Over the last few weeks I have seen lots of contented gardeners who had
given up all hope of a plate of vegetables. Now in August have a bit of a
crop.
Runner beans seem to be the best. Followed by courgettes and some of the
brassicas.
Onions, shallotes a big no.
Potatoes a big no no.
Tomatoes are a bit iffy, indoors or out.
Sweetcorn ok but very small and tender. Just too small.

Baz

"Baz" wrote in message
...
Over the last few weeks I have seen lots of contented gardeners who had
given up all hope of a plate of vegetables. Now in August have a bit of a
crop.
Runner beans seem to be the best. Followed by courgettes and some of the
brassicas.
Onions, shallotes a big no.
Potatoes a big no no.
Tomatoes are a bit iffy, indoors or out.
Sweetcorn ok but very small and tender. Just too small.

Glad you got at least some.

Tina

"Christina Websell" wrote
"Baz" wrote in message
Over the last few weeks I have seen lots of contented gardeners who
had given up all hope of a plate of vegetables. Now in August have a
bit of a crop.
Runner beans seem to be the best. Followed by courgettes and some of
the brassicas.
Onions, shallotes a big no.
Potatoes a big no no.
Tomatoes are a bit iffy, indoors or out.
Sweetcorn ok but very small and tender. Just too small.

Glad you got at least some.

Hopefully you'll still some decent veg, Baz.

My runners have done well too, after a slow start.
Purple sprouting broccoli was going great guns... then suddenly some of
them have wilted and lost lower leaves and look very iffy. I suspect
cabbage root fly might have got them.

--
Sue

Baz wrote:
Runner beans seem to be the best. Followed by courgettes and some of the
brassicas.
Onions, shallotes a big no.
Potatoes a big no no.
Tomatoes are a bit iffy, indoors or out.
Sweetcorn ok but very small and tender. Just too small.

That is the complete opposite to me, except for the sweetcorn. We ate
our first 2 sweetcorn at the weekend cos we had to pick 2 for the show
(2nd out of only 1 entry!), and they were ok, but nowhere near ready!
My onions and potatoes are ok, and my tomatoes are doing great (under
glass, I don't do them on the plot). runner beans and courgettes and
brassicas are all terrible

wrote in
:

Baz wrote:
Runner beans seem to be the best. Followed by courgettes and some of
the brassicas.
Onions, shallotes a big no.
Potatoes a big no no.
Tomatoes are a bit iffy, indoors or out.
Sweetcorn ok but very small and tender. Just too small.

That is the complete opposite to me, except for the sweetcorn. We ate
our first 2 sweetcorn at the weekend cos we had to pick 2 for the show
(2nd out of only 1 entry!), and they were ok, but nowhere near ready!
My onions and potatoes are ok, and my tomatoes are doing great (under
glass, I don't do them on the plot). runner beans and courgettes and
brassicas are all terrible

I should have said that despite the poor weather some things are doing
better than others, altogether a very poor performance across the range of
veg.

Strawberries have been scorchers around here in any circumstances!

Good luck for the rest of the year.
Baz

"Baz" wrote

Over the last few weeks I have seen lots of contented gardeners who had
given up all hope of a plate of vegetables. Now in August have a bit of a
crop.
Runner beans seem to be the best. Followed by courgettes and some of the
brassicas.
Onions, shallotes a big no.
Potatoes a big no no.
Tomatoes are a bit iffy, indoors or out.
Sweetcorn ok but very small and tender. Just too small.


Well we felt like that too especially when the potatoes and tomatoes got
Blight so early.
We have had an excellent year for Garlic, Shallots and Onions, as good as
it's ever been.
Runner and French beans are cropping well now, we have even put some runners
back on the compost heap as so many people (ethnically non-Brit) don't know
what they are you can't give them away. Amazingly we have also come across
two Brit families that don't know what French Beans are this year.
Regarding Tomatoes, we usually only grow two Blight resistant varieties,
Ferline and Fantasio but this year I had some free seeds of "Black Russian"
and "Cherry" so put some in, nothing to lose. All grown outside on the plot
over 50% of the resistant ones have eventually died of Blight but we have
only lost two of the others. Never had those resistant varieties ever die of
blight before and they have all also been sprayed with Bordeaux Mixture.
Gave up growing Sweet Corn when we realised we just didn't eat it as it
crops too late for the BBQ season (remember those!)


--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK

Baz wrote:
I should have said that despite the poor weather some things are doing
better than others, altogether a very poor performance across the range of
veg.

My broad beans have done better than ever

Strawberries have been scorchers around here in any circumstances!

Our strawberries were iffy, but we moved them, so it's understandable.
The raspberries and currants are/were both good, though

Bob Hobden wrote:
Well we felt like that too especially when the potatoes and tomatoes got
Blight so early.

We've had what looked like a few leaves going that way in the greenhouse,
but last year was worse. Last year we lost half the greenhouse to blight
really early on!

We have had an excellent year for Garlic, Shallots and Onions, as good as
it's ever been.

