Woe is me..

[Sweet savory]

Reading about the woes of fellow gardeners makes me think I will be a bit more weather observant with regard to plantings next year, ie not try and push things early on.
My beans, runner and cfb, are coming into peak bean season and I have half a dozen plants that are covered in flowers so should be producing well into September.
Carrots, beetroot, garlic and onions from seed all good. Good pea harvest from early and climbing vars. Winter leeks looking fine. Had many gooseberries and blackcurrants and loads of rhubarb.
Brassicas a different story. I have one sprout plant left standing but it is in tatters and I am not sure if any of my purple sprouting plants will come on enough to be productive.
Still I grew a few decent turnips, spring onions and radishes for the first time and have hopes of my first ever celeriac worth harvesting. Just the one.
Courgettes, blight resistant toms and cukes producing regularly now so all in all not complaining. And still learning.

[Mr Bones]

Like Snadger, I really can't grumble. Aubergines have been less productive than other years, blight hit the outdoor toms (except the Mountain Magic) but indoor ones and outdoor at home are so far OK. Also had to lift the taters earlier than expected, again due to blight, but it was still a very good crop. Onion and garlic harvests were superb - our best to date, and everything else has been really good.
More weeds this year but due to everything being mulched (no dig) it really isn't a problem - for example a 5m x 1m onion bed was kept covered from Mid March to end of May without once lifting the net. When the net was lifted there was just four weeds (one poppy, one calendula and two groundsel).

Have to say we're having a cracking year.

[Marb67]

What can I say as I have disasters most years but this one is diabolical.


1) Onions sets hardly grown all season so ended up with slightly bigger bulbs.

2) Runner beans, flowers falling off, beans shrivelling and dropping off with the odd decent bean (plant looks healthy enough)

3) Courgettes poor.

4) tromboncino squash - Yellow leaves, NO FRUIT on all 4 plants.

5) Cucumber. No fruit.

6) Nero Kale eaten.

7) Tree kale, very very poor, slow growth. Usually prolific.

8) Peas very poor. A handful of pods at best.

9) Beetroot. Pathetic. No roots.

10) Radish bolted.

11) No show spring onions, the ones that did were planted out and still tiny weeny pathetic plants.

12) Newly bought seeds sowed didn't surface.

13) Salad bolted or got eaten.

14) Planted out supermarket Coriander which became healthy and lush. Died.



My crowning glory were my Tigerella toms which grew many promising large, lush fruits which would have ripened for harvesting if the sun hadn't disappeared for weeks of rain. BLIGHT. picked off all the healthy unripe toms, destroyed the plant BUT the toms in the house over time changed colour to a horrid brown so had to bin them. Just some other plants left in the garden and greenhouse that haven't got it so this should hopefuly make you all feel a bit better about your losses.

[quanglewangle]

I have glanced through the posts wondering if any common themes could be picked out: after all some folk haven't done too badly, and some quite well at least with some crops.

But no, I can't see anything. Would really need a more thorough approach: crop; early/late; location; soil.

Maybe a winter evening project...

[Snoop Puss]

That's an interesting approach, quanglewangle, but I reckon the weather is the confounding factor, no matter how you much you account for everything else.

[Nicos]

Deffo weather for me Snoop - late frosts and cold night temperatures, then warm heavy rain causing things to rot.
My lawns look fantastic though and my water troughs are brimming!

[ameno]

Weather for me, too. Late frosts killing my fruit tree blossoms, them warm damp weather making all of the leaves get fungal infections (and also my plums are now ripening but I have brown rot levels the like I've never seen before).

[MelanieSW]

Definitely weather here too, for about 2 months I got blight alerts virtually every day and I don't know anybody in London whose tomatoes didn't get blight. Same in Germany which also had a lot of rainfall and humidity this summer, in my cousin's village nobody had any tomatoes or potatoes either, and my friend in Munich lost all her seedlings in late April because everything simply drowned.
And during the critical period in Spring, several of my fellow allotmenteers commented that there were hardly any pollinators to be seen - probably in hiding because of the late frosts?

[Snoop Puss]

Sympathy likes there, guys.

[Snoop Puss]

Blight... turns out that my potatoes have blight. Unheard of round these parts and I didn't have the foggiest idea.

[Penellype]

Blight on the tomatoes at the allotment. Rare to get it here much before the end of September, but it has been so damp recently that I can't say I am surprised.

Also not a single apple off the tree without codling moth damage (that's a first), and an invasion of caterpillars (mainly large white) at the allotment.

Calabrese is about 6 weeks late, but is starting to form heads,

[nrmartin8798]

I'm going to join this too! Poor year in a few respects, awful for tomato, chillis but otherwise pretty ok for courgettes, marrows, still not got the hang of squash, beans have all done ok, potatoes were quite small but again, not too bad - pretty good crops from most.