Raisin girl - if you get a pear tree, hope you have more luck than me ?
Busylizzy - at least you could make lots of courgette cake and courgette fritters - we had lots of courgettes too and I've been doing lots of baking with them and including my recipes on the blog. Spring onions often fails to germinate for me too. And yet they're supposed to be easy. Don't get it!
SW2 - bad luck with the tomatoes, ours have been ok and plums ok, but we have white rot in the garden, so no maincrop onions, although I do grow garlic fairly successfully in pots.
BLT - my cucumbers has a poor year too in the greenhouse ? Had you thought about trombocino instead of butternut squash? I've got some photos on my blog post
They've cropped well, tasted fab (very sweet) and like butternut squash, they have a long neck with no seeds. As long as you can keep the plants away from the slugs!
Scroggin - celeriac - excellent! ☺ Do you have any tips for growing it successfully? My overwintered chilliest ok, but I'm not sure they were any better than the ones sown from seed. How do you over winter yours? Trying to decide whether to bring some of mine in again this year... Last year it was a good experiment, but a bit of a pain...
Clarington, my strawberries are still flowering in places! I guess one of the joys of soft fruit is eating it between plot and plate! Hope you get the chance to do more growing next year ☺
Oh no Pansyface - that's an awful lot of bad luck with your fruit. I feel for your quince disaster - hope you get the trees sorted and have better luck next year ☺
I did have a big crop of blackcurrants, all nicely tucked up in the freezer, for enlivening winter porridge. Surplus raspberries joining them, polka have had a huge crop, just coming to an end. Polytunnel tomatoes did better than the greenhouse. I eliminated the greenhouse mouse, so I got to eat figs this year.
Cox apples look to be doing well, need to be picked soon. Lord lambourne all picked and eaten.
Spuds did OK (Kestrel & Sarpo mira, the only types I can grow which don't get devastated with keeled slugs), winter squashes worst year ever, only one large one out of ten plants (6 different varieties) with the rest producing only one or two fist-sized fruit. Summer squashes fewer and smaller than usual. Carrots OK (polytunnel), parsnips good, all brassicas very good, especially brussels. The tomatoes in the greenhouse did OK too but smaller crop than usual, especially the larger types. Overwintered peppers and chillis excellent, seed grown ones only ripening now (conservatory.) Spring sown broad beans ok, no blackfly at all. Runner and climbing french beans minimal crops. Forgot to plant out the leeks!
Edit: Forgot the fruit: Strawberries lower crop than usual, raspberries (Polka) excellent - still going, gooseberries lower crop than usual, blackberries the same. Apples good. Cherries small crop (netted.) one pear (not yet ripe.)
Overall, the worst year I've ever had, all due to the weather. Fingers crossed for 2017..
Last edited: 09 October 2016 09:53:13
A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
Fidgetbones - sounds like great fruit in the freezer. Well done with the figs - we've got a seven year old fig tree which has never fruited. Its performance is so bad it didn't even make it into the 3 worst crops as I've forgotten it's edible!
Bobthegardener- that's interesting about your overwintered chillies and peppers - maybe I will give overwintering another go this year.
Scroggin - that's great thanks. I'll do that too as we have clay soil as well.
Hi dogwooddays, worse crop was cucumbers,usually good but rubbish this year. Cape gooseberries keep trying to grow them but needs more sun,next year I won't. Kale was eaten by snails. Tomatoes were ok,blueberries,blackberries,raspberries,red,white,blackcurrants,
gooseberries,were good. Don't grow strawberries they don't do very well. The apples not good.
One of my disasters this year was the carrots, the usual 3 - 4 inches in length with forked crossed legs - sorry no picture but I think you can imagine the scene.
The apple crop is quite poor this year compared to the bumper harvest in 2015. Tomato seeds that didn't germinate (twice) so gave up and grew my first cucumbers instead which were fairly successful and did grow to full size .
Posts
Raisin girl - if you get a pear tree, hope you have more luck than me ?
Busylizzy - at least you could make lots of courgette cake and courgette fritters - we had lots of courgettes too and I've been doing lots of baking with them and including my recipes on the blog. Spring onions often fails to germinate for me too. And yet they're supposed to be easy. Don't get it!
