Summer harvest - tips to feeling a successful food grower

It is easy when gardening to get disheartened, with the crop yield, the vegetable size or the taste.
It is good to remember that it is likely each year a crop will probably fail. Failure is relatively cheap when growing from seed. One seed packet is an investment of $3-$4. So while it can feel a big fail, it had so much potential for success the investment is worth it.
But the weather plays such a big factor. This year was a fantastic, warm summer. We grew so many cucumbers and dill pickles we still have jars of them preserved. We gave them away, we ate them and we preserved them. The previous year was a very wet, cooler summer and my cucumber plants went brown and died.

Don't give up too early
Sometimes crops just take awhile to get going. I grew runner beans (blue lake runner beans) and in the first part of summer, I thought they were okay but not a great crop yield and they were quite small beans. However through the months they just got better - bigger beans and more of them. We were picking enough for four people every few days.

Spread the risk
Having a wide variety of vegetables planted, that suit different conditions, increases the likelihood of having some good wins.

Enjoy the wins
Watermelons were a stand out achievement this summer. I grew the seeds inside and didn't plant them out until late November. I planted Moon and Stars variety. All summer we watched them grow, watering them frequently and then as they got bigger, lifted them off the garden with plastic trays so they would not rot. We waited until the curly bit from where the fruit was attached to the vine, went brown and when you tapped it, it sounded hollow. A lot of tapping was involved.

The watermelon was sweet and juicy.

Next summer, it may not be the right conditions for watermelon. I am planting them again so we will have to see. I have also saved seeds from inside the last lot. I will plant some new seeds and some saved to see if they grow proper moon and stars watermelons. I only grow the one variety at the moment, so cross pollination should not be an issue.
Kumara were another great performer. I only planted a small patch but it returned 4.5kgs of kumara. This year they were expensive in the shops, so it was double win.

It is not you, it is the variety
Trialling different varieties of a vegetable also allows you to work out what works best for your garden soil and weather conditions. I am still working out the best varieties of tomatoes that suits our climate and also how we use tomatoes. Carrots are another one I am still undecided what variety works best for the soil conditions.

Winter garden

Don't plant spring onions in winter in temperate regions. Either the chickens or the frost took most of these plants. It may be the particular bed I used, which I have noticed is more shaded so the spring onions were in frost much of the day. I have planted spring onions in raised beds before through winter so it is important to think about where these are planted. Now it is spring, I have planted more.
The leeks haven't grown much but are most are still present and not dead so I am hoping with spring they will decide to grow bigger.
The garlic is looking great and I am excited to see if we actually will have a decent garlic haul come December/January.
The shallots are not as successful. Not all the shallots have sprouted. Some have disappeared, possibly eaten by a chicken. But some have sprouted and are looking strong so we will at least get some shallots.
The red onions were only planted a few weeks ago in late winter. They are mostly still in the garden, not dead but not thriving as yet. Hopefully like the leeks they will take off with the warmer spring weather.
The garden is an ongoing experiment of trying different things, trying to repeat the same for what works and changing what doesn't. The advantage of our increasing garden space is hopefully we will have room for failures while still having enough vegetable supplies. I think I need to plant in excess, now we have the space, to see how much survives. It is definitely still a learning experience for the garden.
I have just improved our cloches from bird netting, held up by a random selection of bamboo. Now I use three hoops of flexible black pipe from the Bunnings plumbing section. It is black water pipe. It is relatively narrow, quite flexible, already cut into lengths and was only $5 something for each one. I push each end into the ground, bending it over the garden bed, then I put the next one in about a metre down and stretched the bird netting over the top, pulling it tight at each end to keep it up in the air above the plants. I was looking at buying the netting off the roll but ended up buying a 4m x 4m piece already packaged as part of my experimental kit. I used tent pegs at each end to tie it down to the ground. It looks a lot more organised than the previous set up. I use mulch across the garden so some of the bigger sticks are also now holding down the sides of my cloches to the edge of the bed.
I could buy also frost protective material for next winter and use it over the same black pipe, if they prove up to the task. My only concern is the cloche will not be tall enough for keeping my tomatoes all summer away from the birds. Once the current plants are big enough, not to be eaten by the pesky black birds, I plan to take off the netting. This won't be the case for the tomatoes, so I will need to find some long lengths of flexible pipe.

