Allotments 4 All

.....do you think you get from your veg growing ? I mean generally.

I've been back into veg growing for about the last five years and I'm naturally disappointed with failures like tomato blight, mosaic virus, aphids, slugs, other creatures. Just the vagaries of weather not suiting some things it is very cool and wet right now....and I'm fretting for some things already !!

Notwithstanding my experience yet something that thrives one year will fail the next, very frustrating.

I reckon anything over 50% is good year for me last year I only really got chard and cavalo nero to any reasonable extent. I'm not organic and do use every day stuff like pellets and sprays where applicable.
No wonder farming is so scientific these days a farmer couldn't take my losses  :'(

I've never tried to calculate it... but if you discount losses to thinning I doubt it's more than 10%.  :-\

Re reading my first post it looks badly phrased I don't really know how to calculate either but to say I have three raised beds 10ft by 4 ft one completely devoted to tomatoes and another half a one to courgettes.
I think about every other year I've lost my tomatoes to blight and though I've only ever gone whole season without mosaic virus striking sooner or later thus reducing my courgette crop early.

Beans have fared better last year was the only year I didn't do well.

I don't grow roots or salads and try to stick to what I like to grow and what my household will eat.

Chili's are a notable exception I seem to grow those OK.

Outdoor tomatoes are always at risk of blight...  a polythene roof can help if the wind doesn't take it away...  :-\

I think it is hard to calculate. For example, I almost always have good crops of onions, spuds and garlic, and generally speaking of beans. The summer crops are hard to say - blight can wipe out your whole tomato crop, but I have also had tomato crops of dozens of kilos...
However I would say that out of all the seed I have bought, only about 20% actually gives a crop,  counting what doesn't sprout, what gets eaten, what gets harmed by rain, wind etc, and what goes to seed too quickly.

I gave up getting an organic veg box because at some times of the year I had just too much veg, but spread over the whole year I see that I am only getting enough to actually feed us for a very limited period of the year. I have tried to plant more cold weather crops this year, I will have to see how I go. But I think it's also unrealistic to have an allotment for productivity, as there are too many factors. As you say though, luckily we are not professional farmers! Famine would be rife!

I'm not factoring in germination rates I've no problem with that and yes I do go for fast-maturing summer crops, I'm fascinated to grow big plants from small seed with visible colourful yield like a kid.
And yes it's true when tomatoes do succeed I get an awful lot of them which I like so the corresponding feelings of loss are greater when they fail.

I ate my thinnings of of cavalo nero yesterday and transplanted some others so I should have a lot unless.......

A supplementary question if any one knows I notice in my rainbow chard that the red (only) leaves have a sort of scabby appearance the same as last year, I've not been eating those.

I have an plot effectively 8 x 100 feet, 1/3 down to fruit and utilities. The rest is in a four year rotation and mostly raised beds. Last year (first full productive year) we had just about enough veg for the whole year, not counting carrots or celery. I have grown veg for a long time in my lifetime but had a gap of 11 years to find that I now need to get most stuff under cover, I can`t remember leek moth and the like being so destructive in the past and weather appeared to be more reliable ie alternating warmth and drizzle in aprils gone by

Losses this year have been just about 100% of what looked like a great crop of strawberries, 50% on garlic so far due to rust, 30% on overwintered onions due to too much rain. I have had to put wind breaks up to protect beans and courgettes. Nets on brassicas and on it goes. I am organic but not when it comes to slugs or I would have no crops

I am thinking about factoring value for space next year

It would be impossible to count our produtivity...yes..we loose some too but we don't eat everything we grow anyway..there is always plenty of fruit and berries left behind for bids and other creatures.
Nor do we eat every single veg..not everything keep in storage for long, so those things have to be eaten as they are picked. Things like herbs growth is mostly left for on plant and only few springs used.
Some crops are not eaten at all but left for seed.

In our case only 'calculation' that I'm able to do the result is that we are able to grow enough or most years more than we eat/use...what is not picked/used will return to the land and hopefully add into goodness of the soil to feed future crops.

strawberry1, my garlic gets rust all the time, but it has never harmed the crop? when ready I just brush off the first protective layer and it stores just fine. I am finishing last year's bulbs only now, oK some are starting to turn to dust but I still get a few cloves o ut of every head (i had a few too many last year!). I take no notice of rust on garlic.

goodlife you are right, I try to practise a "what is on the plot stays on the plot" method by composting and allowing everything to rot down, except for dieased matter and potato/tomato plants. Without boasting. my soil is very different to many other plot holders who have a kind of sandy dry soil, mine is very dark, with a lot of organic matter in it and it rarely is bone dry underneath even after a dry spell. If we don't get it to an eating stage, it helps something else to grow later on!

Thanks for the replies I am encouraged, one thing I am diligent about is composting..making it that is everything gets recycled.