Growing vegetables

On my 60 before 60 list I have included having a veg patch.  This might not seem too ambitious for most people, but my family have witnessed my veg growing disasters year after year.  The year when the tomatoes were really doing well, laden down with soon to be ripe tomatoes, then within days the plants turned a ghastly colour and died.  Last year again they were laden with tomatoes, we had a good summer, but only about  5 of them ripened.  The rest remained stubbornly green.  I managed a few lettuce, the cucumber plants have had at most two cucumbers on them, and the runner beans not much more.  If we had to be self sufficient, we would have starved years ago.

The only thing I am good at growing, and I don't want to jinx this years crop, is potatoes.  They seem to thrive on neglect, in fact I have just found some growing behind the greenhouse that must have come from last years potato bag that was tipped out in preparation for this years crop.  Also bizarrely we have just found a beetroot growing in the garden.  I have no idea where this came from.

But I'm ever optimistic, this year I'm trying again, everything is grown in pots, builders buckets and old supermarket bags.

I have planted some spring onions in a few pots as even if they are very tiny they will add some flavour to a salad.

Peas and mange tout are growing in  £1 builders buckets, tho they don't seem very good at climbing the bamboo I have provided so I keep trying to wrap them around by hand

Some bush tomatoes, again in buckets, my thinking behind this was if one of them turned a funny colour I could whisk it out of the greenhouse before it infected the others, easier than if they were in grow bags.

I think the lettuce is ready to pick before it bolts, I probably left too many in a pot, but I hate thinning them out, I always feel like I should give them a chance.

We may get a few strawberries, fingers crossed

 .....and the carrots, I put them in before reading that they should be in sandy soil, so I'm not holding out too much hope for them, but the slugs seem to like them.  

I forgot to take a photo of my most successful plants, the potatoes.   Hopefully I will get a good crop from them.  I don't think I will be cancelling my veg box anytime soon tho.

I would appreciate any advice from the gardeners out there, and also suggestions on what to grow in the new veg patch.