Our onions were doing well until the parsnips seeded all over them. :-(
Having said that, the Accidental Parsnips seem to be growing well (although
I have no idea what htye're like underneath)

"Sue" wrote in message
o.uk...

"Christina Websell" wrote
"Baz" wrote in message
Over the last few weeks I have seen lots of contented gardeners who
had given up all hope of a plate of vegetables. Now in August have a
bit of a crop.
Runner beans seem to be the best. Followed by courgettes and some of
the brassicas.
Onions, shallotes a big no.
Potatoes a big no no.
Tomatoes are a bit iffy, indoors or out.
Sweetcorn ok but very small and tender. Just too small.

Glad you got at least some.

Hopefully you'll still some decent veg, Baz.

My runners have done well too, after a slow start.
Purple sprouting broccoli was going great guns... then suddenly some of
them have wilted and lost lower leaves and look very iffy. I suspect
cabbage root fly might have got them.
--
that's bad ;-(
The runner beans we planted over the trench filled with chicken muck and
newspaper are so far ahead of the ones we didn't it's unbelievable. Let's
call them 1 & 2.
1 (with the trench) has deep green leaves, covering all the canes so you
cannot see the beans unless you search for them. It's cropping well.
2. Without the trench is well behind. the leaves are yellower and it does
not cover the canes. There are some beans on it to pick but not many, lots
of flowers, so I might pick this one later than 1.
It could be an advantage to get runner beans plants later than others.
It was an experiment.
I knew the ones over the trench would romp away and the other ones wouldn't
do as well.

"Christina Websell" wrote
"Sue" wrote

My runners have done well too, after a slow start.
Purple sprouting broccoli was going great guns... then suddenly some
of them have wilted and lost lower leaves and look very iffy. I
suspect cabbage root fly might have got them.
--
that's bad ;-(

There's always something! Entirely my own fault I think; in the effort
to protect against pigeons and butterflies, collars around the stems
were forgotten about. You live and learn. Only need to survive til 102
and I could have the know-how to have super broccoli... but be too
ancient to grow any. At least I didn't have floods to contend with
like poor Baz.

The runner beans we planted over the trench filled with chicken muck
and newspaper are so far ahead of the ones we didn't it's
unbelievable. Let's call them 1 & 2.
1 (with the trench) has deep green leaves, covering all the canes so
you cannot see the beans unless you search for them. It's cropping
well.
2. Without the trench is well behind. the leaves are yellower and it
does not cover the canes. There are some beans on it to pick but not
many, lots of flowers, so I might pick this one later than 1.
It could be an advantage to get runner beans plants later than others.
It was an experiment.
I knew the ones over the trench would romp away and the other ones
wouldn't do as well.

I'm often planting out runners later than our neighbours and thinking
I'm way behind, but we generally do get a decent crop anyway. So it'd be
worth having some later ones to spread out the picking.
It's not until there are too many strong winds in autumn and they get
bashed about that the plants suffer and then it's all over - but by then
we've had far too many and are secretly glad to see the back of them! I
start mine off in pots now because I found, when I direct planted,
something got into many of the beans before they'd sprouted and they
rotted off.

--
Sue

"Sue" wrote in message
o.uk...

"Christina Websell" wrote
"Sue" wrote

My runners have done well too, after a slow start.
Purple sprouting broccoli was going great guns... then suddenly some
of them have wilted and lost lower leaves and look very iffy. I
suspect cabbage root fly might have got them.
--
that's bad ;-(

There's always something! Entirely my own fault I think; in the effort
to protect against pigeons and butterflies, collars around the stems were
forgotten about. You live and learn. Only need to survive til 102 and I
could have the know-how to have super broccoli... but be too ancient to
grow any. At least I didn't have floods to contend with like poor Baz.

The runner beans we planted over the trench filled with chicken muck
and newspaper are so far ahead of the ones we didn't it's
unbelievable. Let's call them 1 & 2.
1 (with the trench) has deep green leaves, covering all the canes so
you cannot see the beans unless you search for them. It's cropping
well.
2. Without the trench is well behind. the leaves are yellower and it
does not cover the canes. There are some beans on it to pick but not
many, lots of flowers, so I might pick this one later than 1.
It could be an advantage to get runner beans plants later than others.
It was an experiment.
I knew the ones over the trench would romp away and the other ones
wouldn't do as well.

I'm often planting out runners later than our neighbours and thinking
I'm way behind, but we generally do get a decent crop anyway. So it'd be
worth having some later ones to spread out the picking.
It's not until there are too many strong winds in autumn and they get
bashed about that the plants suffer and then it's all over - but by then
we've had far too many and are secretly glad to see the back of them! I
start mine off in pots now because I found, when I direct planted,
something got into many of the beans before they'd sprouted and they
rotted off.

I always love runner beans. I slice them like my grandmother did and put
them in bags in one portion and freeze, get them out for Christmas Day.
My grandfather used to salt them. It was his gift to us for Christmas, a
jar of salted runner beans each.
Remember the war :-(