Well it's mid August now, so I suppose it would be useful to reflect on the growing year so far. I need to work out what grows well in our garden and plan for next years crops.

Onions: I decided against buying sets (small, immature bulbs), and went for seeds instead. The variety I chose was Ailsa Craig, which promised large onions. Well, they were sown 18th April, and looking at them now, they won't be providing us with large bulbs. I think this is probably because we did not enrich the soil prior to sowing the seeds. OK, we did nothing to enrich the soil. My fault. Too eager. Anyhoo.......

Leeks: I'm actually quite proud of these little guys! Sown at the same time as the onions, our Musselburgh leeks are a little more than pencil thickness, and have plenty of time left to grow even thicker. Will definately be growing these again next year.

Parsnips: Dreadful germination for the first batch (Hollow Crown variety), sown around the same time as the onions and leeks. Apparently, parsnips are not the easiest of veg to get to germinate, but I think we have only eight plants out of a whole packet of seeds.

More Parsnips: So, because of the piss poor performance of the Hollow Crown, I bought a packet of a different variety (White Gem), sown on my birthday (2nd. June), without much hope to be honest. We had torrential rain which flooded the patch that these seedlings were growing in. Infact, they were under water for two weeks or more (yes, my fault again for not improving drainage), but they have grown better, with much more vigour than the other kind. Which makes me wonder, is the usual poor germination due to the growing medium being too dry? Maybe they need a boggy area to flourish.

Sweetcorn: Sown 29th April, I managed to raise nine plants. They are all flowering, and there is some evidence of tiny cobs forming - brilliant!

Swede: These are the "Best of all" variety, originally sown 11th. May. They have done fine so far, nice and leafy. I didn't know swedes are members of the Brassica family, hence them being muched on by Cabbage White caterpillers. Will be netting these next year for sure.

Tomatoes: The ones grown in the borders are pretty much devoid of folliage, I think more than likely to do with being water logged, but they have a few green tomatoes on them, which will hopefully be OK. The two plants I grew in pots are going great guns; covered in fruit.

Beetroot: These "Bolthardy" beets produce lovely golf ball sized globes, perfect for roasting.

Brussels Sprouts: Really need to protect these from the caterpillers. The netting covering them at the moment still allows the parent butterfly to stick it's bum through the net and lay eggs on the leaves.

Runner beans: These have been really productive for over a month now. The more you pick, the more they produce! Lovely red flowers too. Will definately be growing these next year.

Courgettes: Not sure about these yet,I had to move them as they were under water. They're starting to grown again, but are only about a foot high.

Carrots: We have had some lovely juicey Early Nantes. They taste so much better freshly picked than supermarket bought ones.

Peas: There's nothing quite like picking a pod off the plant, and eating the sweet, plump peas inside - it is very heaven!

Radishes: These were lovely, definately worth growing again - a firm favourite with the kids.

Disasters:

Howden pumpkin : drown

Hunter Butternut squash : drown

Webbs Wonderful Lettuce: we managed to eat the ones we netted (tasty they were too), however, sparrows ate a lot of the others. Oh, and slugs.

Pumpkin: was given this one, and promised the ladies son that I would take good care of it....... I did rescue it from drowning completely, but now it is suffering powdery mildew. I removed the effected foliage, hoping that the fungus will not spread. Fingers crossed.

Spinach beet: Tasted of absolutely nothing, so we didn't bother eating it.

Spring onions: Unsure why they failed to grow.