Windy's Veg Disaster

Hi all,
Well aside from potato blight, my Toms are all yellow leaved and spotty, the wind has taken a basket of cherry tomatoes and snapped my only half decent sweetcorn. The slugs and snails are happily munching their way through everything else :( :( Not sure I'm cut -out for veg growing :( Please tell me it's just been a bad year!!!! :rolleyes: :D :D

 

Hi windy

its been a pants year so far and its my first time growing veg luckly my tats were ok did earlies and pulled them all up before the weather really gave us what for :(

my peas have rotted my beans have been munched by the snails

radishes well i have no idea what they have grown in to :confused:

toms are holding on just about i hid them up a corner

peppers are just falling to bits before my eyes along with the chillis leaves and new buds just dropping all over the place i bought them inside but it seemed i bought 50 snails in with them so threw them back out !

and as for the 1000 of plants i grew with much love just look like a battered soggy sh*t pitt

strawberrys what strawberrys they are refusing to grow

only thing that seems to be no too wazzed off are my spring onions although they are growing very slowly.

im gutted so your not on your own

wish this weather would hurry up and naff off but then again its killed most of my stuff so it can stay for all i care now .

my lawn will be next to go as i get water logged at the best of times (clay) but this is just a joke its well over a foot high and with about 2 inch of water all over :( :( :(

im not giving up though roll on next year or some good weather.

i read in the paper that august was going to be good with lots of sunshine so fingers crossed.

chin up windy

 

Our first attempt at veg growing this year and it's been a disaster. Out tomatoe seedlings died, so we bought some plants, these are now yellow, spotty and dying. ditto half the other stuff, the potatoes are looking OK but I am worried they might rot in the soggy ground, ditto the onions

The garden is like a bog nothing is happy even half my flowers are refusing to flower.

I just put it down to a bad year and try again next year but it is very disheartening. And I am sick of being inside when I should be outside!

 

I'm soooo glad I'm not alone!!! Not that I'm pleased about your disasters..it's just nice to know that the failures aren't entirely my fault!
Just off to plant some purple sprouting broccoli that my friends donated to the 'Prematurely Empty Veg Bed'Fund
Now if I can just keep the slugs and snails away.... :D

 

This is my first year of growing and I feel the same way windy! All of my toms and main crop tattys caught mosaic virus, luckily the potatoes were well developed at the time but the tomatoes didn't make it to fruit.

My lettuce had to be removed before they were completely ready because they began to rot and the slugs were totally unmanageable even though I removed them all by hand every night.

I have a Gogi Berry plant who only has about 4 leaves left but thats wholly my fault as I need to put some sand in the soil.

 

Oh Windy, and all of you.

It's not your fault !

Bad weather does not help new starters, just take it in your stride, count your blessings and start planning next crops/ next years crops.

It's not too late for further planting - my peas i sowed last wednesday are coming up already. I'm potting on Curly Kale to plant out in a couple of weeks, and I only yesterday ordered winter cabbage seeds from Suttons. Its only just July you know !

It doesn't help you now - i know - but the key is in the soil. Drainage, or lack of it, is usually the root cause ( no pun intended ) of poor cropping. Get that right, and everything else WILL follow.

During the recent deluges, my lawn was in places under 2" of water, yet the raised beds were freely draining into the sub soil. Its all down to preperation.

You cant rush soil preperation, it took me about a year to get to the stage I'm at now, and still loads to do.

So come on folks, chin up, and raise a toast to your future successes. You will get some.

 

Just a word here on the benefits of raised beds in wet weather. They do drain better and most of my crops are doing ok - the paths in between the beds are under water but the veggies are relatively dry.
I dont have expensive boards around them either - just the earth piled up on its own (plus the topsoil off the paths).
They do need a bit of re-shaping at the end of the year but other than that they are pretty easy to manage.

 

Hi AG,
A good point made.

My boards were inexpensive - scaffold boards at �£3 each. 13' Long, 9 " Wide , 1 1/2" thick.

Catch my blog update tomorrow!

 

hi folks I picked these cauliflowers this sat. am--




and courgettes

 

Ooh they look lovely Fancy!! I might try cauliflowers next year..... :rolleyes: :D :D

 

Oktraine can I be nosy and ask where you obtained your scaffold planks from.We had some gravel boards priced up earlier this year to make raised beds on our allotment and it was going to cost between �£90-�£111 just to make four of them.We have 30 pole of allotment so it would have cost us a fortune.It would be cheaper to go and buy the veg from the local Supermarket.
Any advice please on Stockist's would be a great help Ta...

Fancy well done lovely vegetables you have there

 

Hi Kandy, no problem !

The scaffold boards I used were purchased from a local scaffolding company. The boards themselves are "condemned" as not fit for purpose, i.e. they are split or cracked etc, and can not be used on a building site due to Health & Safety.

For this reason, the scaffold company simply sell them off for all sorts of things and to all sorts of people.

Probably of no use to you but I got mine from www.islandscaffolding.co.uk , a company based on the Isle of Sheppey. I'm sure there will be companies local to you who would do the same type of deal. This company told me they are covered by insurance for split boards, hence they sell at a nominal value to cover their time in sorting them / and delivery.

In terms of buying timber, I sincerely believe you wont get a better deal than this !

Let me know how you get on !

 

Kandy, the boards cost �£6 each. I got my wood from the woodyard (diy) for four 2 meter lengths and four 1 meter lengths it cost me �£16 untreated wood. I will have 4 more raised beds for the Autum. much easier to control weeds.

 

Windy Miller, cauliflowers are easy to grow just make sure to put netting over the plants to stop the white butterfly from laying its eggs and ruining your caulies.

 

It is such a shame that both experts and amateurs alike are having a rubbish time of it this year. I'm a first time grower too and have just dug up my blighted toms, lettuces run to seed as I planted too many and sugar peas which were covered in a white powder which I assumed was not good. I'm picking at least 2 strawberries a WEEK! and then I'm having to share them with the mice which have nibbled them first.

I've beetroot, runner beans, courgettes and a poor excuse for peppers, but the carrots are coming along now - no fly - and we've had wonderful broccoli which has nearly finished. I don't get slug and snail damage as I don't seem to have any :confused: At least not in the veggie patch.

You would think I had decent weather here, but it hasn't stopped raining since April but at least we are half way up a hill so haven't had the same problems as UK - but the roof leaks

So all in all I've not been put off and at least............ THINGS CAN ONLY GET BETTER!!

P.S. My rhubarb is enormous but it is its first year and someone said not to pick any. Is that true and if so, why?