shall i just give up?

[Piggle]

sooooo annoying - mine must be extra tasty though eh!

[stella]

I find some years things do well and another zilch. This year no garlic, or beans last year loads of them. Two years ago we were giving plums away by the bucket full this year its blackberies, I think they plan behind my back who is going to take the turn of being star performer. If you enjoy the journey, planning, planting, fresh air etc go with the flow and take what nature gives you, in my case its always a surprise. Big surprise this year in my garden was melons! Delicious

[Piggle]

melons! wow now I am impressed.

[Aberdeenplotter]

Definately a year of some succes and some epic fails .......... why am I the only person on our whole site with raspberry beetle?

You so are not, just I've had much less of a problem this year probably after the hard winter. Love the pic of the cat btw

[Aberdeenplotter]

you're right you're right. what else? should I prune e.g. the blackcurrant hard and hope for next year?
thanks again lovelies, feel much better now.

Of course we are right or maybe one of us will be .

The folks on here will think I'm on commission because I've posted the following so often but I'm not honest. There is an RHS book by Harry Baker - ISBN 0 85533 193 3. Loads of diagrams showing how to prune and notes of when as well as loads of other advice about cultivation etc. Usually there are second hand copies on Amazon for pennies plus 2-3 quid for postage. Well worth the money. It's my soft fruit bible.

[Aberdeenplotter]

That looks wrong, I am honest. I meant, honestly, I'm not on commission

[cardiffsteve]

.... raspberry beetle?

Didnt he play the drums?

[endymion]

y should I prune e.g. the blackcurrant hard and hope for next year?

Nooooo!

Blackcurrants fruit on old wood - the shoots that have grown this year will, hopefully, flower next year and you'll have loads more blackcurrants.

If it's any consolation, we got about 20 whitecurrants - and the birds ate them!

Our peppers haven't done anything worth mentioning. All our carefully sucessionally-sown lettuce matured at the same time, and bolted at the same time.

Our runners have only just reached the top of carefully made frame, and all the flowers have fallen off. Butternut squash appears to be squashless, but the little ones (that were meant to be a bush) have taken over their part of our new veg patch and have swamped everything else.

And the other day our, what we thought were amazing, sprout plants started to fall over, because the ground got too wet to support them. Oh, and the cabbage whites managed to lay their eggs through the netting onto the leaves that were crushed up against it.