I don't know if it can be blamed on the weather but here's my report:

Pear trees (2): Hardly any pears
Plum trees (3): Hardly any plums
Apples: Doing okay
Red currants: Much reduced crop
Strawberries: Disappointing, down by a half.


Slugs: bumper crop!


Anybody else experiencing similar?


mark

In article ,
mark wrote:


I don't know if it can be blamed on the weather but here's my report:

Pear trees (2): Hardly any pears
Plum trees (3): Hardly any plums
Apples: Doing okay

That was probably the late frost. Apples flower later. I don't
know about pears.

Red currants: Much reduced crop

Mine were good - no blackcurrants, though.

Strawberries: Disappointing, down by a half.

Mine were OK, but a bit watery and slug-ridden.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

mark wrote:
I don't know if it can be blamed on the weather but here's my report:

Pear trees (2): Hardly any pears
Plum trees (3): Hardly any plums
Apples: Doing okay
Red currants: Much reduced crop
Strawberries: Disappointing, down by a half.

Slugs: bumper crop!

Anybody else experiencing similar?

Plum tree: absolutely nothing
Cherry tree: absolutely nothing
Apples: mixed, dessert apples seem to be ok, cooking apples are almost
non-existant, but this may be a problem with one old tree.
Red/white/blackcurrants: all doing extremely well
Gooseberries: not bad, the early ones were huge but not big crop,
the later red ones are still ripening but look fairly well cropped.
Strawberries: hit and miss, but we didn't treat them well this year, so
hardly surprising.

Slugs: Bloody millions. :-( Got the nemetodes out now, finally, but
so far they've completely killed off 3 separate plantings of beans
(crawling right up the poles and munching the whole damned lot)

On Wed, 25 Jul 2012 mark wrote:

I don't know if it can be blamed on the weather but here's my report:

Pear trees (2): Hardly any pears

Ditto.

Plum trees (3): Hardly any plums

Ditto but the greengages are doing all right. And last year I missed the
crop through it ripening a good two to three weeks early.

Cherries: very little

Apples: Doing okay

A lot of my eating apples are rotting on the trees. Haven't checked the
cider apples yet.

Red currants: Much reduced crop

Ditto - and the birds have stripped what there was. Strange, because
they normally leave them alone in my garden.

Blackcurrants and gooseberries have done well even though the bushes are
young.

Strawberries: Disappointing, down by a half.

Alpines have done extremely well.

I have a twenty-year-old black mulberry. For the first time most of the
fruit withered instead of developing.

Slugs: bumper crop!

Ditto. Some VERY large ones seen! Which reminds me, we've seen thrushes
for the first time in a few years attacking the snails.

The above refer to my gardens in southern England and in Normandy where
the weather is very similar.

David

--
David Rance writing from Caversham, Reading, UK
http://rance.org.uk

On 25/07/2012 08:51, mark wrote:
I don't know if it can be blamed on the weather but here's my report:

Pear trees (2): Hardly any pears
Plum trees (3): Hardly any plums

No pears at all, few plums. Both normally very productive.

Apples: Doing okay

Some apples - but 10% of a normal year.

Red currants: Much reduced crop

Black currants are only just coming ripe - not so many either.
(usually over by first week July)

Strawberries: Disappointing, down by a half.

Strawberries and blueberries are OK. One blueberry bush has no fruit.

Slugs: bumper crop!

Add snails to that. I had to replant new bedding plants as the slugs &
snails had completely devoured them (and all the slug pellets as well).

Anybody else experiencing similar?

Only plus side is the hanging baskets don't need watering so often.

Tomatoes are struggling, early lettuces bolted before there were any
warm salad days to eat them. Onions look small, weeds look big.

Courgette plants are refusing point blank to grow at all!

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

"mark" wrote in message
o.uk...


I don't know if it can be blamed on the weather but here's my report:

Pear trees (2): Hardly any pears
Plum trees (3): Hardly any plums
Apples: Doing okay
Red currants: Much reduced crop
Strawberries: Disappointing, down by a half.


Slugs: bumper crop!


Anybody else experiencing similar?


mark

Very weather related
One plum loaded as it flowered during a brief few days of fine weather the
Damson next to it flowered 10 days later and has hardly any fruit.

Gooseberries loaded , Blackcurrants hardly any
No straw berries at all
Loganberries good, Blackberry loaded
Pears poor, apples 50% poor 50% loaded
Medlar loaded, Quince almost none.

Don't mention Rhubarb, sick of the stuff, been pulling since late January
and its still huge

--
Charlie, Gardening in Cornwall
Holders of National Collections of Clematis viticella
and Lapageria rosea cvs
http://www.roselandhouse.co.uk

David Rance wrote:
A lot of my eating apples are rotting on the trees. Haven't checked the
cider apples yet.

Didn't think to check that, I shall investigate. (the Really Nice Apple
Tree is a communal one on the allotment)

Red currants: Much reduced crop
Ditto - and the birds have stripped what there was. Strange, because
they normally leave them alone in my garden.

Ha! That is because I covered mine for the first time, so they've obviously
gone to you cos they're hungry. :-)

On 25/07/2012 10:44, Charlie Pridham wrote:

"mark" wrote in message
o.uk...


I don't know if it can be blamed on the weather but here's my report:

Pear trees (2): Hardly any pears
Plum trees (3): Hardly any plums
Apples: Doing okay
Red currants: Much reduced crop
Strawberries: Disappointing, down by a half.


Slugs: bumper crop!


Anybody else experiencing similar?


mark

Very weather related
One plum loaded as it flowered during a brief few days of fine weather
the Damson next to it flowered 10 days later and has hardly any fruit.

