New plot, nothing growing - need your help

[amandaandherveg]

Gave up our lottie earlier this year as we'd bought a cottage with a huge piece of ground. The ground had lain idle for last 10 years or so partly covered in plastic. Prior to that it had been used as a veg garden and, decades previously as a successful Market Garden.

I cleared the ground completely, rotovated, then set out beds, fruit cage, planted new fruit trees and bushes, moved my strawbs from the lottie, marked out paths and put up a new polytunnel. Almost everything outside has failed to either grow or germinate but the polytunnel is going great guns (everything in PT growning in bed/borders in the same soil as outside). I've listed how things have gone below - can anyone suggest what's gone wrong? Almost everything outside has failed - is it just the horrendous weather/lack of light or something else? Please help

Potatoes
Healthy buy tiny crop, very small shaws (earlies)

Cauli, Cabbage, PSB, Sprouts, Brocolli, Turnips
Direct sowings in April and May failed to germinate then young plants brought on in PT then planted out failed to take root and have been on strike for the last 6 weeks.

Broad Beans & Carrots
Sown direct - growing slowly but looking healthy

Onions, Garlic & Leeks
Still very small but healthy (though something had been nibbling the onion/garlic leaves)

Strawberries
Utter Disaster - loads of flowers but berries remain tiny, green and refuse I swell or colour

Fruit Bushes (White/Red/Black Currant and Gooseberries)
A little yellow looking - only a few berries

Beetroot
Poor germination then failed to grow

Rhubarb
Doing well

Pumpkins & Courgettes
Growing, but slow

Peas Beans
Direct sowing failed, planted out young plants brought on in PT and they are coming on very slowly

Lettuce
Direct sowing in May still tiny, not even large enough to thin out

[zazen999]

Have you not noticed that everyone is having a rubbish year too? ESP with direct sowings. And even with transplants the slugs have taken everything.

[Thelma Sanders]

The fact that the same soil inside the tunnel is growing stuff - proves it was not a problem with your soil to start with.

It's been a bad year weatherwise for growing stuff outside, we've nearly all suffered in one way or another - nil or patchy germination, plants rotting off or just sitting there not growing - you name it it's happened.
I know here that the soil needed a lot of feeding as the rain seems to have washed all the nutrients deeper into the soil where the roots aren't reaching it. You could try giving your brassicas a good nitrogen rich feed - chicken pellets maybe?

[veggiechicken]

If your veg are doing well in the polytunnel but not outdoors, isn't the conclusion obvious? As Zaz ^^^^ says, its been a rubbish year for almost everyone. Its nothing personal to you !! Time to accept it and hope for better weather next year!

[binley100]

Look on the bright side ........at least you've got a polytunnel where things are doing well . Even the experienced old hands on our site have been having problems and if our Wal (90) can't get stuff to grow then there's not much hope for the rest of us
Hopefully next year will be good for outside stuff as well .

[amandaandherveg]

Thanks so much everyone. As this was the first year in the new plot I've been a bit paranoid. We levelled where the polytunnel went but the rest is on a slope - I'm sure a lot of the nutrients have been washed out of the soil - time to give it a good feed and order lots of sunshine for us all next year

[binley100]

sow a load of green manure .........

[Two_Sheds]

it's been a bad year for everyone

[Two_Sheds]

sow a load of green manure .........

... and treat all your weeds and trimmings as green manure too: I chop them up and leave them all on the soil as a mulch. It soon disappears into the soil, pulled down by worms

It's improving my soil no end, much faster than composting too

[snohare]

Yes, your story is like a carbon copy of mine, Amanda, except I have no polytunnel !
The only plants that have prospered are seedlings that have come away before they went out in the outdoors - so bought in beans and cabbages only, so far, apart from the carrots and hamburg parsley which germinated under cover.

[jacob]

Did you see the article on the Scottish news the other day about Scottish potato farmers saying it was a disaster crop, but spuds half their usual size?

Made me feel *slightly* better about digging out a plant and getting a crop of two new potatoes.

[snohare]

Made me feel *slightly* better about digging out a plant and getting a crop of two new potatoes.

Jacob, I feel for you - because at the lottie yesterday, I did exactly that ! And I'll spare my own blushes by not posting a picture of them. I'm not sure the zoom on my camera's Macro mode is that good anyway <sigh>
That was "Sharpe's Express" planted on the 15th March...
...and some of my second earlies were showing signs of blight on the leaves.
Poor light levels - ie ultraviolet - must have a lot to do with whether or not seedlings thrive. I think what we are getting is an object lesson on which of the three different methods of photosynthesis various plants use.
And of course if we learn from this and next year plant only the ones that can cope with low levels of UV - we may have a summer like the Yanks are having, and discover why some plants have evolved to use a less efficient way of photosynthesising.

[Aberdeenplotter]

Doom and gloom is pervading this thread. Yes it's been a bad bad season but we surely all must be having some minor successes. My soft fruit has been tremendous and for a change, very little damage to the raspberries from the maggots of the fruit beetle.Peas seem to be growing away fine now although they were slow to start. Ok. the crop will be late but I'm going to get a crop. Spud yield is way down but there are spuds there. Onions are smaller than usual but still very tasty. Garlic Likewise. Broad beans starting to develop decent sized pods now. Have only seen one cabbage white butterfly the whole season and only a handful of wasps. There are upsides.

Kitchen leeks growing away fine although there have been problems with my pot and blanch leeks bolting. Not unique to me as many of my colleagues in the NVS have the same problem.

Salad stuff growing like weeds unfortunately so are the weeds. but the compost bin is filling up with them. Waste not want not.

carrots been doing well but I didn't cover them this year as I shut the carrot fly inlast year instead of out. Needless to say, the carrots are now dropping like flies. My own fault, they were growing dandy otherwise. My show varieties are covered and are doing well although later than usual.


We really need a forum anthem so we can celebrate the joy of growing. It can't always be successful otherwise it wouldn't be interesting. Roll on next year.

[veggiechicken]

We really need a forum anthem so we can celebrate the joy of growing. It can't always be successful otherwise it wouldn't be interesting. Roll on next year.

Always look on the bright side of life (my favourite!)

[Aberdeenplotter]

whoops, meant to say, if trying to restore an old vegetable patch, it really is a good idea to clean the ground up with a crop of spuds in the first year. The ground is constantly on the move with the first digging, setting up ridges, furrowing up and lifting. The weeds don't get a chance because they are deprived of light by the canopy of shaws(you lot call them haulms) and any that do survive are easily dealt with. If the spuds are planted with a generous helping fym, there will be residual fertility to help next years crops thrive.

I know that most folks will want to plant other things but it really is worth waiting an extra year.

having said that, as the others have said, the probability is you have done nowt wrong. It's just been an awful gardening year.