If we get another year like this we will be deep in the manure..this year at least we got crops of some sort or another but what if next year is the same. At this point just talking about lottie but already in recession another year like this and everyone will be paying an awful lot (or not) for their veg! Deep breath & a little prayer!
Well I think one should be stocking the cupboards up with flour and flour based products like pasta etc because grain prices will rocket after the American's summer drought but I think vegetable prices are already increasing so it's probably a case of stable door, horse & bolting.
Hopefully next year will be better. Don't we gardeners always say that? it's what keeps us going!
Well, not too bad a crop for most things...except my tomatoes in the greenhouse got blight for the very first time. Next year I'll be looking for the most blight resistant strains.
I see even Monty Don's toms got blight this year...so I don't feel too bad about mine now.
My partner put the glass in the greenouse in with the wrong stuff, the roof is still on but the sides fell out lol - yes you guessed it they were looking beautiful and really healthy till then but with no protection they got blight - but a weird thing happened the blighty bits dried up and they're still producing new growth, and most of the fruit is still OK and ripening gradually - wondering if the rootgrow fungi gave them some protection ! cue's and butternut squash are doing well though. Gonna be optimistic like OH and expect better next year hedging my bets by planting the hardier stuff ! Also overwinter will use the greenhouse more, getting some lights, to help growth.
Sit down before a fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconcieved notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. By Thomas Huxley http://www.wildrye.info/reserve/
We lifted our Picasso and Cara potatoes today - a dire yield! Not only are most of the potatoes fairly small but they are full of slug holes. We shall have to use them sooner rather than later. Now only the Sarpo Mira to lift and we'll do that tomorrow to save them from the slugs. No sign of blight.
Overall, the brassicas are doing well, shallots and garlic were fine, French beans so-so, runner beans very good, peas lousy, broad beans so-so (lovely large healthy plants, many flowers but no insects to pollinate), leeks, Florence fennel, beetroot, celeriac and carrots all fine, all on the allotment. At home in the greenhouse, the tomatoes have been late but good, but some of the sweet peppers grew and then rotted on the plant,
Well, every year you win some, you lose some but I think this year we have lost more than won.
Cred air o bob deg a glywi, a thi a gei rywfaint bach o wir (hen ddihareb Gymraeg) Believe one tenth of what you hear, and you will get some little truth (old Welsh proverb)
I'll get me coat...
