Potatoes

This must be the worst year ever for potaoes,although first earlies did reasonably O.K., Kestrel and King Edward have been a real poor show.

Last year both gave me 2x  25kg bags of spuds, this year about half a bag each.

The K.E especially poor, a lot of very small tubers still attached to the roots which appear to have never got going at all, and of course this year I can't blame a lack of water.

Peas have been just as bad, Beans have never got going,so only really got Onions, and a few of these have bolted, and Garlic left to look forward to,

I've found the same with those grown in bags, but the ones I grew in the ground - same variety -  I've had a bumper crop

I'm in Lancashire and usually only grow spuds in bags although this year grew a main crop in the veg bed.

The bags have been just as good as previous years although it was difficult to guage when to water because of all the rain, which didn't aways reach the compost. The main crop has not done as expected. I was expecting it to grow for longer but cut back dying foilage last weekend so I'm now leaving it for a couple of weeks to let the skins harden before digging it up, fully expect the spuds to be half eaten by slugs..

I've been pruning and weeding tonight and virtually every plant,stone, leaf I lifted had slugs and snails under it. I was hoping to leave some potatoes in the ground but I'm thinking I should dig them all up

still haven't eaten a single bean or tomato this year Mostof my onions bolted

Its all been a bit rubbish this year

I usually grow toms in a GH but planted out spares in the veg bed this year.

In the GH a bought plant started to produce cherry toms a few weeks ago(can't remember the name) but red cherry and red pear grown from seed are now going red, picked the first today. Most of the other varieties in the GH are ladened with fruit but still looking very green. Bit the bullet at the weekend and composted the one's planted out in the veg bed to make room for other vegs. Lots of unhealthy looking growth with only one or two trusses and lookingt very much like slug fodder. 

Beans have been slow and most had yellow leaves at the bottom but they are now over 6ft high with tops pinched out, 5 or 6 different varieties. Picked the first runners at the weekend. I've been taking off the snail damaged leaves, they deserve a gold medal, how they manage to climb up a pole and down during a night, I really don't know       

I started digging one King Edward to see what was going on underneath,and found some slug damage, so then decided to carry on and remove the lot.

I think anyone who was just starting out growing veg this year could be put off for life from bothering.

We planted Maris Bard and 10 tubers of Vales Emerald as a triall. The Maris have been fantastic, slight slug damage but nothing much, good flavour.. The Vales Emerald have been awful. Not so much the yield, but the taste. They have no flavour and break up when cooked. When MD did his potato trial a few weeks ago he blamed the weather has he had similar results from some of his spuds. We garden on sandy loam, the ground drains fairly quickly so we don't get as many slugs.

Runner beans are coming on, onions good, great lettuce, but beetroot, carrots disappointing.

We have been gardening for 47 years on this plot and have had some bad years, but none like this.

Renfrewshire - I grew Desiree and Arran Pilot this year in the ground, and ended up having to lift them early because of blight (which I had never had).The result was a poor crop of small tubers. The quantity will not see me through the winter, that's for sure. Has anyone else had potato blight?

florafanatic,we have blight on almost every plot this year.  I planted Carra potatoes and so far are the only ones that have not been blighted,Desiree,King Edward ,Golden Wonder all have it.Our allotment is in Carrickfergus N Ireland.What a terrible year 

We are growing Charlotte,Marfona,Vivaldi and Picasso this year - Picasso aren't any where near the size they were last year but we still have a reasonable crop

Pam x

Edentoy

Thanks for your message. Our climates are similar, so wet this summer. I'll try again next year. You mentioned that Desiree had escaped; of my survivors most were that variety.

I planted Pink fir apple spuds this year and whilst im not laden down with them what i have got are reallt tasty. Im on the south coast so it has been really wet this year and lots of people have lost theirs to blight i seem to be lucky at the moment. Have grown the beef tomatoes in the greenhouse and they seem to be successful, the ones on the allotment are a waste of time. I have loads of runner beans, but the french are pretty hopeless. A bit of a hit and miss growing year, but theres always next year.

I put in Vivaldi and Lady Christl, dug up seven tops and got enough for about 3 dinners. Dreadful. Have some sarpo mira in a barrel which will leave for a few more weeks and hope to get a few more from that.

About to lift potatoes grown in a raised bed any ideas what I can plant in the spaceI left behind already have 3 courgette plants in this bed. This is my first year using 3 raised beds so any suggestions would be helpful also trying to rotate these  is another problem as most articles show plans for 4 beds.

Bed 1 Potatoes,spinach (disaster slugs got the lot) and courgettes

Bed 2 Brussel sprouts and sprouting broccoli 

Bed 3 Carrots, yellow beans (not good) and parsnips.

I dug up some potatoes today to find they had brown spots on them like phoatos blight,what can be the cause of this and how could i stop it,could it be the weather,

Sounds like common scab, certain varieties are prone to it, although weather and lime can be to blame.

It does not affect the eating quality, just scrape or peel the skin and the flesh underneath should be fine.

We grew a couple of rows of Annabelle 1st earlies this year, in a new veg patch.  Despite the rotten weather we were pleased with the crop - lovely spuds with gorgeous buttery flavour - the were very varied in size, each plant yielding some 'new potato' size and two or three much larger spuds - a little bit of scab but nothing to worry about.  

About a week ago I noticed early signs of possible blight on the last couple of plants so immediately removed and burnt the haulms, leaving the potatoes in the ground until yesterday when we were ready to eat them - they were fine.

My first earlies were 'Foremost', should have called them '4 at most' -very disappointing. My seconds were Charlottes which seemed OK but looked as though they were starting to get blight. My main crop are Maris Piper and King Edward, I dug up a couple of KE' today as they started to get the blight look, and they were very poor in both size and yield.

I think we're lucky this year in this new garden as it's fairly sheltered and the soil is a free-draining slightly gritty loam - the slugs don't seem to like the grittiness of it and it hasn't got too; waterlogged - next year when we have our usual drought you lot will be fine, and I'll be desperate for rain to fill my water butts