This time of year, blogs across the world pop up reflecting on the year’s end.

2021 has been a lot and as much as I would love to dig into the highs and lows of running a business during a pandemic and Brexit, lets skip to what you are probably here for:

My favourite vegetable varieties from 2021:

This is a round up of what did particularly well in my exposed, Scottish garden in 2021. Overall, we had a great brassica year, a good bean year and a crappy tomato year.

Oregon Homestead Squash

This is hands down the best pumpkin I have ever grown. One plant provided me with 5x 5kg massive squashes with delicious, sweet flesh. One pumpkin made 4x pumpkin pies which is good math in my book.

I bought my seeds from Vital Seeds.

Magnum Bonum Maincrop Peas

Hands down these are the best tasting peas I have ever grown. Big, sweet and juicy, they aren’t the earliest of croppers, but once you eat them you won’t mind waiting for them. I usually save the seeds, but this year I ate them all. Oops. Thank goodness Real Seeds has them in stock.

Rosenkrone Peas

Pink and white crowns of blossoms make this pea such. pretty one to grow. They are better cooked than fresh and aren’t as sweet as the Magnum Bonum, but are so pretty I always give some space to them.

I buy seed for these from Real Seeds

Snowball Cauliflower

Another winner from Vital Seeds was the snowball cauliflower. These did best for me early in the season, producing massive heads. I grew a mix of caulis and this was the best performing by far.

Climbing French Beans, Cosse Violette

I always like to grow colourful varieties of staples - purple cauliflowers, yellow mange tout, blue potatoes. Most of the time they end up being a bit disappointing, but these were not at all. Absolutely prolific and with a delicious taste, I saved a ton of seeds to plant an even bigger patch this year. You can buy them from Chiltern Seeds.

Derby Day, Cabbage

I had a bit of a hit and miss year with cabbage - the early stuff was great, but later in the season our cabbages didn’t do as well. The one that did the best was the Derby Day - massive yeild, lovely, tight, slightly flattened heads - 10/10 would recommend. I bought mine from Vital Seeds.

Dazzling Blue Kale

Another Vital Seeds find- this nero type kale is so beautiful and abundant. It has bigger leaves than the cavelo nero variety, so there is more eating on them. It holds well and is just so pretty.

Brad’s Atomic Grape Tomato

I didn’t want to include these in the list because I don’t want them to sell out, but I am trying to believe in abundance. These tomatoes are the best tasting tomatoes I have ever grown. They were prolific and held well on the vine. The kids and I fought over them.

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