"Not successful" is a pretty broad term. People will need a lot more info before they can give you some helpful posts. Did they germinate and then die? Did they grow well, but not produce? Did they shrivel up? Did they turn a weird colour? Were they affected by pests? What is the soil like? What have you ammended or fertilized with? Have you used any chemicals? Have you ever had the soil tested? Far, far too many things to choose from. Post more specific info please and include your zone.

'Courgette' and 'zucchini' are both correct. We say 'zucchini' here in Canada and the US, but 'courgette' is the more common term in other countries. Use either... we know what you're talking about.

I don't know of any crop that you can eat a few days after seeding into the garden. Then again, "a few days" can mean less than a week to one person and a fortnight or more to someone else. Your watercress is probably fine if you're seeing germination. Be patient.

Given that last question about the watercress, I wonder if your garden is just fine and you just need to wait.

If you have had the same kind of spring as we have had in the UK you started far too early. Also you don't say if you were sowing outdoors or planting plants.

The broad beans (favas in the US) should be sown outdoors in either Autumn to overwinter or early Spring. Sounds like you sowed early Spring and were successful.

Courgettes (zucchini in the States) should only just have been planted out, having been started from seed indoors. I planted mine out last Sunday. If you sowed seed directly outside or planted plants more than 2 or three weeks ago they were doomed. It isn't warm enough to sow courgettes outside until mid May (in a good year) and then they need to be under a jam jar or glass at the start.

As for the peppers, they are even more reliant on heat and sun than courgettes. Mine are still 2 inch tall seedlings under glass and they will spend their lives under glass. If you are trying to sow them outdoors they don't stand a chance. They can be grown outside from transplants but it is touch and go.

And melons??? Not a hope of growing them outside in the Netherlands unless you have glass.

Regarding the watercress I am wondering if you are confusing cress, which is grown for a seedling crop and watercress, eaten mature and needing wet conditions.

I get the impression you need to obtain a basic book on vegetable growing for your area as your choice of crops and sowing times is quite a way off.

Sorry that I was not clear enough.

Everything I planted was from seeds. I live in the Netherlands (near Utrecht).

The broad beans and the habaneros I planted in the beginning of April. The habaneros I did put into pots which I put into the sun on the windowsill. (I hope this is the correct word.) I still have some seeds left. I'll try it again.

The rest (except what I planted last week) I planted on 30 April. Except the broad beans and the watercress, nothing has sprouted.

I am not an expert, but I think the ground is clay. I did not fertilize or use chemicals. Only water when the ground was dry. The broad beans, nettles and dandelions (and some other weeds) do not have problems growing. I also have roses that have always done good. The last few years I have had raspberries that grew much to fast to my liking. (In the place where I know started the kitchen garden.) I also have mint that is doing well. So the problem should not be the ground I think.

About the spring: a lot of times I was wondering if it was spring or autumn. The last three or four weeks there has been more sun and better temperature. But it has been precarious.

I followed the instructions that came with the seeds, but if I understand it well, they where not completely trustworthy to use an understatement. :-( And they even sold things that can not be grown here.

I did plant all my courgette seeds. When I buy new ones I could plant them in the garden now, or should I sprout them inside?

If more info is needed: let me know.

What would be good things to try, taking into account that I am a newbie and live in the Netherlands? I have a little bit of ground that lies fallow.

The Dutch are expert vegetable growers and I am sure that there are a million basic veg growing books available to you in the Netherlands which would really be far more helpful than snippets you can get from us here. If you have no courgette seeds left you'd probably be better off buying a couple of plants now and planting them out in your garden (after hardening them off). The peppers may still sprout. They take a while to come up. They need heat to germinate and to grow. You have plenty of time to grow peas, runner beans, French beans, lettuces, beetroot, rocket, many herbs, etc from seed sown outside. Soon it will be time to sow cabbages and kales for overwintering. We have a more forgiving climate than many of the posters here and can sow temperate crops all through the summer.

There are probably people growing melons in the Netherlands but they will be experienced gardeners with access to cold frames, cloches or green houses. I grow peppers but never even bother to try growing them outside because the weather is not predictable hot enough. Here are last years Hungarian wax peppers growing in my porch.

Courgettes, huh? Now I can leave them on the neighbors' porch steps, and when they ask if I've left them more zuchini I can truthfully say "all I have left on your porch are courgettes! Didn't you get them?" LOLOL Nancy

Europe has been way too cold and rainy to plant peppers out in Holland in April. Broad beans made it because they are large seeds and cool weather vegetables. Carrots would have made it, but they need to be seeded in fine soil. You can not plant them in straight clay. Typically, carrots enter a clay garden in the third year or later. By then you have a layer of fine soil on top ( if you have amended), and below it is loose enough that you can extract them later. You can still save the garden. Dig pockets in the soil, fill them with fine potting soil, then plant them with good old Dutch vegetables, cabbage, collard, turnip, lettuce, etc.

Well, I'll try some other things. The watercress is growing slowly, and it looks like the horseradish is sprouting. I planted 20 and I see three or four things coming up that look the same. After this weekend I'll be sure. ;-)

I sowed the habanero's again. (Had still seed left.) I had sown them inside, but at night I do not have the CV turned on, so the temperature got well below 15ð and I understood it should have been above 18ð. How long I need to wait to see something sprouting?

