Broad beans - good
Runner beans - awful (slugged to nothing)
French beans - awful (slugged to nothing)

Courgettes - awful (slugged to nothing
Pumpkins - awful (slugged to nothing)
Butternut - awful (slugged to nothing)
Patty pans - poor (mostly slugged, 1 plant survived to produce a late fruit)
Peas - ok (would have been better if we'd stayed on top of picking!)
Mange tout - ok (ditto as peas - had some nice purple ones)

Carrots - awful (slugged to nothing)
Onion - ok (significant amount of white rot)
Leeks - ok (going well, hard to call atm)

Potatoes - ok (but mostly still underground as it has been too hard to dig!)
Tomatoes - really good (indoor and out, mostly still going strong)

Chard - very good (first year, looks like we have more than we can ever eat!)

Raspberries - very good (best year for these ones yet)
Strawberries - hit and miss
Blackcurrants - poor (were goign well, then shrivelled on the stem!)
Whitecurrants - good (young plant, but best year yet)
Redcurrants - very good (still picking them!)
Gooseberries - poor (few and far between, although the ones we got were good)
Apples - so-so (nice, but not a heavy crop)

Probably missed loads of stuff.

On 01/10/2012 10:41, wrote:
Broad beans - good
Runner beans - awful (slugged to nothing)
French beans - awful (slugged to nothing)

Courgettes - awful (slugged to nothing
Pumpkins - awful (slugged to nothing)
Butternut - awful (slugged to nothing)
Patty pans - poor (mostly slugged, 1 plant survived to produce a late fruit)
Peas - ok (would have been better if we'd stayed on top of picking!)
Mange tout - ok (ditto as peas - had some nice purple ones)

Carrots - awful (slugged to nothing)
Onion - ok (significant amount of white rot)
Leeks - ok (going well, hard to call atm)

Potatoes - ok (but mostly still underground as it has been too hard to dig!)
Tomatoes - really good (indoor and out, mostly still going strong)

Chard - very good (first year, looks like we have more than we can ever eat!)

Raspberries - very good (best year for these ones yet)
Strawberries - hit and miss
Blackcurrants - poor (were goign well, then shrivelled on the stem!)
Whitecurrants - good (young plant, but best year yet)
Redcurrants - very good (still picking them!)
Gooseberries - poor (few and far between, although the ones we got were good)
Apples - so-so (nice, but not a heavy crop)

Probably missed loads of stuff.



We grow relatively little veg and, due to the late spring, less than
usual, so no tomatoes. Otherwise:

Potatoes:
Arran Pilot 1st Early - grown in pots. Good, tasty crop
King Edward Main Crop - grown in ground. Modest crop. Small pots. Poor
flavour.

Runner beans, Enorma - started 24 in pots. Lost most to cold, damp
weather. Planted six! :~(( Three or four made passable plants. Very
few beans. Already pulled them up.

Rhubarb Victoria - Great stuff, even though I forgot to feed this
year. Picked rather conservatively because of this.

Plum Victoria - Grown as espalier. Reasonable amount of
blossom despite cold start. Few fruit set. All scoffed by squirrel.

Crab Apple Montreal Beauty - hardly any fruit; all dropped early.
Didn't mind too much, as it allowed me to prune the tree properly.

--
Spider
from high ground in SE London
gardening on clay

On 01/10/2012 12:53, Spider wrote:
On 01/10/2012 10:41, wrote:
Broad beans - good
Runner beans - awful (slugged to nothing)
French beans - awful (slugged to nothing)

Courgettes - awful (slugged to nothing
Pumpkins - awful (slugged to nothing)
Butternut - awful (slugged to nothing)
Patty pans - poor (mostly slugged, 1 plant survived to produce a late
fruit)
Peas - ok (would have been better if we'd stayed on top of picking!)
Mange tout - ok (ditto as peas - had some nice purple ones)

Carrots - awful (slugged to nothing)
Onion - ok (significant amount of white rot)
Leeks - ok (going well, hard to call atm)

Potatoes - ok (but mostly still underground as it has been too hard to
dig!)
Tomatoes - really good (indoor and out, mostly still going strong)

Chard - very good (first year, looks like we have more than we can
ever eat!)

Raspberries - very good (best year for these ones yet)
Strawberries - hit and miss
Blackcurrants - poor (were goign well, then shrivelled on the stem!)
Whitecurrants - good (young plant, but best year yet)
Redcurrants - very good (still picking them!)
Gooseberries - poor (few and far between, although the ones we got
were good)
Apples - so-so (nice, but not a heavy crop)

Probably missed loads of stuff.



We grow relatively little veg and, due to the late spring, less than
usual, so no tomatoes. Otherwise:

Potatoes:
Arran Pilot 1st Early - grown in pots. Good, tasty crop
King Edward Main Crop - grown in ground. Modest crop. Small pots. Poor
flavour.

