[Cheshire Phill]

Hey Hub:

Remain optimistic!! I'm also in Cheshire (Macclesfield) and know how damp and cold it was last year...poor for allotments, and golf too (my other hobby).

It can't be as bad this year - keep telling yourself that, could be a "barbecue summer" as long as the Met don't announce it..!!

And as others say, concentrate on a few things well, rather than everything. I'm forcing myself not to grow several things this year, based on experience last year.

And I've got too many seeds too, you're welcome to some, must have 10 Tomato varieties I'm not going to grow this year...

Keep smiling!!

Phill 

[eeedowls]

I too had a disaster last year.

I planted two rows of carrots, a row of parsnips, a block of sweetcorn and I had one carrot from the lot  

I planted my spuds in a few containers but the blight came and killed them before I had a chance to pull them up..  

My chillis were destroyed when my cheap plastic greenhouse blew over in the Spring gales.  

I had only six seeds germinate from a sowing of thirty two tomato plants last year.  Out of those six, one survived past June (the smallest one!) and that lone plant produced ONE tomato!

I too was thinking "What's the point?"

But - the carrot and tomato were eaten by my then one year old daughter and this year I cannot wait to get going again...

The spuds are chitting in the kitchen (for the first time after non chitting the past three years), have bought more chilli seeds and am waiting for delivery of more seeds (they can't come soon enough)

Stick at it - you will have failures but you get such a sense of achievement when even the smallest amount of veg is ready to eat!!

Best of luck to you this year!

[Christine]

I'm sure that most of the disasters we had last year are things that we can sort out with the knowledge here - we just can't improve the weather 

It strikes me that the first season of disasters should be the basis of all future experience and learning.

I'd advise that you do have to be careful with going by the book and that the opinions of any two gardeners are likely to be different. However, they can usually manage to agree on something.

[hubballi]

I just need a replacement cover fr my plastic greenhouse. I got excited as Homebase did a glass 6 ft x 4 ft glass house for £79 but then I realised it was just the base 

[Annie]

You say that you`re depressed as well because you have not got anything started in the garden,join the club ,it`s still to cold and wet.If you must plant now a couple of chilli  seeds planted now in the kitchen and grown on the windowsill to get the most of the light should be OK,toms at the end of the month.I grow toms in hanging baskets but even in a damp summer you need to water 1-2 times a day.As others say,keep it simple and don`t plant out too soon as nice healthy little plants will check growth and take a while to get going again if conditions aren`t right.The most i am doing in the veg patch is  clearing weeds though after removing all the rotted leaves on the chard and spinach noticed they were both throwing up baby leaves again.Sring will be here soon.

[Slowgrind]

Hi Hubballi, those plastic GH covers are sold in lots of places. If you check out the garden section of Wilko's I think that they still have them. As for the late start I planted my first seeds of the year today (half a tray  of onions and half a tray of leeks) Spent the rest of the day thinking was one day of mild weather a false dawn? If it is I''ll just keep my seedlings protected for a little longer. Hope that you don't give up too soon!

[hubballi]

No, not given up. Patched up the plastic greenhouse with tape so it's now passable (just)

Got some cheap onion sets (Setton), Maris Peer and Vales Emerald potatoes and all for  for 99p each at Home and bargain. Planted the onions in small pots in greenhouse as well as Beetroot, Sutton B Beans (hopefully not as bad as last years as will grow them in container) and Hurst Peas.

The seeds all look ok. No mould or anything.

Some onions sets that I planted last year and failed to yield are coming up in the raised bed. If I leave them will they grow again this season into onions ?

[DavidT]

Glad to hear you`ve decided to give it another go, you wont regret it. Just use this forum as another gardening tool. Rip out last years onions, they`ll just run to seed, put something useful in their place.

[eeedowls]

No, not given up...

Excellent stuff - the initial enthusiasm will soon come flooding back...

[tam]

You could test the seeds by putting a couple of each on damp kitchen roll in a sandwich bag and seeing if they germinate. That way you'll know ahead of time if they work.

Last year was my first time growing veg too, some things worked really well others not so much. My garlic ended up the size of a marble and my lettuce bolted and ended up a foot tall!

I didn't even try stuff like cauliflower

This year I'm fine tuning what I grow, cutting out stuff that didn't work or changing varities. Seed swapping is great because it really cuts down the cost of trying new things.

If peas worked well for you last year how about trying some mange tout? They did well for me.

If your toms got blight perhaps start them inside then move them to the plastic greenhouse once your seedlings have moved out. Cherry tomatoes ripen much quicker than normal size ones and because they produce more toms you don't get that much less tomato overall. If you've got sunny windows you could even try keeping a backup inside.

