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This year's problems

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lezelle:
Hi Everyone,
                 I have found this year the worst I can think off. We have had dry periods before, but this year has been awful. I have managed to get a few bits off the plot but nowhere like what I'm used to. Everyone has the same problems. My runners were rubbish, and it was down to water missing. What didn't help was a hip replacement that gave me a week in hospital and then all my water butts. 22 of them being emptied which means a 100 yard walk to get water from the dip tanks which I am not keen using anyway having seen people using cans they have used weed killer in to get water. Walking was a problem, and I am still having to take care now. Next year will be great hopefully he say's as I will get some big 25ltr water drums to use if needed. When the rain came the weeds took off and even worse than ever before. Hoeing seems to of spread them. We needed the rain but not the downpour we get a nice steady fall over night would of been good.  Still, I'm up for the challenge and next year will be better. I have considered all the problems this year has produced but my sweetcorn enjoyed it. We are on a sandy soil as well and in spite of putting loads of compost down it still got very dry. Lessons learnt. Good luck all and I wonder what problems the weather gave you all. Take care and good luck.
             

small:
My worst year ever, I'm on the verge of stopping veg gardening apart from new potatoes, tomatoes and herbs. My potatoes, peas, lettuce, radish, were rubbish because of the weather conditions, though it didn't help that health problems prevented me from earthing up the potatoes with this year's compost as I usually do. That compost heap is now just a mass of nettles. I didn't even manage to sow carrots and parsnips this year, Covid and family stuff got in the way... I'm really down about it, though I did have a flicker when the seed catalogues popped through the door. I've never experienced quite such a prolonged dry spell right through winter, spring and summer.
That isn't a very cheerful post, is it? Hope everyone else has done better!

Obelixx:
We moved to this house and garden on October 1st 2016.   14 months of drought followed with hardly any rain but, thankfully, none of the extreme heatwaves of this year.

This year we had a hot, dry spring followed by a heatwave in June, another in July and another in August - 51C in the sun, 44C in the shade on the north side of the house.   I had a prosthetic knee on the 4th of July so not much gardening before then and none from 2/7 till now apart from a little watering and a little potting on.

The other knee wil be done in early July 2023 but this time I will be better prepared before I go into hospital - weeding as before but loads more mulching, loads more chipped bark for weed suppressing and more seep hoses so I don't have to rely on OH's interpretation of my watering rotation.

Deb P:
Well funnily enough it’s been quite a good year down the plot for me, partly due to having a very late start to the season which saw me sowing all my seeds on 30th April which has made me realise three things; one I normally start seeds off and plant out too early, two I can get away with not heating the greenhouse at all if I leave it late enough and lastly I probably don’t water crops enough in a ‘normal’ year when we don’t usually have ridiculous heatwaves which saw me watering the plot 2-3 times a week at 6am!

Never had such good outdoor tomatoes (no blight) , French and runner beans. Not so good squash even though they did go out at the usual time, but probably due to picking the wrong varieties than anything else. Onions slow but just about ok. Charlotte potatoes smaller than usual but that meant we ate the lot before they died back. Really good strawberries because I netted then right from the start and realised how many I’d been losing to birds!  Flowers on the plot all fantastic! I did make more of an effort with succession showings plugging gaps with saladings as they arose so overall my inadvertent delay in getting things going and planted out turned out to be an advantage. Next year of course is bound to be completely different!

picman:
Looking back it was a bit of a roller coaster , my poly tunnel got too hot, the strawberries had strange brown skins , runners old before they were young.French ok. , blueberries were amazing. tomatoes half and half , potatoes pretty good , sprouts doing well, raspberries good crop. salad stuff , cue, radish,lettuce etc  not bad, so cannot complain as we have a freezer full of fruit for jam and pies.seems a lot of tidying up now ,   

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