Hello. With this summer being so dry here on the east coast I thought I'd make a topic about what is growing well and was has failed. Please share your success and failures this summer.
My plot is very free draining but for the last few years I've been mulching it with anything I could get cheap/free. I believe this has helped a lot as the neighboring plots have had a lot more failures than I have.
My biggest failures so far have been leafy greens. Spinach and new Zealand spinach have failed completely. Perpetual spinach and Swiss chard are growing but making smaller leaves than usual. The perennial greens are still going but the good king Henry is very bitter this year.
My beans have been mixed bag with a complete failure of my runner beans but good growth on the French and soya beans.
Tomatoes, chili's, figs and mulberries are all doing better than I've known them in my 10 years of growing. Most of perennials are doing good as well and with hardly any cabbage white butterflies around I'm eating a lot of perennial kale and cabbage. I also had my first harvest of skirret this year and I've decided to give up on parsnips and root parsley as the skirret is much nicer and easier.
Have you ever read Steve Solomons "Gardening without irrigation"?It is available on project Gutenberg or there is an updated version for sale on Amazon. I found the comments about plant spacing fascinating and if we ever get hit by drought with water restrictions I do pull out plants to improve the spacing where I can. Runner beans were one plant that Steve could not make work without extra water which you may take some consolation in. Deeper rooted plants will tend to do better as well which may explain the skirret success. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4512
GillyBee wrote: ↑Tue Jul 05, 2022 8:38 pm
Have you ever read Steve Solomons "Gardening without irrigation"?It is available on project Gutenberg or there is an updated version for sale on Amazon. I found the comments about plant spacing fascinating and if we ever get hit by drought with water restrictions I do pull out plants to improve the spacing where I can. Runner beans were one plant that Steve could not make work without extra water which you may take some consolation in. Deeper rooted plants will tend to do better as well which may explain the skirret success. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4512
Thank you for the suggestion. I will look in to that. I pretty much garden without irrigation as no mains water on the allotment. All my water butts ran dry ages ago so it's lots of mulching and rain dancing
My garden has been the worst ever,I would say. I would be an idiot to ignore climate change,and the current climate has creased a lot of annual vegetables. My perennials however,are ok,with the exception of the rhubarb,which has suffered too. My marrows and squashes have produced only a quarter of the normal crop ,but the climbing French beans,and particularly the Borlotti beans are very good.
So , perennials are ( my) way forward. My Welsh and Egyptian onions have been superb.Daubenton kale and Good King Henry too. Jerusalem artichokes are thriving .All the fruit trees and bushes are excellent .The herb garden will be expanded next year ,well,Autumn,and I am looking for more perennials such as wild rocket and scorzonera.The beauty of all that is that no extra water is needed. Nor work!
In three words I can sum up everything I have learned about life: It goes on.
Robert Frost.
Covid 19: After that level of weirdness ,any situation is certainly possible.
Due to house move we were late planting but beetroot, perpetual spinach & Broad beans have done well in the dry weather. The beets are pretty small but OK ish.
The pakchoi bolted really early, but on the plus side this is the time I've been able to collect the seed pods off them.
Opal Plum - excellent crop but is dropping leaves early now.
Victoria Plum - no flowers! Possibly needed more chilling hours.
Rhubarb - OK but is never very good for me due to inappropriate soil.
Jerusalem Artichoke. Struggling. I have cut them back hard & thinned and still wilting at every opportunity.
Runners and French beans - started to crop OK fairly late but not expecting much pollination for beans due next week.
Borlotti beans - Very poor but that may be my cr***y soil, despite a 3 inch layer of mulch in early spring before planting.
Chilli peppers & Tomatoes - in the greenhouse & doing well.
Trombocino squash & courgettes Picking up nicely with lots of feeding/watering. In pots/big raised bed. Slightly shaed ones doing better than full sun this year.
Anna squash - Poor. Only 2 small squash. May get more later.
Swiss Chard - good until it bolted
Herbs - good except Bay which has a pest problem.
Siberian Kiwi - has sun scorch and crop is looking small.
Cherry Tree. Good crop. Not showing too much stress but in a protected area.
Early lettuce - Good. Have not tried any more yet due to heat.
Oca - holding up surprisingly well in the heat. Crop quality will be unknown until December.
Wow it is only when I list them all that I realise how much I am growing. A little bit of everythign - that's me.
Victoria Plum in only its second year with us has done well. Bramleys, not great but better than last year when we got none but only after learning that it was a triploid and so we got a Braeburn to go with it which has done ok too. Tomatoes are doing well but have been affected by the heat (and youngest daughter not watering them enough whilst we were on holiday). Broccoli did great and we have a second crop in at the moment. Cabbages and sprouts have done better this year or were doing better until we got caterpillars. Leeks are growing well after treating with nematodes due to scariad fly. Dwarf French Beans are not as good as last year and seemed to have some kind of disease. Potatoes in bags have produced a nice harvest. Rhubarb has given us a pretty good crop after a slow start. We seem to fare better growing onions from seed rather than using sets and have some beauties. Chillies are weighed down with fruit, but the bell peppers aren't bell peppers and are I suspect sweet peppers, cucumbers and courgettes have done great and have been handed out to family and at work as we have more than we can use. Carrots, bit of a mixed bag really some are good some not so good and the fruit bushes have given us a good harvest, especially the raspberries. We had a great crop of garlic in June too. Last but not least I have managed to grow ginger this year but it will be a good few months before it is ready to harvest and will need bringing indoors over the winter. Not bad for a small garden with containers, raised beds and a small greenhouse really.
I’m in Suffolk where it’s dry at the best of times. Permaculture people, I think, plant using canopies so that deep rooted trees and large bushes provide cover for more shallow growing plants and they also practise forest gardening. I think that sprouting seeds and beans will be useful and reliable for fresh food, though in winter I think some sort of heat mat or other way to warm the sprouter is necessary
