2007 and 2008 top three and worst three crops

[Dave]

My knowledge of weather patterns is a little limited but there is a current theory that our summers (UK) are locked into an El Nina cycle which could last 7 or 8 years.
This means rain in the summer and a lot of it. Excessive rain means some crops will always struggle and some will thrive. To add to the misery the pattern seems to be going dry hot spring, wet summer and dry hot autumn cycle.
So what should we all grow for 2009 - 2013?

Please let us know your top and bottom 3 vegetables or fruit and tell us where you live? If something did really, really well what was it?

In the South West I've found the top three that are doing really well are -

Corn (Maize)
Beans (esp wintering broad beans)
Parsnips

The worst three are

Calabresse (green) Broccoli - Both years it's started to form small florets in the summer rather than large autumn/winter ones
Potatoes - lost to blight (Although earlies seem okay)
Tomatoes - Blight both years but did well under cover

So what were your top and bottom threes and where do you live? If something did really, really well what was it?

[Cheezy]

North East


Best
Pea's (Still got a late sowing about to become ready!;Green Hurst long pod recommended)
broad beans (sucessive crops up to July)
Sweet corn don't ask how! (part of a 3 sisters bed with french beans poor and pumpkin/courgette both excellet)

Worst
tomatoes (blighted, least blight on Ferline)
carrots( I have trouble on my ground any way: can't get them to germinate for last two years)
fennel (last year in to early spring great, this years late sowing wont germinate could be new seed)
Potatoes would have been great up until they became under 6" of water,I salvaged most but will not now bother , variety Lady Balfour showed good blight resistance.

Brassica's all seem to be ready earlier.
Celery is much smaller than last year

[red]

top three

runner beans/french beans
calabrese
baby sweetcorn

bottom three

spuds (blight) still did ok though
tomatoes (blight) still did ok though
leeks

[eccentric_emma]

I am in the South East of the UK....right by the seaside

Top Three
Tomatoes - NO BLIGHT!!! (cant believe that one) - I just left them alone and they have done their thing extremely well.
Squashes
Aubergines (very surprisingly given the amount of squashing by falling pears and trampling by me and general neglect)

Bottom Three
Peas
Blackberries (mostly wont ripen)
Cabbages

[Bluemoon]

Here in Yorkshire my top 3 are;
Onions (esp 2007, loved the warm spring and wet summer)
Calabrese
Legumes (esp climbing French beans)

Bottom 3
Potatoes (esp maincrop)
butternut squash
tomatoes

[Flo]

Top three
Carrots
Onions
Beetroot

Failures
Calabrese
Broccoli
Spring Onions

[tripletdad]

Hi I'm in Harrogate North Yorks - the soil is pretty heavy clay

Top Three

Broad beans - First wave were spring sown and under cloches from the end of Feb
Raspberries - they just keep coming
broccoli

worst
garlic/ onions - rotted where they stood
squash - germinated very late and they just sat there after transplanting
sweetcorn - as above although I did get about 6 small cobs in the end

The potatoes weren't too bad although yields were down due to slugs etc

I've built some new raised beds and I intend to autumn sow some broad beans, garlic and onion sets under fleece this weekend. Ever the optimist.

[Enormous Sage]

In Bedfordshire :

Best 3 -
Peas (Mangetout) - huge crop, and planted them very early
Runner Beans - been going all summer, still producing beans now (just)
Beetroot - gone a bit crazy after failing dismally with these last year. Don't ask me how!

Bottom 3 -
Butternut Squash - The plants went crazy, but the fruit were small and went rotten almost as soon as they appeared. Zero crop. Disappointment.
Plums - Went from green to rotten in a single day. Don't understand.
Tomatos - Some worked, some didn't. "Gardeners Delight" were a gardeners nightmare : they got blight fell over and rotted, but my "greenhouse" plum tomatos seemed to work sort of OK.

[Ellendra]

Bearing in mind how seldom I was able to get outside to plant this spring:

Best:
Weeds
Weeds
Grass

The trees I planted last year are doing well. They just aren't up to "crop" status yet :p

Worst:
Pumpkins
Poppies
Tomatoes

The poppies never came up, they were breadseed poppies.

The tomatoes I've been trying to grow indoors since last December. They grow a little while, looking healthy and strong, then fall over dead for no apparent reason. I replant, the new ones grow a bit longer and a bit bigger, then fall over dead. Over and over and over, I think I'm on my eighth planting. But, these ones have gotten side branches! Progress!

[SarahJane]

Top 3;

Runner Beans
Courgettes
Garlic

Bottom 3;

Spring onions
Beetroot
Daikon Radish.

[Peggy Sue]

Cambridge shire:

Best 3:
Broad Beans (overwintering)
Purple Sprouting
Onions (from sets)

Worst 3:
Tomatoes...courtesy of the herbicide infected manure
Turnips
Marrow....just the one!

[Rosendula]

I've only had my allotment for one year, and considered this a practice year. Based on the new experience gained, I will try to grow lots more next year - more of the same, and some different things. However, with this limited experience I can say:

North East

Best 3-ish
Potatoes (planted early, and harvested early, just before everyone else's got blight)
Greenhouse tomatoes
Peas
Cabbages
Parsnips (started off indoors in loo rolls. They were so big the looked more like turnips).
Is that 3?

Worst 3
Outdoor tomatoes (blight)
onions (tiny)
baby brassicas (although brassicas did well once they were established, getting them established was very difficult due to slugs)

I'm in the early stages of creating a new veg plot at home, to run alongside my allotment which is 15 mins walk away. I considered growing different things in the different locations, but decided in the end to grow the same stuff at home as at the allotment (kind of half here, half there), so that if something gets hit by some sort of disease in one place, there's a chance it will escape it in the other place. Much as I love the allotment, I do wonder if so many people would have suffered so many pests and diseases if they were growing at home instead.

[Green Aura]

North coast of Scotland

Best
Sutherland kale (of course!)
Tomatoes - in polytunnel, still got loads on
Onions - from sets

Worst
Beans - I was warned they wouldn't grow because of the wind
Radishes - bolted really quickly
Aubergines - white fly in unbelievable quantities

[godfreyrob]

Wharfedale Valley, West Yorkshire

Best crops:

Garlic - roasted 'wet' - fabulous
Sprouting Brocolli - planted last year
Early Spinach
Broad Beans & Peas
Fennel


Worst crops:

Aubergines - spindly plants and poor fruit setting.
Sweet Peppers - nice big plants but then rotted just as fruit was beggining to ripen.
French Beans - handful of beans from about 40 plants!
Butternut Squash - sulked in the bed until september when it was too late for the fruit to grow.
Late Spinach - very poor germination and those that did all bolted.
Asparagus Peas - grew ok but woody & tasteless!

Mostly it was the cool/wet summer that caused a lot of rot and poor ripening.

[Dave]

There seems to be some trends in this already, tomatoes only seemed to have done well undercover - the dreaded blight is a tough one!

Thanks for your posts so far and for the lurkers please post your top and bottom 3! If everything failed miserably or everything you planted did incredibly well, I still want to know - it should help all us growers for next year! I'm going to try and put all this data together and put it on a map for the UK ready for spring next year so keep 'em coming