Disaster Crops 2010

[thentherewas1]

not a good year at the allotment :
lettuce ok ...no webbs tho
radish, spring onions nil
cabbage, broccoli cauli nil
potato's ok in containers in ground low yeild:
runner beans over run with them
rhubarb slugg attack
strawberries small amount
red/black currants, gooseberry eaten by birds/pigeons
beetrool loads
marrow, courgettes, cucumber over run
butternut squash nil


but hey had fun in the sun : while it lasted and will keep going ................prepare for next year and fingers crossed.


new to this site hope to pick up some handy tips from you all .

[gojiberry]

Very rarely do I have a total disaster but all the crops do better some years than others but that's just veg growing for you. I have had a few problems with cabbage root fly and clubroot but still had more than enough cabbages. Potatoes weren't great, bit of scab and only had a return of about 6 to 1. Fruit has been really good though, more fruit next year.

Ian

[northepaul]

Carrots - got eaten by slugs before they got to 1 inch!
Crimson & sutton broadies - covered in blackfly & didnt produce anything and then whithered and died
Tomatillos - huge plants, no fruit.
spacesaver cucumber - nice plant, no fruit. (infact all my cues have not been very productive but the lemon ones are the best with 8 cues on two plants so far)
Squashes - took ages n ages to germinate and then are growing so slowly that I dont think I will get one fruit before the autumn.
habaneros - mystery desease.....
mint....struggling
Oh and aubergines 3 nice plants but no fruit and then they gave up and died.

Many of my crops are so so, ok but not brillient.

[northepaul]

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

Oi go and show off in the success thread and leave us mere mortals to drown our sorrows together

[Cobalt]

It's my first year and I've had mixed success.

My Maris Pipers got what appeared to be scab. I managed to save a good few tubs, though the skin quality was variable and many got chucked as they were too small to use. Not a complete disaster, but looking back I got the watering wrong and the compost wasn't draining as well as I'd thought which probably contributed to the problems. Shame, as there were lots of baby spuds though they also had early signs so ended up in the bin.

Courgettes not done well, had some but there's too much leaf and not enough fruit. Plenty of flowers both male and female so the plants themselves have been healthy, but there's probably not as much room as they require so again a lesson for next year.

Cauliflowers have been eaten by slugs, as have some lettuces. The cabbages suffered early on but they have made a recovery aided by my midnight slug and caterpillar patrols!

French beans doing ok, the runners are doing very well so far. Sweetcorn not ready yet but got 8 plants all with two-three heads on and the tassles are browning off nicely so with a bit of luck they should do well. Aubergines growing and the herbs have done alright this year. Shallots were brilliant though the onions were disappointing - I got every one planted though some hadn't grown a great deal. Leeks making an effort though can't see my getting much.

Got some speculative pepper and chilli plants in the growhouse that are flowering and the tomatoes have just started fruiting so I doubt I'll get much/anything off those. If I do, it's a bonus. Again, real problems with slugs and snails which have stunted the growth of a lot of my plants though it seems sharp stones, organic pellets and copper aren't enough of a deterrant round here. The most effective method is to nip out at night and physically remove the little pests from the premesis...

[Wren]

Most stuff has done well, 3 big failures.
1/ gorgeous looking summer savoy crop that tasted disgusting
2/ only 1 decent summer cauliflower from 9 plants.
3/ Dug up the king Edwards that i planted at the end of march today because they had died back to nothing almost, an found hundreds of tiny potatoes an nothing of decent size at all .

[BUFFS]

elephant garlic,put into the ground in march,nothing at all happened,just back off hols,all showing 3ins of growth,so it will be ready next year?...it will certainly be mature...

[DLittlewood]

sweet peppers in greenhouse lots of flower buds but thats it! shn't bother next year
Aubergines lovely purple flowers only 1 tiny fruit so far
potatoes maris piper - only 2lb per potato bag - don't think I watered enough
sprouts never made it past seedling stage!

[northmaid]

Beetroot was rubbish for me - 3 sowings produced only 2 plants and these didn't develop. Potatoes gave low yields this year. Rocket and chard bolted; red onions a disapointment whereas the brown and white did well. Very low yield from the summer fruiting raspberries, hardly a punnet from 10 canes and the berries were small. Just about everything else has done well though.

[annacruachan]

Here we have had no drought, so most things either adequate or brilliant.

One notable exception is beans. Hestia, germinated in GH and planted out into tub, sulked and remained about seven inches high with distorted leaves. No sign of creatures doing their stuff. A lone bean appeared in July. They are now producing flowers too late? - quite possibly.

Serbian pole beans likewise, though they seem to have given up on the idea of blossoming altogether! Shan't bother with either of these again.

Peas, petit pois, were great and are just now producing a second flush. Need to grow more next year.

Chillies, peppers, tomatoes, strawberries, squash, including two butternut on one plant, courgettes, carrots, salad stuff and herbs have all produced really well.

Garlic, from two bulbs courtesy of Tesco, gave a good, if a bit small, crop.
Overwintered Senshyu onions disappointing - many disappeared and the remaining crop was small.

Cabbages I shall not bother with again - they probably don't like being grown in pots - but quick heading broccoli has produced a handful of heads a couple of times a week - enough for the two of us and needs no attention other than watering and keeping the cwb away.
PSB doing well, if a bit overenthusiastic considering it's not supposed to start producing until late spring!

I have used biological controls this year for both slugs and vine weevils and shall do so again next month. I've also netted just about everything against marauding blackbirds!

[leicestershirelass]

Biggest disappointment; cucumbers - used a different seed supplier this year and they are horrible - quite bitter and don't look too good either so have fed them to the compost bin!

Planted fewer courgettes this year as had a glut last year - very disappointing crop.

In view of poor results from cucumber and courgettes I've planted a couple of each in soil in polytunnel instead of growbags, so hoping for at least some success ... courgettes coming on well and time will tell as cucumbers are at the flowering stage at the mo (just hoping I didn't use the same seeds as above

Tried growing parsnips for the last 2 years - without any success , thankfully carrots and beetroots are plentiful.

Only 3 out of 12 sweetcorn growing - the others didn't survive very much past germination stage.

Been really successful this year with;
beefsteak tomatoes - last couple of years were pathetic
cauliflowers - managed to pick them this year before they went over!
cabbage - not going to plant as many next year as a bit of a glut this year.
broad beans - first year I've tried these and have had a really good crop.

[StephenH]

My first sowing of Swiss Chard, in March, failed to appear, but it was probably too cold. Later sowings have done well.
Not many of my parnips appeared, possibly for the same reason, but also perhaps because I sowed them in a newly-created bed with soil of rather dubious quality - it contained a fair amount of ash from decades of bonfires.
My dwarf french beans have been a bit disappointing in yield - I'm only growing climbers from now on, because I understand that they do usually give a higher yield per unit area, but I didn't realise how great the difference was.
Most of my onions (from seed) died after planting out, probably because I planted them out too early, and my late cabbages' germination was very patchy.
Other than that, everything's tickety-boo!