Runner beans, Enorma - started 24 in pots. Lost most to cold, damp
weather. Planted six! :~(( Three or four made passable plants. Very few
beans. Already pulled them up.

Rhubarb Victoria - Great stuff, even though I forgot to feed this year.
Picked rather conservatively because of this.

Plum Victoria - Grown as espalier. Reasonable amount of blossom despite
cold start. Few fruit set. All scoffed by squirrel.

Crab Apple Montreal Beauty - hardly any fruit; all dropped early. Didn't
mind too much, as it allowed me to prune the tree properly.


Sorry to answer my own thread, but forgot one tree:
Loquat - despite some autumn 2011 blossom, no fruit set. Will be
checking for this year's blossom soon.

--
Spider
from high ground in SE London
gardening on clay

On 1 Oct 2012 09:41:18 GMT, wrote:

[veg bit pruned coz no veg here now].


Raspberries - very good (best year for these ones yet)
Really good crop, as usual.

Strawberries - hit and miss
Total of 24 plants, cropping beautifully. Still picking and fruit
still developing. Have a squirrel trying to beat the netting but so
far he's been defeated.

Blackcurrants - poor (were goign well, then shrivelled on the stem!)
Reasonable crop given it's the bush's first fruiting year.

Apples - so-so (nice, but not a heavy crop)
A single, small apple

Plus:

Plums - not expecting any as it's a new tree but the tree has grown
nicely and is about to be netted to protect the buds from resident
bird population.

Pears - zilch.

Blueberries - zilch (they were "guaranteed" to fruit this year)

Cherries - a decent crop from what was a freebie little twig last year
(and I wasn't sure what it was until it fruited this year, still don't
know what variety it is). Morello cherry tree has snuffed it.

Grapes - plenty of little bunches on red vine but they have not
developed. Nothing on green vine. Last year the red didn't fruit at
all but the green gave us about half-a-dozen lovely sweet bunches.

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

Jake wrote:
Grapes - plenty of little bunches on red vine but they have not
developed. Nothing on green vine. Last year the red didn't fruit at
all but the green gave us about half-a-dozen lovely sweet bunches.

Oh, I forgot the grapes. We had a really good crop of black grapes
against hte kitchen wall, and I went to Champneys for the weekend and
Nick didn't pick them and when I got back the birds had had them all.
:'(

On Monday, October 1, 2012 10:41:19 AM UTC+1, (unknown) wrote:

Broad beans - good

Probably missed loads of stuff.


Blackberry: exceptional bumper crop
Elder: excellent crop
Nettle: great crop as usual
Hawthorn: less than usual
Redcurrant: good crop
Rose: good crop
Chives: usual yield, but tasteless
Passionfruit: no fruit
Grape: great yield
Mulberry: heavy yield
Pear: near zero
Aluminium cans: yield as usual
Stainless steel cookwa yield of one, more than average
Garlic: not much activity
Basil: great yield
Mint: good as always
Hops: good


NT

Broad beans - Nice plants, sparse crop - Poor polination?
Runner beans - Good best I have grown in a long time.
French beans - climers poor, dwarf virtually yield free!)
Courgettes - failed - cold/wet/slugs
Peas - ok (good early crop)
Onion - ok (smaller than normal)
Tomatoes - really bad. Cold slow start, early blight
Chard - Most bolted early, some still cropping ligh
Beetroot - small poor, in fact lousey.
Kale - Russian red - excellent
Black kale - very good
Garlic - very tiny bulbs - excellent flavour though.
Parsnips - rubbish

Most of the veg seems to have hated the cold wet weather.
This is true of the flowers too. Begonias and pelargoniums have had the
blooms rotting from rain damage. Same is true to a lesser extent for
many of the flowers, those that survived past the seedling stage and the
marauding slugs encouraged by the wet weather.

Racking my brain to find a positive note on which to close, I can say
that I have not needed to top up the pond level a lot this year.

Al.

"Alan (BigAl)" wrote:
Chard - Most bolted early, some still cropping ligh

I wonder if my success with these is because they were in root trainers
and left in the greenhouse until nearly dead, then planted out waaaaay
too late, and now they're really going for it cos they think they have
escaped? :-D

Kale - Russian red - excellent
Black kale - very good

I have only had the kale out for a month or so! All my brassicas were
really really late this year. I'm not holding my breath, but Iw ould
really like a good sprout crop this year. Last year was a total failure.

Garlic - very tiny bulbs - excellent flavour though.

Forgot my garlic. I have a tights leg of it in the summer house. It's
starting to sprout already, though. :-(

Parsnips - rubbish

Not picked any yet, but the onion patch was totally parsnipped over by
the seed from next door!

