How have your crops been this year?

pineapple

I think I now know where Jack and the Beanstalk came from :rotfl:.
Oh how sceptical I was when I constructed my wigwam with the recommended 8 foot canes and planted my puny plants against them. I now have the most amazing edifice of greenery, red blossom and beans. And it's still growing! I've rigged up something along which to try and trail the new growth. Plus with it being in a container the starting height is at least 18 inches above ground level anyway. I need step ladders to reach the top! :eek:

culpepper

runner beans are doing well
French beans have been good this year.
Courgettes did the best
We have 1 pumpkin bigger than a football but no others.
Toms in garden got blight
Toms in greenhouse were a bit puny due to me using too small pots and so not being able to keep them watered adequately
Carrots in greenhouse(in a box) are small but healthy
Carrots in garden are bigger but not very numerous
Brassicas not doing bad but I have to be out every day picking off caterpillars,the brocolli heads have been v.small and the brussel sprout plants are not as tall as usual..
Spuds are quite small but seem to have escaped any blight
Peas did surprisingly well considering they were planted in modules and then transplanted.
Japanese onions were good and big.
Red onions were beginning to get that tube thing going on with their leaves so were harvested and nearly all eaten now.
Shallots were good.
Garlic produced small round single bulbs so have saved those to replant.
Nasturtiums have been colourful (usually plant around beans because the aphids like them)and I discovered that cabbage whites like them too so might see if it is worth planting them around the brassicas next year.

Strawbs were good this year.
Rasps not bad but have been better in other years
Rhubarb seemed a bit weak this year.
Apples have scab and pear tree lost all its blossom

twiglet98

Pretty dire here.

Strawberries looked promising early on, lots of flowers, but most of the fruit went mushy long before it grew big enough to pick.

Blueberries not nearly as prolific as last year, I probably got the pruning wrong.

Raspberries hopeless - I moved them from tubtrugs into the ground, probably at the wrong time, and got the pruning all wrong as usual. Few small berries on the summer varieties, few - but bigger and sweeter - berries on the autumn one. I'll put more autumn raspberries in and give up with the summer ones.

Lettuces demolished by slugs early on, resorted to pellets, subsequent sowings too thick and too infrequent, grew like mad and have bolted.

Dwarf french beans in a container, something has eaten holes in all the leaves but got a couple of helpings of beans. Those left are now too fat and tough.

Sugar snap peas first sowing all failed to germinate, second sowing is a success, picking and eating straight off the plant, and plenty for the kitchen!

Radishes are getting there slowly.

Outdoor cucumbers short, fat and hairy. They don't look nice but taste ok.

Courgettes good, surprisingly most of my seeds failed to germinate but I realise, happily, that two successful plants are plenty! They're in the ground underneath the sweetcorn. Pattypans in a big trough and overcrowded, but a good crop nonetheless.

Sweetcorn not tasted yet, I set out 16 plants in a block and most got eaten by something - pigeons? Rabbits? The six that have grown look good. Next door have 50 full grown plants and last night they were all flattened, presumably by muntjac or maybe badgers. Mine are netted and so far ok apart from earwigs.

Leeks growing well, not ready yet, I haven't grown them before.

Cherry tomatoes in growbags seen to look blighted but some are ripening and taste wonderful.

Kale and purple sprouting broccoli are being systematically demolished by caterpillars despite covering them with netting over hoops. I picked several hundred caterpillars off at the weekend. Not much hope of any broccoli getting to the kitchen, the plants are little more than skeletons, may manage to pick some kale from the two surviving plants.

Massive self-seeded spinach beet is becoming an architectural feature.

Carrots are in a box, covered with fleece, I dare not inspect them. I suspect they are overcrowded and too wet. First time trying them.

Potatoes in the ground and in big trugs all had their foliage demolished by slugs. I haven't looked for any potatoes, should try really as they were second earlies and probably would be ready.

Herbs all good, especially lemon balm. I have a million little lemon balm and feverfew plants growing in all the cracks in the patio Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme... and tarragon, mint, chives and basil all good.

My one pepper plant is looking a bit feeble but another week of sunshine should help.

Apples are always hard and sour from our ancient, starved tree. Mirabelle plums are normally good, for now I'm enjoying next-door's Victorias.

And I still cannot get rhubarb to grow, anywhere in the garden.

System

Tomatoes - 6ft high tomato plants. Loads of leaves but only 2 or 3 trusses on each plant.

Cucumber - Again grew well, loads of leaves but plenty of cucumbers.

Peppers - Not a single pepper and the plants are only 2ft tall! Not worth watering really.

Chillis - Complete and utter failure. Small plants that never grew bigger than 2 ft tall and no chilli's.

Strawberries - Did fairly well but a lot of them went rotten before i picked them.

Grapevine - Has hardly grown at all this year and certainly no grapes.

Rhubarb - Grew well

Beetlemama

Vegetables....

Lettuces - Iceberg were great, been going since October and they're still coming. Round lettuces - not so good, the birds and the slugs took all but one which looks beautiful if lonely.
Carrots - misshapen and slug eaten, the rain dug them up too badly.
Spring onions - Good crop, healthy, hearty and lots.
Main crop potatoes - Pretty good, not as good as last year but we've got a good few all the same.
Cauliflowers - full of holes and no whites yet, keep hoping.
Cabbages - about the same as the cauliflowers.
Beetroot - pretty good - but much better last year.
Parsnips - Terrible, we got about 12 that were usable, the rest rotted in the ground.
Cucumbers - Awful, we planted them out and the next morning they were all gone bar one partialy eaten and broken stemmed one that I have nursed back to health by digging it up and taking it back in to the greenhouse, planted it out when it was much bigger and it's got a few tiddly quekes on it, it'll make some but not many.
Peas - Very nice, Jesse peas and ordinarys all going well.
Beans - Three sorts all going for gold, new beans several times a day, how does that happen?
Sweetcorn - We grew a popcorn variety this year but only two plants survived and there are only three cobs on them...but one is red that's suppose to be lucky.
Bell peppers - Our two plants have made one usable pepper so far, they've got lots of little ones but nothing big enough to pick.

