Disaster year

[Jimmy]

Managed to log in at long last.
Green house Toms are rubbish, think it's too cold.
bedding plants rubbish. What with weather and slug pellets not working. Everything else rubbish.
anyone else with similar problems?
Jimmy

[Nicos]

Good to see you Jimmy.

Pretty rubbish here too- cold nights and far too much rain, and slugs galore.
We’re having a few successes like lettuce but we’d normally be having gluts of courgette and beans etc by now…and we’ve just had to sow yet more beans hoping for an Indian summer.

[Containergardener]

Welcome back Jimmy.
Same to report here, slow progress or munched. Too cold/wet/windy/things not germinating.

[Florence Fennel]

I've had to switch from growing veg to flowers Jimmy, but not much is blooming. Let's hope the weather improves to encourage growth. I'm also not happy with peat free compost! Welcome back by the way

[Trouvere]

Pretty awful. 90% of strawberries were stolen while still green and unripe by mice, and left hidden in rotting caches. Last year I picked 20 kg, this year only 2 kg. Mice are also severing mangetout stems at ground level just as they start to set pods. Pepper and chilli plants have hardly grown and are now yellowing. Half the tomatoes are sulking. Beetroot for some reason aren't plumping up. Turnips just bolted. Worse, there's an outbreak of sclerotinia, affecting first some volunteer ground cherries, then a few tomato plants, and now apparently French beans, and I imagine this might become an ongoing problem. I can't think of anything that is actually doing well this year - and I grow in a big tunnelhouse.

[Jungle Jane]

Does anyone have many bees,usually there’s loads here,there’s a reduction. I was just reading about watchdog investigating defra over the use of bee killing pesticides,Labour commited in their manifesto they’d end the authorisation of the chemical because of the affect on bees.
https://www.theguardian.com/environm...e-under-tories

The gov.uk page needs updating,it still says -

Neonicotinoid product as seed treatment for sugar beet: emergency authorisation application 2024
The Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries grants conditional emergency authorisation to use a product containing a neonicotinoid to treat seeds for the 2024 sugar beet seed crop in England.

https://www.gov.uk/government/public...on-application
Edit to add- The EU sends a lot of the bee killing pesticides to poorer countries & if you look at the map in this link,uk is one of the biggest importers,that’s terrible!
https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/202...ng-pesticides/

[Bren In Pots]

I've had more failures than usual everything's so slow to grow.

Half of my Blauhilde french beans have been eaten by slugs,
Telephone peas aren't looking to good they're full of aphids.
2 cucumber have given up the will to live.

[Containergardener]

Yes I've had a few Jane, depending on what's flowering. Not seen honey bees hardly though and we have a honey farm near us. We do have lots of foxgloves and wildflowers round about though so hopefully all the bees are there.

[ameno]

My year so far is has been pretty variable. On the plus side, I have a massive blackcurrant crop and my apricot crop is better than usual (although still quite small, really).
But on the negative side, something has taken my gooseberries, my sour cherry barely set any fruit (despite loads of flowers in the spring), my persimmon only seemed to have about 6 flowers, my pear also had barely any flowers (I probably let both bear too many fruit last year), and I've been having problems with my mangetout (the first batch had poor germination, the second batch germinated well but ever since planting out have seemed weirdly stunted).

The gov.uk page needs updating,it still says -

Neonicotinoid product as seed treatment for sugar beet: emergency authorisation application 2024
The Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries grants conditional emergency authorisation to use a product containing a neonicotinoid to treat seeds for the 2024 sugar beet seed crop in England.
]

I mean, treatment of sugar beet seeds pre-sowing isn't going to affect bees, anyway. It has no means to affect them. The seeds are spraying indoors, well away from any bees, and then the plants are harvested before they flower, so there is no opportunity for bees to drink tainted nectar, either.

[Jungle Jane]

I mean, treatment of sugar beet seeds pre-sowing isn't going to affect bees, anyway. It has no means to affect them. The seeds are spraying indoors, well away from any bees, and then the plants are harvested before they flower, so there is no opportunity for bees to drink tainted nectar, either.

Quote taken from the first link I put up -

On Monday, the OEP announced it would be investigating the emergency authorisation of a neonicotinoid pesticide in 2023 and 2024.
It said: “The investigation is seeking to determine whether there were serious failures to comply with a number of environmental laws in relation to emergency authorisations granted for the use of Cruiser SB on sugar beet seeds.

[rary]

Several problems due to cold nights, such courgettes not making much headway, sweet corn growth stunted and autumn planted onion sets running to seed, but have a good crop of tomatoes, spring planted onions doing well, good crop from cabbage and early potatoes, I decided to give a couple of courgette plants some protection by using enviromesh to cut down the cold wind and this seems to be working, peas are reasonable but French beans very poor, as for slugs and snails I spray most of my veg with a garlic spray, (not peas or beans,) and it seems to work, my flower beds also get sprayed with the garlic spray, which helps clean up my roses, which have flowered well this year, it has also saved my lilies from the lily beetle, and saturating the ground with the solution has stopped the vine weevil
So i would recommend that you use a garlic spray against slugs and snails and that you shelter your veg plants from the cold with enviromesh, fleece or something similar such as net curtains, as often said you dont know till you try

[Plot70]

It has been insanely slow this year.
I have had some strawberries and rhubarb.
I have got gooseberries almost ready.
Climbing beans are only just beginning to flower.
Squashes are just sulking.
Some of my spuds look like I am at least going to get something from them.

[Penellype]

Very slow with a lot of crops very poor. I have had to revise my plans of where to put things 4 times because of flooded ground, cold nights, slug damage and crops taking a month or more longer than usual to be ready meaning that there is no space for the follow on crop. Plants have therefore become pot-bound waiting for planting space, so when they are planted out they are slow to establish.

Beans have been eaten off at ground level and had to be re-sown, early beetroot bolted before bulking up, onions are small, cauliflowers were a month late maturing, broccoli was full of cabbage aphid, turnips were full of root fly (despite 2 layers of ultra-fine insect mesh), early peas were completely destroyed by slugs. Birds ate most of the blackcurrants despite netting. Cucumbers are desperately slow even in the greenhouse.

On the plus side there has been loads of lettuce with fewer aphids than usual, plenty of strawberries if you don't mind cutting out slug holes, loads of raspberries (once netted), and the florence fennel and kohlrabi have been good. Carrots are growing well.

I agree there are hardly any bees, and I have hardly seen any butterflies either (and no cabbage white caterpillars yet).

[smallblueplanet]

Everyone else's misery has made ours seem on par. Far too much rain and cold here, the jet stream has needed to move but hasn't. To add to the slugs and snails munching our veggies we've had visits from muntjac.

[Mark Rand]

Had very good blossom on the Morello cherry tree. Then there were two cold nights with mild frosts. I might be able to harvest about a dozen cherries this year. Two of the half dozen runner bean plants got 'topped' by snails. One of them twice over. Chive's seem to have been almost wiped out by black fly.

So a fairly normal year so far...