Weird

[Colin Miles]

The only way to describe this growing season. Saw a white-tail bumblebee yesterday - and a bee somehow found its way into the house - trying to escape the heat?

Some of the apple trees have their leaves browning at the edges and also seem to have decided that it is time for the June drop.

The Crown Prince/Invincible Squash have taken off, with a bit of encouragement by way of foliar feeding. But close inspection reveals an absolute profusion of female flowers and no males -well as far as I can tell they seem to have rotted. Complete opposite of last year. Any thoughts?

Runners look happier but still haven't reached the top of their poles - a few flowers in evidence but I fear that without pollinators...

Following on from an earlier post about Charlotte yield, I emailed Alan Romans as below. Have just dug up some more - very disappointing in numbers and size. I would add that I really do have an unusually large number of fruits on my Charlottes. On a positive note I do have a Ringlet butterfly in the veg patch.

Hi Alan,3 years ago(!) you gave me the information below, which I religiously pass on to KG members and others. However, this year it is the open ground Charlottes which are giving us cause for concern, yielding very few tubers and not that big either. And we don't think it is due to the early drought as many were planted just before, or even after that. What I have noticed looking at my crop today, is that there are far more fruit than normal. I am wondering if the wet combined with distinctly lower temperatures and lack of sunshine aused the plants to think about seeds rather than tubers?
Any thoughts welcome.

Hi, This is complex and would need a very long email to cover possibilities – sorry I’m under a bit of pressure at the moment. Flowers seeds etc story sounds good but in practice is very unlikely – plenty of varieties produce masses of seed and tubers. I would suspect eelworm – potato cyst nematode although incredibly poor growing conditions must be a factor. Google for symptoms – Charlotte is susceptible. Regards, Alan Romans

[alan refail]

And in the end it's all turning out even worse than I anticipated a month and a half ago. The first planting of courgettes rotted away, all but one - I'm hoping for something from the second planting which went out this week. The Crown Prince survived (3 out of 4) but have not grown at all. The climbing beans are struggling up the canes

[Parsons Jack]

And in the end it's all turning out even worse than I anticipated a month and a half ago. The first planting of courgettes rotted away, all but one - I'm hoping for something from the second planting which went out this week. The Crown Prince survived (3 out of 4) but have not grown at all. The climbing beans are struggling up the canes

Hi Alan,

and yet over here............the Charlotte crop has been huge, the Crown Prince is romping away, the Winter Festival squashes are laden, and I've been picking Runners for the last two weeks
It seems that Moonlight crops about 7-10 days earlier than Lady Di.

[peter]

My non-moving squash.

[vegpatchmum]

Look a lot like my squashes Peter, although they are now starting to spread their arms and flower (amazing what a week of sunshine will do).

This time last year I couldn't see the chicken wire and rail fence due to the amount of growth from my Cobnut squashes and yet this year they are only just starting to think about climbing.

That said though, my Winter Festivals are looking quite healthy and have loads of flowers on them and hopefully a couple of fruit now starting to swell and I finally have the first 2 female pumpkin flowers pollinated and, please Mother Naure, starting to grow - the kildlings may yet have homegrown pumpkins for Lanterns again

VPM
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