It looks like I sowed he wrong things and to early (and was unlucky with the weather). I was told broad beans are hard and courgettes are the most easy, but it turned out differently.

One thing I am thinking about is what the Dutch call kapucijners. Until now I did not find an English word for it.

Kapucijners are known as Dutch admiral peas, gray field peas, purple podded marrowfat peas, or in French-Pois Gris according to what I just read online.

Having Dutch great-grandparents, I had to find out about this unknown to me food. The plant with its multi-hued purple flowers and deep purple pods looks beautiful. I may try to find seed for it myself. Around here peas must be grown early in the season or late in the season. Mid-summer is too hot.

It is interesting to hear more about the weather/climate in the Netherlands. I hope you can find out what time to plant various crops and have success with them.

Naturegirl, you could be right, but I am not sure. Finding the right names is a little difficult. For example: bruine bonen are translated as kidney beans, but kidney beans are something different as bruine bonen. The reason I use this example that we can buy uncooked bruine bonen, but only cooked kapucijners. I prefer to cook them myself, and because you can not buy them uncooked, I want to grow them myself.

I sowed radish today. The package says I could harvest it in 2 or 3 weeks. We'll see about that. ;-)

Cecil - courgettes ARE easy to grow if you sow and plant at the correct time. You still have time to buy a couple of plants and put them into your garden. Broad beans are also easy. Maybe someone told you they were hardY, rather than hard??

Regarding your peppers (habaneros). I germinate mine on top of the central heating boiler. Once they are up they can be moved to the windowsill but they need real heat to germinate.

Did you plant 20 horseradish??? You will only ever need a single horseradish plant and it is almost always grown from a root, not seed. Again I'm wondering if you have the right name.

You will have trouble growing many of the beans you normally buy as dried beans because they come from climates with warmer summers than ours. Many of the varieties of Phaseolus vulgaris used as dried beans need far hotter summers than we have, for example, red kidney beans.

You can post pictures here and we can tell you what you have growing if there is any uncertainty. Good luck.

Well, I'll try the courgettes again then.

No, I was told that broad beans are hard to grow. And because of the cold and wet weather everyone thought it would be a disaster. And initially it was the only thing that did good.
I am happy about that, because it is very long ago that I ate fresh broad beans. You can almost only buy them in glass or frozen.

At the moment it is warm in the Netherlands. Even at night it is 20ð C in the room. Is that warm enough for habanero's?

I am not sure it is horseradish. In Dutch it is called ramenas. When searching to me horseradish looked the most close. But I am not an expert. Otherwise I would not be here asking questions. ;-)

It did really sprout. At 19 of the 20 sticks I used as a marker, I saw the same kind of plant sprouting. See picture. So is that horseradish, or something else?

I now see that there is a summer and a winter variant and that the winter variant can be kept longer. But I have the summer variant. But when stored in sand, I should be able to keep it until spring. The black winter variant would have been best. It is the sharpest and the longest to keep.

I do not need 19, but I think I can use more as one. I had not expected everything to sprout. (From one type of broad bean about 2/3 sprouted and from the other only 1/3.) And I can give things away also. People at least like to receive broad beans and habanero's.

I have never seen a horseradish sprout from seed, but it does not look at all like horseradish, sprouting in the spring from an underground root. I can not avoid noticing that the soil is very sandy. That is one more consideration. Some plants do not like sand much.

Those look like the seed leaves of a regular radish. I googled "ramenas" and it came up with pics of black-skinned radishes (some round, some elongated), nothing resembling what we know of here as horseradish, which is long and skinny and off-white.

That shows how much I know: I thought it was clay.

I went the other way around. Horseradish is mierikswortel, so ramenas is not horseradish. The variant I have sowed is also called rettich.

The middle picture of the article about ramenas looks like what I have sown.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dutch wikipedia article about ramenas.

Your seedling picture shows that it is a true radish you have not horseradish.

About the broad beans - I don't know who told you they were difficult but it's nonsense. They are a cool weather plant which enjoys the rain. They are very tough and can be sown in the Autumn to overwinter.

Carrots should like your soil. In the UK most of the commercial carrot crop is grown in east Anglia just across the North Sea from you and also on flat lowlands with sandy and or peaty soil. It's great vegetable growing soil.

Peppers need 25-30 soil temperature (different from air temperature) to germinate. As I said, I start mine on top of the boiler.

Hmm, I am missing posts I wrote. :-(

Could the picture be the reason my watercress is doing so poorly? Took it in the dead of night.

I'll think I sow broad beans in autumn. I'll have then fresh ones early in the year.

I'll try the carrots again. My dogs love them.

In the past I planted mint. Last year I had at least three type. This year I only see two types. Can anyone tell me which these are and what is the difference?

At the moment I use them almost only to make thee (with cloves), but other suggestions to use them are welcome.

This is how bad my watercress is doing. :-(

Cecil - slugs will mow down seedlings - yes.
Your picture show seedlings of what we grow simply as 'cress' or 'garden cress' for a crop of sprouts. It isn't water cress. Normally it would be grown very fast indoors on peat or even paper. As kids we would grow it on a piece of cloth or blotting paper on a plate in the kitchen. Growing it outdoors in soil means that the crop is vulnerable and gets dirty. It is used in salads and sandwich fillings when it is only about 2 - 3 cm tall.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cool cress video