Allotments 4 All
Produce => Edible Plants => Topic started by: Duke Ellington on September 22, 2017, 08:39:41
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Tomatoes 🍅 grown on the plot succumbed to blight. My greenhouse ones grown at home were fine.
Aubergines 🍆 , I have never been able to grow them each year I try each year I fail. One tiny fruit that didn't develop. Next year will be the year I succeed 👍🏻👍🏻
DUke
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Minipop sweetcorn did well, but all the other sweetcorn got eaten by 'something' I only got to eat a few cobs - so a bit disappointed about that!
For some reason my shelly beans did well, but the runners never got up the frames - let alone flower and set. One variety on the plot and another in the garden did exactly the same.
All the Calabrese and winter Romanesco have sprouted/flowered already! I can only presume that the problem for both, beans and brassicas, was weather-related. *sigh*
Roll on next year to try again :)
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Courgettes and squash/pumpkins. Always thought they were the most reliable and don't know what I did wrong. Got loads of foliage but very few fruit. Pattypan started well but then kept dying off before they were developed and pumpkins did nothing. Very disappointing.
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Very few failures this season.
Tomatoes got blight but not until late August after they had already produced a good crop.
My Swedes look mediocre, they just seemed not to thrive.
If I wanted to be really picky, my Inca berries (cape/physalis) grew well but are being a bit slow to ripen.
Started to get a bit of slug damage in the past few weeks.
Squashes courgettes and cucumbers were very productive and still going, as we're runner and French beans. All other the root crops grew well and the celeriac are the biggest I've ever grown. Sweet corn grew vigorously and cropped heavily. Salad stuff was good including Florence fennel. Onions were standard size, neither big or small but shallots were brilliant, as was my elephant garlic. Summer fruits were productive, and my apple trees are carrying a good and healthy crop. I started a new strawberry bed in spring and was not expecting much but got a decent crop. Plus adds and ends like chard, asparagus peas, kohl Rabi etc all good. Brilliant brassicas.
Reading that back it sounds like boasting. Not intended, I just feel really lucky. No grumbles from me.
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It's been a poor year for a lot of things ... my outdoor tomatoes didn't even think about going ripe before they succumbed to blight in August ... there just wasn't enough sunshine at the right time. My seed sown onions were far poorer than last year making only very small bulbs. Climbing french beans were all lost due to vandal rabbits in one night chewing 1" of every stalk just as the beans were forming.
All in all it's just been too cloudy and wet in July and August for a lot of the more sun-loving crops. Leafy green things, potatoes, cucumber/courgette and sweetcorn have done very well though. It's not been a bad year for fruit although a lot of my raspberries/strawberries went mouldy in the wet weather as soon as they ripened.
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Tomatoes 🍅 grown on the plot succumbed to blight. My greenhouse ones grown at home were fine.
Aubergines 🍆 , I have never been able to grow them each year I try each year I fail. One tiny fruit that didn't develop. Next year will be the year I succeed 👍🏻👍🏻
DUke
I had my first success with aubergines this year ... grown in a bucket that could be moved in to the greenhouse once it got colder and it's still making smaller fruits now. I got about 4 off each plant ... the variety was Czech Early from Real Seeds. Pixie hat paprika was another real success grown the same way ... a small pointy sweet red pepper that can either be eaten as normal or dried to make the spice.
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Courgettes and squashes suffered in the wet summer up here. Some varieties which set fruit early were okay, but once the rain in July arrived, nothing much new set. French beans suffered due to the endless rain almost every day for almost 2 months (runners ran and bred like rabbits though!) Otherwise, all seems ok.
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All in all I've had a good season. Soft fruit, (blackcurrants, strawberries and raspberries) gave me enough to make jams and freeze some for pies and crumbles. There are 18 lovely corn cobs in the freezer and nineteen squashes stored in the porch. The tomatoes remained blight free till a week or so ago which gave me time to make a lot of sofrito which is now in a stuffed full freezer in my shed (fingers crossed the 10 year old freezer doesn't choose this winter to break down!) Lots of portioned packs of Cobra beans are in there as well. My fruit trees are giving me the best ever harvest, especially the Jonagold apples and the family pear (Bartlett - masses harvested, bottled, frozen and distributed among the neighbours) Concorde, which are huge and almost ready and Conference, of which there are fewer and will be the last to harvest). I'm still waiting for the pips to turn brown on the Jonagold, Lidl unknown and Braeburn apples but have been making use of windfalls for some time. The Morello cherry was also as prolific this year as always.
All this from four 7'x3' raised beds, a tiny 5'x3' leanto greenhouse and two sides of my small walled garden 25' and 18' - the middle is paved. It's not been easy as I'm no longer very mobile, but with lots of rest in between I've managed short spells working outside whenever it has been dry enough, so I'm well pleased and hope I'll be able to continue next year.
Tricia :wave:
My only failure was the Tenderstar bean, which produced very few short pods. Won't bother with it next year!
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My slant on the 'bumper crops' is the warm weather started much earlier in the year than normal in effect one could say "the summer" has been a month longer than usual, at least up here it has!
The only downside on this for me (if it is a down side) my Brussels Sprouts are much later than normal. Usually the leaves are beginning to yellow and drop off around around now to allow the sprouts to develop.
The leaves on my plants are still a healthy green in colour and the sprouts are about cherry size (½" diam).
Not too worried so long as they are ready for the Christmas Dinner, and possibly well in to the New Year.
