[Oldskoolrools]

After a disastrous first year last year, I fertilised with horse manure and fish blood n bones. This year I have had some better results, but a large number of individual plants just don’t grow, even though they are sat right next to good plants on the plot. I had similar experience last year.

I planted beetroot, and have had some good tennis ball size roots, but approximately 50% are still less than ping pong ball size after probably 5 months.
Similar with leeks. Some plants are growing well, whereas about 40% of them aren’t much bigger than when they went in the ground.

 What makes some plants grow well, whereas other next door to them do virtually nothing?

[m1ckz]

yes i get the same,dont know why though,when in rows they go from large to small , one end ot the row to the other

[JayG]

Uneven light, water, or soil nutrients are the most likely culprits, although some crops may be slowed down in patches by outbreaks of disease or pest attack.

In poor soils it's quite difficult to keep up with the nutrient requirements of different crops (mainly because it's not easy to find out what's actually lacking in the soil) and some individual plants will be luckier than others finding what nourishment is there.

[BabbyAnn]

I've had a similar problem with my winter squash this year - some have taken over the bed whereas some are embarrassingly pathetic.  I'd agree with JayG's post though in my case I'd say poor soil nutrients - with so much rain this year, I think a lot of the goodness in the soil got washed away.

[JayG]

BabbyAnn: that is so true - very light, free-draining soils are leached rapidly of many of their nutrients during prolonged wet conditions (it's easy to remember what you added to the soil but almost pure guesswork as to how much might still be in there at any given moment!)