First step to successful gardening - planning

If you have ever watched anything in which Monty Don gives advice on gardening you would have heard him say planning is the key to success. His garden is tidy, ordered and high producing so I am going to believe him on the planning.
We are not moving in until November (late spring here in the Southern Hemisphere). There is a lot of work to be on the site to get it back under control and the house needs work so I am trying to not get too excited in the garden.
First I made a list of the vegetables we usually eat. In the past with a small garden, I have tended to try different types of produce from what we can get in the supermarket or vegetable shope but this has meant we might not be confident using it and it can go to waste or to seed because we leave it in the garden for too long, while we work what to cook with it.
Once I had my list of vegetables we usually eat, I found a number of sites that tell you how many plants you need to grow per person for a year's supply. I found a brilliant wee calculator but of course I cannot locate it now. I will update this page if I come across it again otherwise these two links give you suggested numbers.
http://www.vegetablegardenplanner.com/garden_calculators/family_feeder_all
http://newlifeonahomestead.com/how-much-should-i-plant/
My list as a starting base for family of four for a year:
Asparagus 24 plants
Beans 60 plants
Broccoli 40 plants
Cabbage 40 plants
Carrots 40 plants
Cauliflower 20 plants
Celery 8 plants
Corn 160 plants
Cucumbers 12 plants
Eggplant 4 plants
Lettuce 40 plants
Onions 320 plants
Potatoes 120 plants
Pumpkin 4 plants
Rhubarb 8 plants
Tomatoes 20 plants
Peas 480 plants
Zucchini 4 plants

I have always had good success growing vegetables with King Seeds so I took my list and found out what can be planted in November. This narrowed the list quite substantially. I ordered tomatoes - Brandywine blend and mortgage lifter. Brandywine tomatoes are supposed to be the best tasting in the world. You can read about my last attempts to grow them here. These ones are a blend so I am hoping for more success - will keep you posted.
I also bought capsicums, Blue Lake runner beans, top crop dwarf beans, Florida supersweet corn, crystal apple cucumber (based on success with these last growing season), shallots, Australian butter pumpkin, tall climbing peas, zephyr zucchini, crookneck early summer squash (mostly for the amusing name and because I was onto my free packet of seeds by this stage of the order) and touchon carrots.
King Seeds have great information for each seed type on their website but it is not on each packet. In the past I have been more relaxed and just planted based on my memories of what I had read. This time with Monty Don screaming, "Plan!" I like to try to imagine him doing so because he never seems bothered and is always calm.
Once the packets arrived I looked them all up again and wrote on each packet; total number of seeds, distance between seeds for planting, if I need to stake them, how many I need to plant based on my yearly use calculations. Then I split them into two groups, the ones that needed to be sown in trays now and the ones that I can sow directly once we move.
Peas appear an interesting one. The information suggests either plant them in early spring or late summer. I assume this means they are not keen on high heat, which might explain why mine have died off in other years. So I might plant them in late summer and see what happens.
Shallots also seem to divide the gardening world about whether to pre plant. Monty recommends pre planting but from other reading it seems this just makes them not take so long to reach harvest. I am planning to sow directly and wait for ages until they are ready.
Excel spreadsheets a popular choice on gardening blog sites so I have made my spreadsheet with all the details.
The plant list for pre planting now and direct sowing later in November is:
Pumpkins 4 plants
Brandywine tomatoes 20 plants
Mortgage lifter tomatoes 20 plants
Beans 60 plants of each
Cucumber 18 plants
Capsicum 20 plants
Zucchini 6 plants
Crookneck squash 6 plants
Corn 100 plants
Carrots 1000 plants
Peas 100 plants
Shallots 100 plants
Capsicums 20 plants