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i agree with tg its been a cracker of a summer the only trouble ive had is lettuce having to sow weekly as bolting has been a big problem tomatoes still blight free great root crops, brassicas,beans, peas and cubits all performing well above average :sunny: :sunny: :sunny:
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Greenhouse crops have been poor this year for me greenhouse got too hot late spring and delayed all the toms and only a few cucumbers and something eating the peppers still there is always next year but all outside crops have been fine
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Nothing has really 'failed' as opposed to being eaten by slugs, of which I have a bumper crop this year. Tomatoes are starting to ripen nicely now and the courgettes are just slowing down a bit. There was a battle royal between lettuce v slugs but the lettuce eventually won. Rule one for next year.. net..Net..NET, the birds have grown fat on my soft fruit.
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This was my first year on this plot and all that really failed were caulis (boron deficiency) and garlic, shallots and onions (white rot). The calabrese main heads were not as good as I was hoping they would be but the side shoots did well. Lots to work on for next year.
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My potatoes did well, celeriac best ever, rhubarb flourished, leeks and onions did OK except I left them in the ground too long and lost a few to some sort of rot. All broccoli related stuff eaten by cabbage white caterpillars, sweetcorn poor ( I think it was too shady where they were). Peas eaten by pigeons, and I was laughing at people netting them, serves me right! They have recovered but not many pods. Raspberries seem to be dying, will have to investigate that. Strawberries were poor too. Butternuts are rampant. Not as bad as it sounds, did a lot of rejigging this year, new paths, replaced greenhouse. This time next year . . . . .
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My garlic turned orange with rust, shrank and went mouldy.
Courgettes rotted, leeks succumbed to allium leaf minor, and I tried something called brockale (sp), it just turned into a cloud of whitefly then bolted.
My Sweetcorn were the best I've ever grown though.
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My Sweetcorn were the best I've ever grown though.
Yes my corn did as well, ask the Badgers on our plots and they will confirm this :angry4:
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Sorry Tee Gee but I also had a fantastic sweet corn crop but I harvested the remainder of them yesterday because my allotment neighbour says his have been attacked by rats!
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beans, peas, sweet corn, leeks and garlic went funny then bolted:(
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Whitefly did for my brassicas, which weren't very good plants to start with - I'd changed compost and had much poorer germination and early stage growth. Peas didn't thrive either, don't know why, but everything else had a bumper year - I've never had so many and so long runner beans, soft fruit was brilliant, peppers and aubergines excellent - if only I could everything OK every year, it never seems to happen!
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Courgettes... the stems rotted in the wet.. yet squash in the adjoining bed romped away... Just had the last of the peas.. a late sowing of Show Perfection.
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Cannot seem to grow Celery , looks good , tastes like lemons ... slugs like it !
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Cannot seem to grow Celery , looks good , tastes like lemons ... slugs like it !
Would that be "bitter", "fruity", or "zest-full" ? Which variety did you grow? Celery, like caulis ,sort the men from the boys....
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ancell......Bitter ... Variety .... Not sure it was a pack from nursery , was to late sowing seed.... It cooks ok just not salad. Guess I'm a lad again...
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I have had a pretty good year and the successes have outweighed the failures.
Celery went really well for the first time although I did grow a lot of Red Celery for soup and stock so not overly bothered if it is stringy.
Onions were a bit poor and didn't seem to do well in the early heat.
Swedes dont do well on our clay but I thought I had lightened the soil enough - maybe they will bulk up.
Celeriac seems all top and no trousers.
Lettuce had issues with the heat but came good late in the season - luckily the generous spirit of my allotment mates saw me through.
Carrots look to be a bit damaged - mostly slugs but I think they are decent enough to see us through.
Beetroot didn't do as well as I wanted but still had enough.
Some stuff has been brilliant - squash have romped away, courgettes - so many even the chickens are turning their beaks up at them now, Toms - mental amounts and still picking, Spuds - never had so many, beans have been fab, sweetcorn - great (but very early), Fennel - came good just when I though they were going to bolt and there have been lots of other joyful moments - enough to counter the failures..
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Tomatoes. Only had a few fruit. One of my neighbours gets Bordeaux mix from Poland. So hers survived. They went only a few days before the weather changed,
Strawberries!! Someone dug up all my plants last year and the new ones disappeared as well but I think that was deer.
One row of spinach has been slugged.
Actually have had a bumper year of most things.
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Sorry Tee Gee but I also had a fantastic sweet corn crop but I harvested the remainder of them yesterday because my allotment neighbour says his have been attacked by rats!
Did he mean that his kids had devoured them?!
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Most of my flops this year were due to slugs, the potatoes were badly nibbled .Practically all the Maris Pipers were damaged and even the Kestrel were nibbled ,and they are supposed to have some resistance to slugs!
My runner beans never even got off the ground. I usually sow direct in the soil but these were eaten off as soon as they germinated, I replaced them with plants with loads of slug control around them yet within a couple of nights they were gone.
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To overcome the problems that many of us have had this year, I have decided that all I want for Christmas is December, January and February to be very cold and frosty with some snow.
Then this will hopefully kill off the pests that over the last winters couple of winters have managed to survive and breed in greater numbers since the onset of " Weather Change"
Having said that! As an insurance I plan on putting a "Tub of Slug Pellets" on my Christmas List again! :BangHead:
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It certainly has been a strange year weather wise. Even some of my roses have decided to flower this week.
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Fails : courgettes for some reason, lots of leaves but little fruit, runnerbeans (they are flowering now! pffff), peas (got too hot too quickly), potatoes (healthy but very small, because of lack of rain), as usual root crops mostly rubbish, carrots the size of my little finger and beetroots just producing leaves and little root.
Successes: Tomatoes (masses and masses of them!) pumpkins, green beans, anything leafy like lettuce, rocket, mizuna, chard, and the pak choy are going great guns! It's been very odd weather though, boiling in june and july and then pretty on-off in August (hot then cool), then September very damp and cool.