Fruits....

Tomatoes - Lots of leaves and little green fruits but only one red one so far and it was a bit puny.
Rhubarb - stuck a leaf up and decided not to bother.
Apples - Not looking good, the leaves look awful and there's a lot falling off.
Pears - Pretty much like the apples, a lot of small mouldy ones coming off.
Plums - I can't say I've actually seen any....I must look.
Red currants - HUGE crop but we donated the whole lot, three bushes, to the black birds who were desperate for anything to eat when their babies were little. We still had some of last years crop in the freezer.
Blackberries - Nice berries but not very many, won't be making jam this year from the garden, but we've had a few with ice-cream.
Grapes - Well, there are bunches of grapes but they're not doing very much, I don't think it'll be an exciting crop.
Red Gooseberries - Best crop we've had in years.
Strawberries - I think our plant made 6 this year - not awfully impressive but at least it had a go.

Nuts and cereals....

Hazel - Haven't seen a hazelnut at all yet but it's a bit early to go hunting.
Oats, barley and wheat - Did surprisingly well, enough to make two weeks of hay and feed, considering we only planted a few square feet of ground we were quite pleased with how well it did and the chickens were so excited to see real seed heads that they had to get the goodies out of themselves. We'll definitely do that on a bigger scale next year.


Really, at this stage of the game, we are awarding credit to anything that even vaguely tried, its been a terrible growing year and I wouldn't have blamed it at all if nothing had bothered.

The winter lettuces were the absolute star of our show, followed by the beans and the peas. The absolute failures were the parsnips and carrots (I'm not including the cucumbers because they didn't stand a chance.).

btw, if you're not too eager to get it all cleared, leave the carrots in, we left ours and they flowered, they're lovely! I have a vase full of lillys and carrot flowers on my mantle piece, lol

floss2

My first year on my allotment so most things have been experimental....

Spuds - Charlottes were OK - not very many though
spuds - Rooster - fantastic, loads of them so far, 3 plants still to harvest
Chard - really good, some has bolted but just gets cut back down again!
Red onions - all but 6 bolted
Brown onions - lots of big fat ones
Shallots - not many survived the wet weather
Garlic - disappeared!
Beetroot - grown well (and won me 3rd prize in our show!)
Parsnips - doing well
Leeks - getting thicker
Mange-tout - lots, mainly eaten in the car coming home
French beans - lots already picked, lots more still growing
Courgettes - had quite a few, slowing down now
Cucumbers - had loads off (all outside)
Peppers - had about two dozen but they won't ripen
Chillis - small but plentiful
Tomatoes - greenhouse - OK, but all gifted so no ideas what varieties etc
Tomatoes - outside - mainly rotting on the plants due to the damp
Rhubarb - new plant growing happily, not yet harvested
Grapevine - grapes ripening happily
Strawberries - new plants so not very productive this year, what there was were very nice!
Cauli - tiny but tasty
Cabbage - grown well if a bit lacy with magpie holes!
Brocolli - very good
Sweetcorn - half is earwiggy, half is OK

pineapple

Wow, we should have done a chart. Despite variations in soil/location, some trends are showing through.
My tomatoes are the worst. Showing three small tomatoes on two plants so far. The blighted foliage is becoming increasingly manky and I don't think even those three will survive.
If they do they will end up the most expensive tomatoes in the history of tomatoes. :rotfl:

harrys_nan

2nd early potatoes were ok, lost the top growth though,
Strawberries were good if I could get to them before slugs and woodlice,
Rasberries not so good
Ruhbarb brillaint
French beans only had 1 plant survive, threw that away,
peas ditto as french beans,
plums had 3, asked other half to give a gentle prune and now have to buy another one, LOL
apples not good,
Runner beans are taking off now
leeks are coming on a treat
onions had to dump half of them as they bolted and had that thick stem and they didnt feel right
Garlic, well I just dumped the lot
Cauliflower 4 ot of 6 survived but they have been eaten to death now by catapillars
Roll on next year so we can just do it all over again.
On the good side I now have lots and I mean lots of bees enjoying the sun

harrys_nan

forgot tomatoes,
4 in green house lots of green ones, 8 in the garden lots of green ones again, but they are being either eaten or rotting. And I thought I would get to makes lots of pasta sauce

pineapple

Oscargrouch wrote: »

Well, I must say, what an unfriendly thread this is. No one even had the courtesy to respond to my post, even if it was to say 'you have posted this on the wrong thread we do not have the knowledge to answer'; we are only interested in our own 'little world'. Goodbye, I wish you all well.

I was just thinking what a wonderfully friendly thread this was! I'm sure no one was deliberately ignoring you but sometimes on forums comments just get lost/missed. If I had a quid for everytime my posts went without response I'd be rich by now! You need to 'cultivate' a thicker skin.
In this thread people were focussing on posting results and may not even have read the previous posts - which may be another reason your query got missed.
For the record I have no idea what could affect tomato plants quickly. Mine have brown spots then yellowing then wilting but in my case it's a gradual process and is likely tomato blight due to the wet weather.