[Ian_A]

leeks are a bit chive-like still but hanging in there and sweetcorn hasnt done much but at least it has not died. Brassicas seem to be withering away apart from the savoys.

But some great success: have had the first of the toms, potatoes and many carrots, beetroot and fennel (picked young for salads and sauteeing whole). 1st cucumbers almost ready for picking, too, and the peppers are setting fruit well.

[Growster...]

Don't give up News - you'll still get a result somewhere!

We've had onion failures for two years now, so they just get used as salad onions - and very nice they seem to be as well!

Brassicas always sulk about now - they need some time to get ready to bulge later on, so no sweat there either.

Think about all the stuff which needs the weather as much as you - as soon as there's a bright spell, it takes off before you know it!

This is really what gardening used to be like back when there weren't any supermarkets or DIY stores, you made do and mended, so we'll all be the better for experience even if there's not as much on the table this year (which in your case, I doubt somehow)!

Nil illegitimi carborundum!

[Jamboian]

Our spuds have been great so far! strawb's great, had some baby carrots, peas teasing us, greenhouse cukes and tom;s behind last year but looking good, lets all pant for the best, I'm new to this and maybe my chuck and chance attitude is more of a gamble, but relying on a changing climate is going to trouble those who have been growing for years and relying on the weather being consistent

Still wouldn't be where I am without you lot xxx

Ian

[shokkyy]

All the tender stuff has been very slow for me this year. The cucumbers (inside and out) have only just cheered up and started growing, with a couple of very tiny cukes showing now, and my aubergines have just risked opening their first flower.

The temps in my area have gone up over the last week or so, and everything has been amazingly quick to respond. Suddenly the French and runner beans have shot up the poles in the space of a few days, the mange tout looks like a flowering jungle and I've got plenty of baby courgettes and squash showing. My beloved Gartenperle are struggling for the first time in all the years I've grown them. They've plenty of flowers but an awful lot of yellow leaves. In their hanging baskets I think they've been catching a bit too much chilly wind for their liking.  But in the last week I've suddenly found myself scrambling to try to eat all the chard, calabrese, lettuce, plus the courgettes, mange tout and lettuce from my tunnel. The gooseberries, loganberries and strawberries are almost ready to pick, and are plentiful.

And best of all, the long-range forecast from the Met Office has suddenly become a lot more optimistic in the last couple of days. They're now saying that from the middle of July things will get better for the whole UK, with more settled conditions, temps at or above average and rainfall at or below average, with the best of the warmth in the north. So cheer up, especially those in the north, things will get better

[New shoot]

And best of all, the long-range forecast from the Met Office has suddenly become a lot more optimistic in the last couple of days. They're now saying that from the middle of July things will get better for the whole UK, with more settled conditions, temps at or above average and rainfall at or below average, with the best of the warmth in the north. So cheer up, especially those in the north, things will get better

   Now an indian summer would be lovely    Fingers crossed  

[fatcat1955]

Dug up the Lady Christi yesterday, best crop iv'e had. Hispi cabbage is great as are the over wintering onions which are a large orange size. Garlic is covered in rust but had a look and the bulbs are getting quite big. 1 apple tree has fruit but nothing on the pear, plum or other apples. Straw berries down on last year but the raspberries are going great. Runner , french and borlotti beans ok, carrots and beet not doing well. parsnips, lettuce radish cauli's and romenscu are good so i cannot complain but being british i will. I just wish we had some decent sunshine . Oh nearly forgot, we are still on a hosepipe ban.

[New shoot]

Let us not complain - we are not in business as is this farm.

quite Christine, nor is it the potato famine of    1845 and 1852     we must soldier on 

Crikey    That poor farm are not having a good time are they 

I'm not about to starve, but I do rely on my homegrown stuff to cut my shopping bills so am feeling the lack of veg in my pocket at the moment.  Also crossed my mind how high prices are going to be in the shops soon if homegrown crops are failing.  Guess the supermarkets will import stuff but I reckon anything I can harvest and preserve, dehydrate or store will be good to have this winter 

[AnneB]

I am in the soldiering on camp, but feeling rather dispirited.
Potatoes still only 6 to 8 " high, so nowhere to put the leeks yet. 
Sweetcorn very yellow and has not developed at all since I planted it out.
Beans of all types very yellow and with poor growth.
Only just now getting flowers on CofE peas and they are shorter than they should be.
Carrots and beetroot, chard and leaf beet failed to germinate twice, success with the first 2 at the 3rd attempt, but therefore way behind.
Broad beans, cucumbers, lettuce, courgettes, squash, sprouts and even red kale all decimated by slugs.
Have invested in some nematodes to give me a 6 week window to grow something at all.
Garlic not looking too bad, but some of the Early Purple Wight slightly affected by rust. Shallots and onions look good (hooray).
Rest of brassicas still very small and not made much growth.
Tomatoes at home battling against wind (no greenhouse) but I have first visible tomato on my
Golden Sunrise plant.
Glad this isn't my only food source, but the price of veg in shops is excruciating, a pity as OH has just been made redundant again, so we could have really done with a lovely crop this year.

[Mrs Bee]

A mixed bag here. And I touch wood as I type

The tender stuff is struggling, tomatoes and aubergines wind blown and looking sorry for themselves. COurgettes on the plot are struggling but alive although the ones I planted in big pots on my south facing patio are taking off as well as the squash and pumpkins.

The beetroot and carrots have been slow to germinate and are tiny and the peas are not good.

 A few strawberries but a lot have rot and those that we pick are not as sweet as usual, obviously need the sun, like the rest of us.

