Learning from my mistakes

I read somewhere that the main benefit of experience is that it enables you to recognise your mistakes when you make them again. That certainly holds good for me, but I do try to learn from my gardening mistakes. Here are a few recent ones:

Onions, what onions?

Last winter I planted some of my heirloom onions in a bed which doesn't get a huge amount of sunlight. I've been growing great onions (if I do say so myself) for a few years and I knew that they needed a good, sunny spot. But I wanted to grow more heirloom varieties and couldn't resist trying them in a bed that was marginal. That proved a complete waste of time: the seedlings remained miserable, scrawny things and when I came back from Europe at the end of October I dug in the lot.

Moral of the story:
Don't be greedy, only plant what you have room to grow.

Rotten garlic

One of my beds is affected by onion basal rot, caused by a fusarium fungus. I thought it might be worth the risk of growing other alliums (leeks and garlic) in the bed anyway, as I didn't have anywhere much else for them. The leeks were OK but I lost about a third of the garlic to rot.

Moral of the story:
Don't allow optimism to triumph over experience.

Bitter cucumbers

I've had reasonable success in the past with growing cucumbers in 45-litre bags filled with compost, when the garden beds are full. This spring I did the same, however the fruit has been bitter and it has proven difficult to keep the water up to the plants. I think this is because I used commercial potting mix rather than my own compost, which is a lot more water-retentive.

Moral of the story:
Sometimes the stuff you make yourself is better than anything you can buy.

That's a prime reason for growing your own veg in the first place, isn't it?

Veg in a bag

I'm always on the lookout for ways to pack more edible plants into our garden. One of the most successful has been these 45 litre woven plastic bags from Diggers. They last for years, they only cost about $5 each, and they're big enough to grow a range of different veg. Also they can be moved around the garden to make the best use of sun, shade, windbreaks etc, as they have robust handles. Try not to give yourself a hernia, though!

I fill the bags with a mixture of bought-in organic compost and my own home-made compost, which holds a lot more water. I find that the bags benefit from a daily water in hot weather, but otherwise you can go 2-3 days at least between watering, depending on how thirsty the crop is.

I've had great success with the following:

• capsicums (1 plant per bag)
• cucumbers (1 plant per bag)
• peas (4-5 plants per bag, with a wire frame and then a net tied to the balcony when they really went berserk)

I reckon bush/French beans would also go well, eggplants and possibly even a small rockmelon like Eden's Gem. Sprouting broccoli might be worth a go, ditto kale.

Zucchini were a marginal success: they really need more space for their extensive root system and tend to suffer from blossom end rot. Pumpkins proved a waste of space and water: lovely healthy plant, but no fruit! Tomatoes didn't do as well as I hoped, but I used a vigorous, indeterminate variety (Tommy Toe); a bush variety such as Roma might do well.

Diggers advertise them as potato bags, but I've not had much success with that, after two attempts. The rampant top growth tries to climb out of the bag, pushing the sides down so you can't water properly, and the crop in both cases was miserable. Perhaps I just don't have the knack. These days I grow my spuds in the ground and have bucketloads of huge tasty spuds from an area 1 x 1.5 metres.

Several of my bags are in their third year and going strong. I'm fairly confident I won't need replacements for a year or two yet. But maybe I should buy a few more, just in case I find another corner to squeeze them into ...