SW2 - bad luck with the tomatoes, ours have been ok and plums ok, but we have white rot in the garden, so no maincrop onions, although I do grow garlic fairly successfully in pots.
BLT - my cucumbers has a poor year too in the greenhouse ? Had you thought about trombocino instead of butternut squash? I've got some photos on my blog post
https://dogwooddays.net/2016/09/16/allotment-96b-the-unusual-the-innovative-and-the-just-plain-weird/
They've cropped well, tasted fab (very sweet) and like butternut squash, they have a long neck with no seeds. As long as you can keep the plants away from the slugs!
Scroggin - celeriac - excellent! ☺ Do you have any tips for growing it successfully? My overwintered chilliest ok, but I'm not sure they were any better than the ones sown from seed. How do you over winter yours? Trying to decide whether to bring some of mine in again this year... Last year it was a good experiment, but a bit of a pain...
https://dogwooddays.net/2016/04/09/old-chillies-v-new-chillies-how-do-you-grow-yours/
Clarington, my strawberries are still flowering in places! I guess one of the joys of soft fruit is eating it between plot and plate! Hope you get the chance to do more growing next year ☺
Oh no Pansyface - that's an awful lot of bad luck with your fruit. I feel for your quince disaster - hope you get the trees sorted and have better luck next year ☺
I did have a big crop of blackcurrants, all nicely tucked up in the freezer, for enlivening winter porridge. Surplus raspberries joining them, polka have had a huge crop, just coming to an end. Polytunnel tomatoes did better than the greenhouse. I eliminated the greenhouse mouse, so I got to eat figs this year.
Cox apples look to be doing well, need to be picked soon. Lord lambourne all picked and eaten.
Squirrels ate all the pears.
My compost heaps are doing fantastically well
Spuds did OK (Kestrel & Sarpo mira, the only types I can grow which don't get devastated with keeled slugs), winter squashes worst year ever, only one large one out of ten plants (6 different varieties) with the rest producing only one or two fist-sized fruit. Summer squashes fewer and smaller than usual. Carrots OK (polytunnel), parsnips good, all brassicas very good, especially brussels. The tomatoes in the greenhouse did OK too but smaller crop than usual, especially the larger types. Overwintered peppers and chillis excellent, seed grown ones only ripening now (conservatory.) Spring sown broad beans ok, no blackfly at all. Runner and climbing french beans minimal crops. Forgot to plant out the leeks!
Edit: Forgot the fruit: Strawberries lower crop than usual, raspberries (Polka) excellent - still going, gooseberries lower crop than usual, blackberries the same. Apples good. Cherries small crop (netted.) one pear (not yet ripe.)
Overall, the worst year I've ever had, all due to the weather. Fingers crossed for 2017..
Last edited: 09 October 2016 09:53:13
Fidgetbones - sounds like great fruit in the freezer. Well done with the figs - we've got a seven year old fig tree which has never fruited. Its performance is so bad it didn't even make it into the 3 worst crops as I've forgotten it's edible!
Bobthegardener- that's interesting about your overwintered chillies and peppers - maybe I will give overwintering another go this year.
Scroggin - that's great thanks. I'll do that too as we have clay soil as well.
Hello. Interesting thread , it is what I like about gardening , you never known what's going to grow well and what is not
And you can try different crops and methods of growing them , one year ok next year , rubbish
Hi dogwooddays, worse crop was cucumbers,usually good but rubbish this year. Cape gooseberries keep trying to grow them but needs more sun,next year I won't. Kale was eaten by snails. Tomatoes were ok,blueberries,blackberries,raspberries,red,white,blackcurrants,
gooseberries,were good. Don't grow strawberries they don't do very well. The apples not good.
One of my disasters this year was the carrots, the usual 3 - 4 inches in length with forked crossed legs - sorry no picture but I think you can imagine the scene.
The apple crop is quite poor this year compared to the bumper harvest in 2015. Tomato seeds that didn't germinate (twice) so gave up and grew my first cucumbers instead which were fairly successful and did grow to full size .
Last edited: 10 October 2016 15:51:50