Topic: 2012 crops - Has anyone had any particularly good yields/results??

[Crystalmoon]

Best year for my blueberry too & it is the only one I have left so I never expect much of a harvest from it as they don't like to be on their own but I've had 3 large punnets so far. I moved it (it is in a large pot) so it is next to the comfrey in the hope that the bees would hop over from the comfrey to fertilise the blueberry & it worked a treat. I also made sure it was netted from birds very early this year which has also helped.

Great black currant & red currant harvest, really good gooseberry harvest from an ancient bush but zero raspberries & I usually have absolutely loads. I think all the raspberry fruit blossoms were destroyed in the storms we had as the raspberries are right next to the other fruits. xJane

[Dandytown]

Blueberry wise I got zilch but had a bumper crop with the gooseberries.

My giant pumpkins aborted (patches have been cleared now) although I have a bumper crop of squash with around 25 Bonbons over 5 plants, 11 rolet on 1 plant and 6-7 blackfutsu squash over three puny plants.  I love pumpkins  :-*

The broadbeans were disease ridden, tomatoes were insignificant, strawberries and raspberries were watery and the sun flowers were pathetic.  Nettles are doing fantastic as are all my beans

[Crystalmoon]

Wow Dandytown how did you manage to get your squash to do so well?
All my plants either died at the 4 leaf stage or put out flowers way too early when the stems were only spring onion thick so every single variety I tried this year failed & I normally have bumper crops.

My strawberries were all tasteless too xjane

[Strawberrygirl]

Good and bad for me...

Good: loads broadbeans (used to hate them, but now learned how to depod twice and actually quite like them now lol) /onions/garlic (although pulled garlic up too early and they didn't mature properly) / spuds (not as good as last year but not bad) .
Bad: strawberries (slugs got most of the good ones) / blueberries (just a handful) / sweetcorn (very slow to get going and very slow to catch up with neighbours!) / butternut squash (loads of flowers but only a couple of fruit which are struggling)/ courgettes (just the one!) / carrots now starting to get going / swede - yuck! / brassica's rubbish.

I put it down mainly to the excessive amount of water that has rained any nutrients that our poor site had. We've now moved to a new plot so fingers crossed for better results next season!

[strawberry1]

tomatoes have been great. I stopped all plants at 4 trusses and took some leaves off, a few at a time throughout summer. 8 plants under polythene and 8 in assorted buckets outside. I must have had over 50lb. I also took fruit when orange and brought inside putting a layer of newspaper on top. I have been manic getting them preserved

[davee52uk]

Beans Beans Beans ! First broad then french, climbing french beans and now runners.

Also loads of apples.

Cabbages are only starting to grow - at least a month late.

Just shows - there will always be something that likes the weather

[artichoke]

My sweetcorn has been the best ever, and fortunately I have picked quite a lot over the last two or three weeks, because yesterday I went to pick more and found the dreaded badger had got there first (or rabbit or squirrel or fox, everyone has their theories). Trampled down and broken, with about 6 big cobs shredded open and gnawed all over. Managed to pick the last four or five, and that's it.

Surely rabbits and squirrels have not got the weight to bring down the tall heavy plants, or the strength to pull open the cobs? And are foxes interested in sweetcorn?

Overwintering onions and shallots did well too, and all forms of beans have been productive, and thanks to successional sowing (don't always achieve it) will go on for some time. I only hope the gigandes and pea beans and borlotti will ripen. Peas did very well earlier in the year, but have mildew now.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Kew Blue beans would be cropping like mad now if something hadn't bitten through 90% of the stems. As it is, I'm saving everything for seed.

[pg]

Lettuce (once got going). Plus nettles!

Strawberry1 - what tomato varieties are you growing to get such magnificent crops? I'm trying to keep the blight at bay on both indoor and outdoor ones.

[lisaparkin]

So many runner, dwarf and french beans,  it is getting silly!!!  :o
 
'Sunburst' patty pan squash , courgettes have gone into manic mode!!   ???

Tomatoes have done fab!! ;D

Huge massive raspberries! :)

[chriscross1966]

Kew Blue beans would be cropping like mad now if something hadn't bitten through 90% of the stems. As it is, I'm saving everything for seed.

Probably slugs... I've lost some climbing kidney beans to them...

