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sean

Rubbish year for beans?

My greengrocer is charging £7.50/kg for runner beans. Shocked

And I've just podded a carrier-bag's worth of broad beans for a prety damn meagre yield.

Is this a national crisis or a local shortage?
chez

National. Or at least, it's the same here. Rubbish germination of everything and really slow growth. Except kale. We have plenty of kale.
wellington womble

I had really good germination, except I only planted them out yesterday...

I think I might have forgotten to plant kale.
Behemoth

I'll ask the slugs. French beans massacred. Runner beans slow and wimpy. Autumn Self seeded broad beans fine. Spring down broad beans slow.
yummersetter

Carrots. All the packets I had from last year planted. Three new packets of seed planted. They came up, grew to half an inch and then disappeared overnight. Not one carrot survived.
Mange-tout have grown massively, I'd need a stepladder to reach the top pods, but the thrill of fresh veg dies after ten days of eating them with every meal.
A lot of French beans planted, a quarter survived and have just started to really grow.
Three packets of sweet corn planted, ten plants have grown to about four inches and the magazines are full of recipes for corn on the cob now that it is in season
dpack

lettuce , about ten plantings of different sorts on 3 occasions= a couple got to just showing,fell to the slimey hoard

garlic, over wintered= just about alive but very small bulbs so far

radish ,on 6th planting at 10 day plantings= mostly good with one dismal planting

big boy toms planted out in may i think= growing like jacks beanstalk,plenty flowers.

spuds ,planted late last year and forgotten,came up early may,earthed up by 500 mm in 3 goes = huge ,healthy,just removed lots of flower heads ,looking ace

50 onion sets for spring onions = a bit slow to start but 1st box eaten two to go ,not bad

have not planted any beans this years as not much space,

most odds n ends herbs etc doing well

overall better than last year but im using half guinea pig compost half peat based potting medium from last year so not a fair comparison.
Bebo

Third lot of plants in the ground and seem to be taking off a bit now. We're inundated with rabbits this year and they are decimating everything.
Nick

[quote="Bebo:1464360"]Third lot of plants in the ground and seem to be taking off a bit now. We're inundated with rabbits this year and they are decimating everything.[/quote
At least you have ninety percent left.
wellington womble

My carrots didn't grow either. I've a sinkful in the greenhouse doing fine, but not one outside. Lousy year for peas, too. No idea why.
Midlandsman

I don't get supermarket prices. £4/kg fresh broad beans - so £16/kg by the time they're podded.

But £1.60/kg for frozen podded ones.

Bizarre!

MM
Slim

I don't get supermarket prices. £4/kg fresh broad beans - so £16/kg by the time they're podded.

But £1.60/kg for frozen podded ones.

Bizarre!

MM


machinery doesn't cost much in the way of salary & benefits...

Try not to think about the higher nutritional value of the frozen ones Wink
OtleyLad

My broad beans, that are usually reliable croppers, have been rubbish too.
I might end up with one meal's worth from the whole crop.
Just sown french beans a few days ago - hoping I'm not too late.

At this moment it looks like Turks Turban squash is going to be this years star performer.
Mistress Rose

My sweetcorn sown indoors didn't even germinate because it was too cold in the house, slimey hoards have had most of the beans, and the outside leaves of the cabbages, but they are growing through it I think, only roots that did anything are the salsify, and havn't looked at last weeks sowing yet. Some leeks seem to have survived the birds dust baths and the potatoes aren't bad.
mousjoos

Carrots & parsnips are better than at any other time since changing the siting of the garden.
Radishes went mental; really mental. Enormous but hollow....& tangy.
Leeks doing well. Spuds thriving despite neglect.
All the herbs planted have gone to seed very very quickly.
Beans late to show anything, but now flowering; but this is the third planting as the two previous plantings produced nothing....didn't even shoot.

Hail destroyed the crops of several people we know here; also cherries have been a disaster.

Certain Geo-engineering conspiracy theorists I know have that "I told you so" look in the eyes.....
Woo

[quote="Nick:1464362"]Third lot of plants in the ground and seem to be taking off a bit now. We're inundated with rabbits this year and they are decimating everything.[/quote
At least you have ninety percent left.


best you explain yourself Nick, the expression has been miss used for centuries!
snowball

Peas and broad beans brilliant yields, despite black fly on broad beans.
Runners and French beans two batches failed to germinate beyond a few leaves. Then the leaves were eaten over night.
Bebo

[quote="Nick:1464362"]Third lot of plants in the ground and seem to be taking off a bit now. We're inundated with rabbits this year and they are decimating everything.[/quote
At least you have ninety percent left.

Pedant
Bebo

[quote="Woo:1464378"]Third lot of plants in the ground and seem to be taking off a bit now. We're inundated with rabbits this year and they are decimating everything.[/quote
At least you have ninety percent left.

best you explain yourself Nick, the expression has been miss used for centuries!

He doesn't need to explain to me. I'm aware of the way that the roman army applied military discipline.

Edit to add - he's still a pedant though Wink
Woo

I learned it from a consultant I worked with.
no one else in the room had the faintest idea either.
got to love a pedant though!
gardening-girl

Rubbish germination with peas, runner beans and carrots. Those that came up have been eaten by the bastard bunnies, who have eaten through the net cover.
Spinach is doing well, and we have kept ourselves in salad stuff.
French beans in the polytunnel are really doing well.
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