'tis been a strange year............

[Andromeda]

So many people seem to have had trouble with brassicas this year, I've been over run with them - both calabrese and my sprouting broccoli have been immense and a great deal has been frozen. Cabbages are about 6 - 8 weeks behind but are a good size. First harvest of sprouts yesterday were lovely and I'm heading for a glut.

It really has been a mixed bag though, I've grown beetroot successfully for the first time ever yet my toms have been disappointing and my radishes have bolted. Swiss chard had done well, but the kohl rabi have been rubbish...

I know I've done well compared to many people, some of whom have lost almost everything, but it has been a bad year compared to my usual harvests.

Roll on next year!

[chris]

Don't forget though folks... last years winter was so mild! I was picking tomatoes into December, infact it was only January when I got rid of them - they were *still* fruiting, but the weather was just too cold/not enough light.

I have done very well with squashes this year, but last year I failed miserably.

[Shortie]

I had really patchy growing this year as I have a landscaped garden in my (now old) house and I was in the process of giving back the new lottie as I was moving, but..... The strawberries we naff, none of my peas came up, my beans all died (runners, french, black eyed, etc.. all the same)

My potatoes were bearly worth bothering with.

But... my onions (from bulbs) did superbly well this year. Not a single one bolted, all bar two grew, and They are storing fantastically well with thin skins and no bad bits so minimal wastage for me this year. I normally lose a lot more, they bolt and they have dried of bad bits in them.

Oh and the most random of all - I opted for 99p Shop spinach this year as one last vein attempt at growing the crop (I always fail miserably with Borbeaux type leaves with spinach) - they all geminated and I have a mass of gorgeous crop.

It was an odd year here too, but hey, I conquered my inability to grow spinach!

[Two_Sheds]

I've just picked a green bean off a Frenchie that looked to have died around August... it's in a pot and was only watered sporadically. I got 4 whole pods off it, then it went brown. Then it started to throw out green shoots, and today I picked a bean!

Tomatoes are still going mad, although botrytis has now set in, it's so damp (in the cold gh).

[Thelma Sanders]

Great peas, bad beans, only a few courgettes but lots of Tromba d'Albegna instead
Early potatoes were good, 2nds and mains a tiny yield.

Quite a few smaller than usual winter squashes, but the big ones didn't do well - only a single halfgrown fruit on those
Early brassicas were hopeless, but the later ones looking good, specially the Sutherland Kale
Leeks on the plot have have been 'mothed' but the ones in the garden escaped it and look really good.
Pitiful swede this year, but good spinach and chard.
Tomatoes in the greenhouse all got Botrytis and the outside ones got blight.
Cukes were sulky as usual, so only had a few, but the peppers were really good this year.

So none of it really makes sense - but at least it wasn't total disaster.
Let's hope next year is better - or I sort out a polytunnel

[SarzWix]

Sweetcorn: nada, again.
Lettuce: 1 eaten out of about 40 sown over a couple of months. Slugs had the rest.
Garlic: half ot it spectacular, the other half not worth bringing home.

Carrots: took three sowings to get any past seed leaf stage, and I had to cover the bed in nasty slug pellets under netting bevause nothing else worked. Eventually harvested about 20 edible sized carrots from a 3mx1m bed

Beans: Looked like they'd died off in the wet, but the Cosse Violette revived and produced about half the normal crop. Cobra never revived and neither did any of the dwarf types. Drying beans Tarbais and Bridgewater only produced half a small freezer bag of beans between them, usually I'd have 10 times that.

Tomatoes: Too late planting them in the tunnel, and have just stripped 3 carrier bags of green ones, mostly plums, in the hopes that some will ripen at home. The plants were all keeling over either from frost at the sides of the tunnel or botrytis in the middle.

Cabbages, swedes, turnips: All done really well, albeit a bit slower than usual. Still eating the summer cabbages and turnips now, and the swedes and winter cabbages are looking good for winter crops

Squashes: Outside, pah! In the tunnel, fab! 2 potimarrons and 8 butternuts, best ever

Spuds: First and second earlies were really really slow, but then cropped really well, particularly Lady Cristl, Charlotte and Blue Danube. Maincrops, pants, all of them.

Onions: All of them far too small. More than half of them no bigger than pickling onions which are really difficult to peel, although they taste nice chucked whole into casseroles.

Soft fruit: Pants. The currants produced nothing after a late frost damaged all the buds. The strawberries either rotted in the rain or got troughed by slugs. Raspberries either rotted in the rain or tasted watery and a bit sour.


Next year will be fantastic. Yes. It will...

[susieq100]

Tomatoes - surprisingly good - still harvesting some Tumbling Tom from outside in sheltered back garden. Though nowhere near the glut I had last year.
Cucumbers - amazing, gave loads away and put a lot in piccalilli too.
Beetroot - rubbish and it's my favourite too.
Onions - great - spring planted and overwintered.
Garlic - great.
Potatoes - first earlies were fine, maincrop were very average.
Runner beans - fabulous - frenchies, a bit disappointing - I've got a few in the freezer. Broadies - well I had a few.
Peas - rubbish - despite several different sites, varieties and successional planting
Carrots - rubbish
Courgette - rubbish
Squash - rubbish
Sweetcorn - really disappointing
Parsnips - my first go at growing these and they are OK.
Stone fruit - ie plums, damsons and greengage - hopeless
Raspberries - autumn fruiters were pretty good.
I can't really see a pattern, but it has definitely been a very odd year.

[Tripmeup]

Sweetcorn – I left it too late for them to ripen sufficiently
Cabbage – only hearting up now
Toms- not too bad and still picking them.
Chillis – good and still ripening
Beetroot – excellent year
Spinach and all other lettuce types – Excellent year.
All things Allium were excellent
Carrots and Parsnips – excellent
Beans – rubbish
Peas – only ok
Courgettes & Marrow –ok
Cucumbers, largely disappointing
Spuds – British Queens very poor, Desiree good, Maris Piper very good, Peach’s Bloom good.
Raspberries – very good
Herbs – largely failure