Page 10 - Simply Vegetables Winter 2022/23

Looking back
on 2022
EMILY PLUMB
We always enjoy looking back on the previous season once the new year has come around, so we thought we’d share with you in this article some of our best bits from 2022!
We grew a couple of varieties of mini cucumbers last year which were prolific croppers: Mini Munch and Nimrod. As
far as cucumbers go, the plants seemed pretty sturdy, i.e., they didn’t keel over at the slightest sign of water(!), and we couldn’t believe how many fruits each plant could support at once compared to other plants we’ve grown in the past. The photos are testament to this, with fruits growing across the width of our 6’ greenhouse seemingly with no trouble at all as well as the tiny amount of space between the Nimrod cucumbers as they grow up the vine. I shouldn’t forget to mention that they both tasted great too – so ones for the garden again in 2023, I think!
We also tried fennel for the first time. Needless to say, this turned out to be a bit of a disaster which was a bit disappointing. However, you can’t have everything, and we had lots of other successes in the garden last year, so we shouldn’t complain. The fennel started off ok from seed, and we transplanted it from the plugs we sowed it into the raised bed where it seemed to be growing happily. That was until it started to go to seed... We thought we might be able to save it by pinching the seed head out, and encouraging it to bulb up. However,
by this point it just continued to send up
Mini Munch
multitudes of seed heads and didn’t bulb any further. By the time we plucked up
the courage to harvest it, it was almost entirely made up of hard seed heads at the base, and not much bulb. Therefore, they ended up on the compost heap. However, we’re going to give it another go in 2023!
If anyone has any tips – please send them our way, as I think we could do with all the help we can get!
We also had great fun following the progress of the various chilli peppers we were trying out for 2022. Two favourites from prior years are Basket of Fire chilli peppers and Boiro padron peppers are up first. The Basket of Fire chillies are mainly for display (as they are so heavy cropping that we’d never get through all of the chillies they produce!) but even throughout the autumn they perform the job of a slightly quirky pot on either side of our front doorstep – a lovely splash of colour at a time when the nights are drawing in and it’s
Krimzon Lee
Biquinho
Fennel
Kambuchi
10 Simply Vegetables