Positive thoughts

[MojoJojo]

We're still waiting for summer, and lots of wind and rain have been a bit disheartening.

So lets focus on what has gone well.

For me:

1)garlic has done well. I think the warm autumn last year and the sunny march has made up for the disappointing april/may. Have 50 good sized bulbs plus some smaller ones.
2)Spinach has done far better than I expected. Only have one row about 2 meters long and have had a dozen good sized portions out of it. And sill have some left. Guess they like water and and the limited sun encourages the leaves to grow.

So what have people found the weather good for this year?

[cazp]

My Celery and parsnips have surpassed my expectations so far.


The parsnips have germinated exceptionally well - I understand the success partly depends on the ground being continually moist so no problem there.

The celery also looks great, and being a bog plant would have loved the rain I guess. Hope it continues that way and isn't too stringy when I come to harvest it.

[Uber-Uncool]

This year my toms are doing quite well as are my celery, lettuce, mangetout. Spuds have been disappointing thus far, as has the garlic, french beans, peas, broad beans...though the latter two might pick up and surprise me and i've sown more french beans.

My brassicas look promising, as do my leeks and spring onion, the first batch of squash, courgette and cukes all died off, but the lot i planted today have all come on a teat, i just hope they settle in their final
Destinations without dying off like their predecessors.

[kathyd]

Good idea to look at the positives Mojojojo .

My mangetout have worked well, and autumn sown garlic, red onions and possibly shallots looking good. Spring planted of the same look promising so far, along with the leeks, and my parsnips have germinated and are growing (all 10 of them, lol ).

Sweetcorn in the tunnel is racing, although only one silky tassel so far so not sure how to pollinate it.. outdoors is slower but so far have avoided the mice which plagued the first indoor sowing. Had lots of salads earlier in the tunnel, but mice and/or slugs are munching them voraciously now and it's hard to get them going.

Broadies done well, despite the blackfly, but other beans are struggling. They germinated (after several attempts) but now seem to have ground to a halt. Ditto courgettes / squashes - have several tiny specimens around just waiting for some sunshine, but whether there'll be time to produce a crop remains to be seen.

Strawberries have done well, but again prone to slugs, but all other fruits including both bushes and trees are desperately disappointing after bumper harvests last year.

Brassicas... hmm. Still trying with those! I love them, but am struggling a bit at the moment. Have a small selection of cabbages (with no hearts yet though!), sprouts, kale and PSB which appear to be growing OK though still quite small, but calabrese has bolted and flowered. Having problems getting new seedlings going at the moment, but at least they're still alive now they're on top of the water butt where the slugs haven't found them yet!

[Kaiya]

Must remember, positive thoughts only...


Beetroots and onions - both sown by the pinch-in-a-module method, very pleased with how they are getting on! Beetroot shown are Bikores or Detroit 2, plus there are Golden further down the plot, onion are Golden Bear F1.


Overwintering shallot Jermor, garlic Thermidorm and Japanese onion Senshyu Yellow (garlic shown). We won't talk about the garlic rust *wink* I've no idea what's below the soil for the garlic, but the shallots are looking happy and the onions are already being pulled and eaten.


Example of the Senshyu Yellows. Very pleased with these.


Little leeks! We'll ignore the fact some of these have caught rust too. These are also a vague sort of pinch-in-a-module method but also with dibbing since a lot of the modules fell apart allowing dibbing at planting. They went out as invisible grass, now they are clearly becoming leeks!

Everything else is shot, but at least I'm self-sufficient in aliums.

[Peas'n'Kews]

TBH I'm not having a bad year - not planted everything I would normally have planted, as we are trying to sell the house (garden only, no lottie).

So happy with most stuff, especially the blackcurrants we will eat as pie tonight (I may have mentioned these before!!!)

[eirish]

My carrots and lettuces may be growing slooooowly, but they haven't been scoffed by slugs.

Some of my peas are approaching knee height.

The cucumbers aren't looking any worse since I fleeced them.

The courgettes look to be appreciating their cloches.

Outdoor toms, especially the Tigerella I was worried about, have perked up since being potted up and given some seaweed spray and both have some flowers.

My bay trees are putting on lots of new growth.

The violas are happy and blooming away.

My indoor 'Micro Tom' plants are positively groaning with little green tomatoes.

I suppose it doesn't sound so bad, as long as I stay off the 'Today I Are [sic] Mostly Harvested' thread, which just reminds me of the fact that I haven't had any veg to harvest yet...

[Andromeda]

As much as I've had a moan about the weather, nothing is actually doing that badly...it's just not doing as well as it has previously.

I'm over run with lettuce, rocket and mixed salad leaves
tons of spring onions
peas doing very nicely
garlic almost ready to be lifted (a feel around suggests lovely large bulbs) but later than normal
late spring/early summer cabbage in use
radishes have flourished
toms not doing that badly - I've had to fight for some of them though
turnips sluggish but there
beetroot has grown for the first time ever
GSB plants are over 2.5ft tall - I expect to see florets forming soon
Other broccoli and calabrese plants are over 2ft tall
sprouts doing ok...not as well as normal though
Fennel and early carrots taking their own sweet time (fennel took 5 weeks to germinate!)
Cauliflowers are slow to grow
the same pattern follows for almost everything else on the plot or in the garden.

The major problems I've had are wind damage and swimming plants when the sheer volume of rain has overwhelmed the drainage capacity of my beds. There have been times though when I thought I was going to lose vast swathes of my plants - I've lost more young plants this year than any other.

[northepaul]

positives: spinach - brillient
Roses - beautiful
Shallots - not too bad
Herbs - pretty good
Strawberries - not too bad
Raspberries - looks like a bumper crop but not ready yet.

Then it goes down hill......garlic - excellent pink ones (cant remember which ones they are) and very disappointing white ones. Elephant garlic, ok....

Hoping for better later in the season

[kentishgal]

well, the spinach was a big success. The first row has all been eaten and gone over so Im waiting for the second sowing to grow up abit before I can eat it.
Another postive is that the fact I cant get enough plants growing to even get a mouse sized portion of veg/fruit in my little garden has encouraged me to put my name down for a lottie sooner rather then later!