Disaster Crops 2010

[danmon_81]

well, it been mixed this season:

just pulled up some carrots and everyone had small holes in them!!! (carrot root fly?)
Sweetcorn is very slow
tomatoes have got blight (not all)
dog keeps eating my Swiss chard

not been the best year!

[Tomatoking]

Peppers and chillies have been very slow even in a polytunnel, but luckily the tomatoes, cucumbers and melons have been excellent, although a little late.

Outdoors, my crops have been varied; the garlic was OK but small, same with the onions. Beetroot in the raised beds are really good - although luckily they were started off in seed trays and transplanted out, same with the cougettes. Carrots in a pot are OK, unfortunately only a few planted directly in the soil came up!
French beans have been steadily supplying small feeds, but we didn't sow that many.

The rhubarb seeds produced some nice little plants, so we will see what happens to them in the future. Parsnips were non-existent, and the spring onions were tiny.

I really think I need to pay more attention to my other crops as I do to my tomatoes and cucumbers. It is not as if there is not enough advice on here!

[Davyburns]

sweetcorn just stopped growing
carrots came to nowt
chillis dissappeared (i suspect i misslabled them and gave them away as seedlings)
cues so so
toms very good
bell peppers excellent

[taff]

Leeks got moth, chopped them off, they've grown again [thanks for the advice, it worked]
French beans rotted three times, got one plant in the garden, 6 in the tunnel.
Runner beans have blackfly, have washed them off four times now.At last there are baby ladybirds on there.
Drying garlic got onion moth, saved two handfuls of individual cloves.
Most of the chillies have been a bit rubbish, my fault though, didn't pot them on soon enough.
Celeriac complete non-starter, grew a bit, not enough rain.
Normal bell peppers, 6 of, each grew one, I picked them off, nothing since....

[Florence Fennel]

Courgettes - rubbish and usually so prolific. Beetroot - all bolted.

[falkon]

Sweet Corn... not good at all.. small plants without cobs.. I put it down to wrong location and disturbed roots during plantation.

Courgettes, I have 8 plants of different types but its now and then I pick something from then..There is atmost 1 courgette on every plant at one time, the others just keep dropping.

Mustard success,

mizuna success, harvested three times from one sowing n they are sown again

Carrots success, Rainbow, haze, paris .. I used companion planting this year and sowed alternatives rows of onions and carrots..

Beetroot, Splendid both Golden Beetroot and cylindra... have pickled them and they tastes great..

Lettuce. It was success in the beginning but later all plants got insects in them... removed them altogether.. next time only in pots and not in raised beds and only couple of plants at a time.

coriander: success

basil success but i am slow in harvesting and they started flowering

chilli success

aubergines kinda not happy.. lot of flowers on 6 plants but couple of fruits only

bell pepper not that many fruits.

tomato kinda not haapy.. too many plants in a tight space.. lesson learnt.. next year less plants with good space

pak choi kinda success
Chinese cabbage Bolted

Broad Bean kinda success, thousands of flowers, hundreds of pods only and problem of empty pods
peas kinda ok, I was lazy on them
borlotto bean... failure... they are too fragile and dont like low temperatures
fenugreek success

[Parsleythelion]

I've been lucky with a majority of the veg (see my ramble on Big Mally's "1st Time Successes" Thread).

But if I could of had only one successful veg this year it would be the much maligned p******p. I absolutely adore them and would love to have been eating them with my turkey at Christmas, but of all the seeds I planted, none of them grew :-(

[danmon_81]

without rubbing it in my parsnips have been a great success...they're massive already!...i put it down to the moist weather!!

Im already looking at greenhouses to replace pat of my plot next year.

[chilliking]

1 courgette from 3 plants = terrible!

it sounds like i'm not the only one that has struggled with courgettes this year!

[salilah]

Salad poor - first lot worked then bolted, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th sowings in modules just didn't want to work... Finally got some out now

Beetroot very poor - most refusing to germinate, and when they go out, getting eaten or bolting

Potato harvest poor in volume but fine in taste & looks (phew!)

SFG sowed direct on 1 Aug - 4 x 8 with all sorts of stuff - nothing much showing, very slow and it's using up a bed...

oh well, looking forward to next year!
S

[King Carrot]

Bad year for cucumbers for me - I dropped a few sucessful varieties "Burbless Tasty Green & Telegraph" and tested a couple of new ones "Mirella & Tamra" and grew as usual Wautoma and Marketmore. So far 1 watoma dead 3 marketmore suffering and may as well be dead - Mirella and Tamra went in later so are just starting to produce. Out of a mix of 14 plants from the above I doubt I've picked more than 10 fruit the whole summer

Back to the older favories as well as the above again for next year - not sure where it went wrong this season as cucumbers have been great through the cold wet summers lately.

[sewer rat]

courgettes here too - usually pick them by the basketload but they all gave up the ghost and died this year - still not sure as to the reason - almost looked as if they had been sprayed with weedkiller but were healthy enough when planted out.
carrots not brilliant either.

[snakeshack]

onions from sets were rubbish this year but the bed next to them produced more shallots than I would believe possible
only ate 1 cauli out of 15 as they bolted when about tennis ball size
poor volume of spuds probably down to the dry weather but there were more edible than last year as there are few slugs.

[valmarg]

Early crops:

Broad Beans - Imperial Green Longpod - brilliant
Peas - Waverex petit pois - brilliant
Climbing French Beans - Fasold, Blue Lake brilliant

Picking now:

Runner Beans - Red Rum, White Lady - brilliant. OH has succession sown, and so far it seems to be working. There are two wigwams that are just starting to fruit, as we are picking plenty from earlier sowings.
Carrots (in containers) Parmex, Sugarsnax (and another variety I forget) brilliant
Tomatoes - Small, cherry plum and beefsteak - not bad, have done better, but not complaining
Sweetcorn - Swift - thought the set had not been very good as when the pollen was produced it was quite wet. Ate our first two cobs yesterday - brilliant.
Minicorn (not sure of the variety, bought from a garden centre, but T&M packet) - wonderful - many more cobs per plant that Minipop.
Courgettes - Parthenon and Black Forest - keep forgetting to pick them so we are getting quite a few marrows.
Leeks planted out ready for Autumn.

Fruitwise:

We have quite a good crop of Victoria plums. Plenty of Bramley apples, and a few blueberries. Joan J raspberries have fruit on them, but being Autumn fruiting, I hope we'll beat the frost with them.

In the greenhouse:

Sweet Peppers and Chillies, we should get a good crop by Christmas.
Aubergines, well I was that late sowing that I don't hold out much hope.

All in all, a pretty good year so far.

valmarg

[kentvegplot]

Sweetcorn - gave up after losing the second sowing (possibly due to late cold snap)
French beans - germinated and then gave up....again, could be the cold
Beetroot - all 3 sowings, started in modules but once planted out gave up (too dry I think) or got nibbled (birds?)
Lettuce - but that's all about the hot weather, it's growing now
Onions - rather variable, but reds all rather small. Again, too dry I think.
Mangetout - forgot to sow!
Kale - space not available to plant out, but will have another go now
Potatoes - smaller than I would have hoped, but it was still a crop.

BUT courgettes are doing fine, plenty of toms, should have a couple of pumpkins, and for the first time in my life, I grew and ate a head of calabrese. Swiss chard seems to have recovered from the draught too.