrible years of tomato growth in the greenhouse border. I don't really know why, and the chillies in that soil have been awful too. Confusingly, the sweet peppers on the other side of the greenhouse, in soil two feet away from the tomatoes, are the best I've ever grown, and the tomatoes were fantastic on that side a few years ago too. My theories are some sort of the disease in the soil, or raspberry/tree roots are stealing the nutrients. Anyhow, I'm not going to put up with another year of terrible yields from the greenhouse, so I am going to make some wicking containers (similar to the QuadGrow style) for the tomatoes and the cucumbers.

I am happy with zero courgettes or summer squash this year, so that will continue. Winter squash continues to be a failure and I'm not sure they're worth it.

Sweetcorn looks like a bit of disaster after that recent storm, but time will tell. I probably don't need a full raised bed of it.

I am going to grow my overwintered cabbages in pots raised up off the ground, because this year's got decimated by slugs and I just chucked them in the compost. Overwintered calabrese and cauliflower can be great, but I can't leave them taking up a whole raised bed after the start of June, and whether they head up or not is very weather dependent, so I will probably grow those in containers too.

We've really enjoyed red cabbage (and kohlrabi/carrot/onion) coleslaw, so I will be growing more early red cabbage.

I'm not growing to grow garlic between the strawberries again. It worked well last year, but the strawberry plants were bigger this year and probably outcompeted the garlic for water and nutrients. I actually planted some spare sunflowers between the strawberries after the garlic was harvested, and they've done really well. I don't have many good places to plant sunflowers, and they get decimated by slugs or snails in the front garden, so I will continue growing them in the strawberry bed.