Gooseberries loaded , Blackcurrants hardly any
No straw berries at all
Loganberries good, Blackberry loaded
Pears poor, apples 50% poor 50% loaded
Medlar loaded, Quince almost none.

Don't mention Rhubarb, sick of the stuff, been pulling since late
January and its still huge

Apples very poor, pears poor, strawberries dead in the water,Damsons
total of three fruit, raspberries since the three days or so of sun have
come on leaps and bounds with no mildew now. Rhubarb, loads, but ok with
this family, we could live on it! Read recently that the wet weather has
done wonders and brought the buds on enormously on the hard fruit, so
with a lucky warmer Spring we may have a good year in 2013. Bound to be
better than this year as the Olympics will have been and gone! ;-))

--
Residing on low ground in North Staffordshire

On Wed, 25 Jul 2012 08:51:20 +0100, "mark"
wrote:



I don't know if it can be blamed on the weather but here's my report:

Pear trees (2): Hardly any pears
Nothing on either of my 2 trees

Plum trees (3): Hardly any plums
Plum tree's new so didn't expect anything this year

Apples: Doing okay
I have a grand total of 2 apples between 5 trees

Red currants: Much reduced crop
Don't grow them but blackcurrants and blueberries cropping well.

Strawberries: Disappointing, down by a half.
Cropping really well but I suspect that's because I'm growing them in
tower contraptions rather than on the ground so they don't get
waterlogged and have plenty of air around them.

Raspberries are cropping really well too.

Slugs: bumper crop!
Lost a couple of dahlias but generally not a problem thanks to
hedgehogs, toads, frogs, nematodes and a nightly foray with a bucket
of salt water.


Anybody else experiencing similar?


mark


Cheers, Jake
=======================================
Urgling from the East End of Swansea Bay where sometimes
it's raining and sometimes it's not.

Oh, yes. No gooseberries at all. Plenty of rhubarb, but the deal
is that my wife has to eat or give away any she picks - I can't
stand the stuff.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On 25/07/2012 11:17, wrote:
Oh, yes. No gooseberries at all. Plenty of rhubarb, but the deal

Snap. Is that actually no gooseberries or no decent ones?
Mine succumbed to American mildew very badly but there are plenty of
berries it is just that they are scarred ugly brown things that split.

is that my wife has to eat or give away any she picks - I can't
stand the stuff.

Rhubarb isn't all that bad in small doses. First "fruit" of the season.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

In article ,
Martin Brown wrote:

Oh, yes. No gooseberries at all. Plenty of rhubarb, but the deal

Snap. Is that actually no gooseberries or no decent ones?
Mine succumbed to American mildew very badly but there are plenty of
berries it is just that they are scarred ugly brown things that split.

No mildew. No set.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On 25/07/2012 12:20, wrote:
In article ,
Martin Brown wrote:

Oh, yes. No gooseberries at all. Plenty of rhubarb, but the deal

Snap. Is that actually no gooseberries or no decent ones?
Mine succumbed to American mildew very badly but there are plenty of
berries it is just that they are scarred ugly brown things that split.

No mildew. No set.

Most of the things that have failed to set fruit at all were in flower
during a cold snap. I guess this is the same reason why our local tame
beekeeper has several hives with no queen at the moment. The conditions
have been awful and the new queens died without doing a mating flight.

I can count the number of butterflies I have seen this year on the
fingers of one hand. This is not good. My garden is full of high nectar
plants but there are almost no butteflies left to take advantage.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

Clearly it can be blamed on the weather. Too dry and hot too soon, encouraged early flowering, but drought caused young leaves and flowers to shrivel up in some cases. Then it was too cold in April for good fruit set. One of my apple trees has a reasonable amount of fruit on it, but the other two have little. And no pears, and few plums.

One surprising beneficiary has been my grapevine. It was delayed from flowering or even coming into leaf during April, then produced huge quantities of leaves and flower buds in May, eventually the flower buds opened only in July and I got huge fruit set, probably over 50 bunches. In fact I've been thinning them out, and cutting back leaves to expose the developing bunches to the sun. If it stays reasonably warm, we'll have a lot of grapes.

The blueberries have been happy.

On 25/07/2012 08:51, mark wrote:
I don't know if it can be blamed on the weather but here's my report:

Pear trees (2): Hardly any pears
Plum trees (3): Hardly any plums

none to speak of, after a bumper crop last year

Apples: Doing okay

ditto for Cox and James Grieve, but the Bramley that gave us a wonderful
harvest last year has set just 3 fruit.

Red currants: Much reduced crop

Black currants one variety loaded the other bare.

Strawberries: Disappointing, down by a half.

10 misshapen fruit out of the entire row. Lousey pollination, and many
rotted off. The ones that did develop well were taken or ruined by mice,
before they were fully ripe.
The mice had stripped 2 or 3 of the goosegog bushes too, before I
realised it.

Set traps, and have caught 20 mice so far. (given up now - no more fruit
for them to pinch).;


Slugs: bumper crop!

Amazing plague of slugs! I have tried for about 10 years to live in
harmony with the wildlife in the garden. I have a large pond and
actively encourage the frogs and newts etc. I leave areas of the garden
suitable for hedgehogs and small beasts to live in peace.
This year, the mice and the slugs have driven me to revise my approach.
Traps and slug pellets have been deployed with only limited success.

I have put in seedlings and they have been eaten off in a few hours!

Neither I nor the neighbour have seen an increase in snails though.
Anyone else find this odd, or are we exceptional?

One bright note, I have been seen chasing around the garden like a
loonie, driving off the cabbage whites, that have just appeared. At
least this means we have some sun instead of persistant rain.

Al.