The radish I planted in a flower pot did much better than the ones I tried elsewhere. You could try a few now and leave them in the greenhouse.

By summer I was going out virtually nightly with a torch to catch the slugs and snails. You really need to keep on top of them. They must have been coming in from all the surrounding gardens there were so many.

[Janeymiddlewife]

Hi Hubballii,

my plastic greenhouse is held together with bubblewrap & gaffer tape  It's on its 3rd year now, and just about holding together. Might work for you?

[digalotty]

glad to hear youve perked up a bit and are giving it another go

[hubballi]

Well, pretty much another season of disappointment. Apart from the weather going duff most of the summer things have just not gone to plan.

Firstly I will say I did all the right things:

Carrorts: Early Nantes:covered with fleece to stop fly and planted in sandy compost with no manure. Result: healthy tops but small stunted growth with holes that grubs had eaten.

Fly Away: Whispy growth with nothing hardly underneath even now in Aug.

Broad Beans Sutton: Again, healthy plants to start but when planted out they soon gave poor beans with few on each plant.

Kale; Good start but leaves eaten by slugs and caterpillars. Still got them but shredded.

Broccoli and Sprouts: Netted with mesh but cabbage white managed to get to some leaves that were touching the top and laid eggs.

Radish: I cannot for the life of me work out how to grow these so called "easy" veg. I ended up with bolting leaves and no bulb, even when planted in the cool shade and watered.

French Beans: Another one that baffles me. I can grow peas and runner beans very well but these are a mystery. They never seem to get going and produce no beans.

Tomatoes: Fed with comfry and had old horse manure in bottom of pots. Watered well. Result:Hardly any fruit.

Courgette: Very healthy dark green foliage and produced reasonable crop. Fed with Comfry : Result: Foliage now very pale yellow.

Cucumber: Grown outside against hot sunny wall. Result: One small curled fruit and yellowing withered plant.

Of course the slugs and snails have taken their toll again even though I have tried to tackle them aggressively this year. I used nemotodes, organic pellets, beer traps and picking them off by hand at night. They are still too much to cope with in a small walled garden.

I spoke too soon early this summer praising the season so far.

[Kristen]

Well, pretty much another season of disappointment.

Really sorry to hear that. I've had some disappointments with things that I have never had a problem with before ... and updated my file notes to do things differently next year - for example, because it was warmer I have been keeping the greenhouse vents open a bit at night, which I have never done before and that (and the drought we had in May-July) has decreased humidity around cucumbers and they did not do at all well.

My advice may be no help, but in the hope that it might be here's some thoughts:

Carrots: I find them too hit & miss in the garden and now only grow in pots

Broad Beans Sutton: I grew "The Sutton" once, never again! The short stubby growth never really did enough to support what I would call "a crop" I plant Aquadulce (which are designed to overwinter) in late Winter [rather than over-Winter], and I think that makes for much stronger plants

Radish: I don't grow them, but DD's method with using a Cat Litter tray seems to be popular (details in a thread on here somewhere )

French Beans: I grow Climbing French Beans. Their season is shorter than Runners (although mine started cropping a good couple of weeks before the Runners). The Dwarf ones I've grown tend to flop about and be a nuisance ... For Climbing Beans (and Runners too I think) worth planting a seed when you plant the plants out - so that you have a follow-on crop later in the season.

Courgette: "Foliage now very pale yellow." Mine wind up covered in Mildew and looking pathetic by the end of the season - but having said that not this early except in a very wet season.

Cucumber: I think they are just plain "hard".  I don't have too much trouble in the greenhouse (But mine have been a disaster this year) but not sure about outside.

slugs: lots of my plants decimated by slugs soon after planting - my fault for not putting anything down though. I'm going to give the chickens the run of the veg patch in the Winter and hope they mop up some of the parents etc.

[julieanne1811]

Dear Hub - I am so sorry to hear about your disappointments ... and I can identify very strongly with them. If I had to survive on what I managed to grow successfully I would have died of hunger a long time ago. And it is hard when you watch gardeners on TV grwoing such wonderful plants, so (apparently) easily.

But - do keep going. I can offer no pracgtical advice since I am extremely ignorant about most gardening things (although am learnig bit by bit), but, somehow, you just have to go on. I have a little plastic greenhouse too, and I love cats (and 'share' my neighbours pair), so we have a few similarities. Do please keep going- and tell us what happens. It must get better since it can't get worse, and I'm sure you'll crack it at some point.