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A bumper harvest

In his annual review of the growing season, Billy Clifford finds little to complain about in a season of abundant yields.

It’s that time of year again when we look back at the season just past – what varieties we grew and how they performed; pest problems; little successes and so on.

There seems to be a ‘cock in the step’ of most gardeners I meet at present. Yes, it’s official; it was a good growing season – a little respite from the cloud of economic gloom hanging over our Emerald Isle. More sunshine, less rain and the lengthy freezing spell of last winter which would appear to have knocked some pests for six, certainly during the earlier half of the season, gave reason to be cheerful.

Two long dry spells in our area brought their own challenges with ground compaction in areas of high traffic (e.g. daily salad harvesting). This brought it own problems with the ground drying out rock hard in places. On the advice of my son and partner in grime, Mattie, we left a large pathway between crop beds to accommodate our two wheeled tractor (3ft), which greatly reduced hoeing time. Hoeing compacted pathways can be a pain at the best of times.

First Rate Flowers

I had decided that if we had another poor flower growing season and I would pack them in, but they performed admirably. Statice Limonium was excellent as was Orange Calendula, the backbone of our bunches. Straw flowers for wiring, as always, were bomb proof. Cosmos and Dahlia’s, grown instead of Asters, were disappointing – no shelf life so back to Asters next year. White Antirrhinums looked good with the orange marigolds.

There is little doubt in my mind that getting seeds in early plays a vital role in the viability of a crop in a given season. Raising transplants in tunnels and covering with fleece in the early season is time and money well spent, giving an early harvest.

Teeming Tomatoes

Cherry tomato Sakura was once again the main cultivar grown. This is a vigorous grower, producing a largish tasty cherry which fills punnets fast and crops early and heavy. We also grew Goccia F1, a cherry plum type, which was also very good. It was our first year to trial a yellow cherry, Toronyina F1, which ripened early and had a nice sweet taste – its only disadvantage being that it didn’t keep as long if picked fully ripe. Seed was sown on March 15th and harvest started on July 7th. Best results will come from not allowing transplants to become stressed or discoloured.

Luscious Lettuce

Lettuce varieties grown were Lunix (red oakleaf) and Hardy (green oakleaf) – both excellent with good disease resistance. Maditta was the outdoor butterhead of choice and Fenston for tunnel production did very well. Lollo Rossa Tuska produces a dark-leaved red to complement the mix. Small caterpillars need to be rigorously controlled in the latter half of the season as they damage the midribs allowing botrytis in. Herba Vetyl (Pyrethrum based) is effective against small caterpillars and floating covers will prevent access by moths and so on.

Perfect Potatoes

Organic potato seed Colleen and Orla (early) were grown. Orla was by far the heaviest cropper but not as floury as Colleen. Sarpo Mira was the maincrop of choice – good blight resistance and a nice red floury tuber can be expected here. Something unusual happened in that after all the haulms died back, a section beneath the overhanging trees at the hedgerow end stayed green and healthy for several weeks longer, with no signs of blight. I wonder why this was so.

Colourful Carrots

Once again Balaton and Red Baron were our choice for onions grown from seed and both were excellent. We also grew Musona, a silver or white skinned type which cropped and tasted very good but discoloured and went soft when stored in a polytunnel along with other types. Early tunnel carrots grown were Early Nantes and Yellowstone – both excellent with the different colours looking well in bunches. A new variety of purple sprouting broccoli for summer cropping did well and cropped all summer from a February sowing. One of our few negative outcomes was basil Sweet Genovese which got downy mildew early on and never really recovered.