The potatoes in theground look good, but not holding out too much hope for the ones in bags as they have not been topped up as they should have been because of the rotten weather, time availability and having to prioritise.

Garlic has dreadful rust, some of the overwintering onions rotted and those that didn't are not as big as last year but at least we have some.

Kailan, cabbage, calabrese looks OK.
Beans are starting up the canes.
Celeriac is looking good.
 first year for parsnips and they seem to be doing very well.
Harvesting good broad beans.
Have some lettuce coming on but a lot have succumbed to slugs and snails, where we missed with the pellets.

The gardeners prayer is heard at our plot a lot.
And we are in the never give up camp. I am far too stubborn, although it is getting a bit demoralising at the moment.

[lizziesdad]

Runner, broad and French dwarf beans all very slow to get going but seem to have woken up a bit this last week. First beetroot has bolted and has now been added to the compost heap as has the summer cabbage - minus the large family of slugs and snails that had taken up residence despite a fortune being spent on slug pellets. Potato stalks are more than a metre high and first diggings of Foremost produced a very decent crop. Lots of strawberries and gooseberries. Dug up o/w onions yesterday and the crop was huge although the reds weren't anything like as good as last year. Have got another crop coming on so hope they do better. Sweetcorn, leeks, toms, courgettes ( bit of mildew) all looking ok. Lettuce, carrots, spring onions all doing well in raised beds. Butternut squash sulking and not looking very happy. Parsnips doing well but swedes took forever and are still very small.  Cabbage, brussels, broccolli, cauliflower all from seed  are now perking up under nets after weeks of sitting there doing very little. The weeds are doing wonderfully well and the slugs and snails are partying everywhere.
And its going to rain most days this week. Oh dear.

[JayG]

Well, all the usual suspects are either out in the garden or in the greenhouse, so it's more a question of trying to track down and liquidate whoever is still doing that rain dance rather than giving up!

One of the few advantages of sandy soil is that it never gets waterlogged, so I haven't lost many plants, but if things continue as they are (and the forecast for at least a week doesn't look good) there's a distinct possibility that some crops might fail altogether.

Courgettes and winter squashes seem to be at the greatest risk at the moment, but together with the sweetcorn which rallied in the brief humid spell will eventually run out of time (and the will!) to grow and produce without some sustained warm sunshine.

The runner beans are recovering a little (if they fail to crop that would literally be a first in about 40 years of growing them!  )

Sugar snap peas are about 6' tall now, looking very strong but only just flowering.

Strawberries pretty good, although several have rotted before picking, the autumn raspberries are quite rampant and already producing the odd flower (do they know something we don't?  )

Quite a good set on the blueberries, but they certainly won't set any speed records for ripening this year.

[Springlands]

My onions are rubbish, my leeks are rubbish, the greenhouse cucumbers are trying to decide whether or not to die, I have lost most of my courgettes and those that are left are just sitting there doing nothing. Most of the other things that I have in the garden are just very slow.

The only things doing really well are my out door spring onions and the greenhouse toms, sweet peppers and chillies which although slower than last year are doing OK. Roll on some good weather.

[Paul Plots]

Let us not complain - we are not in business as is this farm.

This is more than slightly worrying for us all I think. If we are having problems with our allotments it's miserable but there's always the local shops to keep us going.

But...if our farmers are struggling too, as I guess many must be, then prices will rocket once the scarcities begin to show. Balance of Trade deficit will also suffer.

But (another one) there’s always a bright side….somewhere.

Where one crop stalls / stops / fails another one may benefit…albeit only one or maybe two. Then there’s the optimism all us gardeners naturally posses…. That’s getting a good testing this year. Let’s look to our success both present and future. Next year things have just got to be better. Haven't they?

Keep plodding squelching on in this hosepipe ban drought ridden summer. 

[spuriousmonkey]

This is only my second year, but despite a reasonable chilly june, things are looking great. Everything is really coming together now and I will soon be able to harvest other things besides just salad and rocket.

My peas are taller than me at the moment and plenty of pods can be seen, the runner beans are finally starting to climb and I even have tomatoes on my tomato plants outside.

Then again, we didn't have constant rain here in finland, just occasionally. So that might have helped tremendously.

The only problem has been that the night temperatures have been quite low here in june. My petit yellow watermelon plants have died already twice. I am down to my last replacement seedlings, which I currently don't dare to put out yet. I will wait another week.

Courgette plants and outside cucumber are showing their first 'fruits'. I ate all my radishes already (forgot to plant new ones in time). Beetroot is the biggest on my allotment site (kind of proud of that, since last year they were the worst). Onions started to bulk up, even the ones from seeds. I have quite a large surface dedicated to different varieties of dwarf beans, and they started to grow now. Carrots are going really well.

The only thing not going well are my leeks. But I think I just started too late with them.


Brilliant year so far. Last year was a disaster because it was too hot. Not good with heavy clay soil.

 

[mobilekat]

Let us not complain - we are not in business as is this farm.

I live in the same valley as Riverford, and its a absolute shame this year
They work hard and provide lots of local jobs, (as well as my back-up veg box- only have small steep garden) and I really feel for them!

So far this year all i have managed to harvest has been lettuce and rocket from the little green house.
I may have managed to develop a strain of miniature tomatos, and even the ruddy radish are failing!
one of the give-aways about this year is how busy the bird feeders are- only thing doing well this year are weeds!!!

Mutter- dreaming of lottery wins and threatening to dig up the garden and install a conservatory and hot-tub instead!