On 01/10/2012 16:01, wrote:
"Alan (BigAl)" wrote:
Chard - Most bolted early, some still cropping ligh

I wonder if my success with these is because they were in root trainers
and left in the greenhouse until nearly dead, then planted out waaaaay
too late, and now they're really going for it cos they think they have
escaped? :-D

I did exactly the same thing and delayed putting them out because of the
foul weather, and I was blaming that for the failure.
Not a total loss though. Will be having some with tea in a bit.

Al

wrote:

Broad beans - good
Runner beans - awful (slugged to nothing)
French beans - awful (slugged to nothing)

Courgettes - awful (slugged to nothing
Pumpkins - awful (slugged to nothing)
Butternut - awful (slugged to nothing)
Patty pans - poor (mostly slugged, 1 plant survived to produce a late
fruit) Peas - ok (would have been better if we'd stayed on top of
picking!) Mange tout - ok (ditto as peas - had some nice purple ones)

Carrots - awful (slugged to nothing)
Onion - ok (significant amount of white rot)
Leeks - ok (going well, hard to call atm)

This was my first year of growing more than just a couple of tomato
plants and despite it being a difficult year, some worked out better
than others.

I've only got a small area of the back garden to utilise so was limited
in what I could try but decided to plant a small number of various
vegetables and see how each fared.

Because of the weather (and because I don't have a greenhouse, and I
don't really know what I'm doing yet) I mainly bought small plants from
the garden centre to get me going. As I get a bit more practiced I'd
like to start more from seed.

Runner beans: given half a dozen beans by my dad (from his last year's
crop) they all did OK. I ended up giving plenty away as there were too
many for the two of us. Geting towards the end now, but still got some
to go.

Courgettes: accidentally had four plants instead of two (see broad
beans, below). I didn't realise they got so big so two of them got a
overshadowed by the ones at the front so didn't do as well. All in
all, too many courgettes and again, gave loads away.

Tomatoes: only had three outdoor plants, only one of which fruited well
but I had to take the toms off whilst still green and let them ripen on
the windowsill as the plants themselves were getting a bit "tired" and
couldn't take the weight.

Butternut Squash: from two plants, I've actually got a total of two
squashes. One is still quite small but orange-y and the other is tiny
and still green, so I'm not sure whether it'll ever amount to much.

Broad beans: didn't grow any. I accidentally bought two extra
courgette plants which had been mis-labeled as broad beans. I did say
I was a novice! For next year, I have already bought a packet and will
plant them November-ish for over-wintering and see how it goes.

Peas: nothing. Planted a dwarf variety but despite them flowering
well, they never amounted to anything.

Carrots: one of the few I tried from seed. Absolutely nothing. I'm
not sure whether they were slugged or just never really germinated but
there was nothing so much as a green shoot.

I have to admit that I've quite enjoyed the experience of trying to
grow veg, however frustrating it got this year. I'll probably try a
similar mix next year and hopefully improve on this year's haul.

--
Chris

CT wrote:
Courgettes: accidentally had four plants instead of two (see broad
beans, below). I didn't realise they got so big so two of them got a
overshadowed by the ones at the front so didn't do as well. All in
all, too many courgettes and again, gave loads away.

What variety were they? I find Green Bush are usually the best behaved
for various reasons (but not this year!!)

wrote:

CT wrote:
Courgettes: accidentally had four plants instead of two (see broad
beans, below). I didn't realise they got so big so two of them got
a overshadowed by the ones at the front so didn't do as well. All
in all, too many courgettes and again, gave loads away.

What variety were they? I find Green Bush are usually the best
behaved for various reasons (but not this year!!)

Early Gem[1] & Goldrush F1. The Early Gem did slightly better than the
Goldrush.

[1] Assuming that the one that were marked as broad beans were the same
variety as the ones that were labaled correctly.

--
Chris

CT wrote:
Courgettes: accidentally had four plants instead of two (see broad
beans, below). I didn't realise they got so big so two of them got
a overshadowed by the ones at the front so didn't do as well. All
in all, too many courgettes and again, gave loads away.

What variety were they? I find Green Bush are usually the best
behaved for various reasons (but not this year!!)

Early Gem[1] & Goldrush F1. The Early Gem did slightly better than the
Goldrush.

[1] Assuming that the one that were marked as broad beans were the same
variety as the ones that were labaled correctly.

Goldrush are yellow, yes? I've always found yellow ones much less reliable.
Are early gem round rather than long?

wrote:

Goldrush are yellow, yes? I've always found yellow ones much less
reliable.

They are yellow, yes. They were slightly behind the early gems in
terms of size & number but generally OK.

Are early gem round rather than long?

No, they're normal ones. Some were left a bit too long and were more
like marrows.

--
Chris

CT wrote:
Butternut Squash: from two plants, I've actually got a total of two
squashes. One is still quite small but orange-y and the other is tiny
and still green, so I'm not sure whether it'll ever amount to much.

Leave hte green one to ripen, even up to the point where the plant looks
totally dead. Turn it if you can without breaking it off (like you do with
a pumpkin)