[Gordonmull]

Swede, beetroot, calabrese and peas all performed well. Carrots, I had lots of split ones. Onions, I have nothing to compare to, but they look like I might get an ok crop off them. Loads died at the beginning of the year through rot though. Tomatoes, lots of splits but I think that's more down to not quite getting the watering regime yet.

Spuds slugged to high heaven. However, Home Guard planted in 25 litre plastic-weave bags have done really well. Not a spot of blight. Sowed 1st July, mid July and early August. Weird, I thought they were highly blight susceptible but every other variety got foliage blight.

Lettuce excellent.

Scallions did really well the beginning of the year but I'm still waiting on my June sown to be a harvestable size. Been without them for too long now.

Strawberries awful. Most split and rotted.

[antipodes]

Good yields: spuds, more than I can handle in fact despite some beginnings of blight. Onions, red and brown, and garlic, lettuce (which I am generally hopeless at), mizuna and baby leaves and early beetroot, early beans (but I only realised that I should successive sow the runners as they die off fairly rapidly), peas were OK, and the pumpkins look good so far. Raspberries look Ok so far too.
I did get a few caulis too even though they were small (first time). Also loads of herbs, much more than I can handle.

Bad yields: artichokes, summer squash (pattypan), strawberries, gooseberries, cucumbers

Total loss: Tomatoes, aubergines, courgettes, parsnips (did not germinate).

And teh plot just looks crap because it has not been as well tended as there was too much rain,

[Digeroo]

After a very very slow start I now am hoping for a great crop of sweet corn.  Earlybird from
Moles is looking very good at the moment.  You get lots in the packet so I sowed two in each station.   I seemed to get either nothing or two hardly any singles.

[strawberry1]

pg, I grew ferline, alicante and a few strillo. Ferline were so easy, good and strong and just went evenly red all over, even the outdoor ones in buckets. Alicante were big and I had to catch them as they fully ripened indoors, otherwise they got too soft for the mandolin slicer, then I just dehydrated the slices. Next year I will grow mostly ferline and will try old brookes. I will be growing half the number of plants using the same methods. Everyone is picked now, a few left to fully ripen indoors, 5lb for green tomato chutney and I have cleaned and washed everything ready for next year

[marcitos]

Loads of kiwis. Though I'd done ok with around 250 last year. Must be around 600 this year.

[Paulh]

Runner beans late but doing well - more beans setting on each flower stem than usual. Courgettes and marrows in abundance. Not much else!

[Fuchsias]

I have a freezer full of broad beans and runner beans and tons of tomato sauces just waiting for the winter  - oh and so many blackberries I have now resorted to making wine.  Got about 15 lb of them in the freezer too.

Chillis not looking too bad as is the sweetcorn.  About 35 parsnips though out of 3 full rows.  Half the weight of onions as last year

Total failure was carrots (6 sowings and about 3 germinated) beetroot and spinach.  Birds got all my goosegogs and blackurrants and only about a dozen plums when we have a tree full for the last 3 years.

Never mind, theres next year to look forward too :) :)

[Robert_Brenchley]

Probably slugs... I've lost some climbing kidney beans to them...

Could be, though they were all bitten through very neatly, at the same height, a few inches above the ground. It didn't look like the typical slug job. I haven't harvested a single bean yet, and some of them aren't even flowering. It's down to a combination of low light levels and flood damage.

[banksy]

Could be, though they were all bitten through very neatly, at the same height, a few inches above the ground. It didn't look like the typical slug job. I haven't harvested a single bean yet, and some of them aren't even flowering. It's down to a combination of low light levels and flood damage.

I had exactly the same issue on my climbing borlotti, climbing French beans and runner beans. Entire sections of the stems were eaten away at the same height from the ground and for the same length of stem - resulting in the plants dying.  At first I thought it was a rabbit as my carrots and leeks also got a good seeing to by this pest.  Then I noticed that most of my beetroot had been chomped into as well and there were plenty of teeth marks left as evidence.  >:(

My plot is rabbit proofed with buried chicken wire and there was no sign of any entry around the entire perimeter so I was puzzled how the rabbit was getting in.  Now that I have topped my last two rows of spuds I have found very small holes which look Rat sized and the odd spud has been eaten into, again leaving the same familiar teeth marks as in the beetroot.

Could it be that a rat (or rats) are the culprits?  I did have a rat issue in my compost bins over winter but they have deserted them for some time now.  Are rats into that much veg?  ???