As the pea stems turn white, the potatoes are dug up and the apple glut hits it’s time to take stock of the 2024 growing season.
Owner of an allotment for a decade, and still one of the younger plotholders, I’ve been seeing apocalyptic comments on twitter about complete failures and small or no harvests this year. A mixed picture for me.
As a weekender I have narrowed down what I grow over the years to only the safest crops. So spuds – which this year was a decent crop but the average size was pretty small. Runner beans were a real challenge to start – the ‘slugageddon’ of a sodden May required frequent visits and the application of organic pellets several times. Now the crop is pretty good and I’m giving them away, turning them into kimchi and chutney etc. The apple harvest, from three trees I inherited, has been ridiculously good.
Peas should work, as they are pretty pest repellent, but I get a couple of bowls of pods and am not sure if I need to grow many more plants, start then earlier or what. Rhubarb – which is a bit of mine, a bit of wild on disused plots – has also been really good and we have many pots of rhubarb jam. Shouldn’t the rhubarb season be February to April? We’re still getting growth now.
So, backgardeners and allotmenteers, how has 2024 been?
Not that this thread needs a musical link, but an album on headphones is a pretty good measure of an allotment visit. yesterday ‘Fork In The Road’. Mmmm a whole album of Neil songs about cars. Not one of his best. And worked my way through the complete Fall Peel sessions over the summer…
Had to give up my allotment last year. I’d had one for twenty plus years towards the end I’d had a disabled plot but found it difficult to carry on, plus it was shaded by trees so no direct sunlight from 12 noon. So it’s good to hear about your allotment.
Outdoor rhubarb season is until September, you’re probably thinking of forced rhubarb which is in the early part of the year, forcing puts great strain on the plant so it’s a short season.
Sorry to hear that, though at times the thought of yet another hour of weeding is less than enticing, spending time with your hands in the earth and tending for plants is deeply relaxing. I do think the outdoor rhubarb season has become longer, or maybe I am remembering some disappointing seasons.
The wife has a greenhouse, but tomato’s this year have been hopeless. Still green. A common complaint hereabouts. Seemingly not enough sunlight.
My wife is probably going to give up her allotment after only 3 years. It’s a decent enough plot but the garden will be enough as she has found that age is catching up and I’m not interested or able to help that much. We’ve had trouble using what was grown recently, gluts of courgettes and sweetcorn while broccoli and err, something else, went to seed before they could be harvested. Last year’s tomatoes got blight and potatoes were wormy. I won’t miss it TBH.
Foxy Towers garden plot has been struggling. As reported above, low tom yield, many still on the vine, green as Shrek. Chutney awaits, along with the pitiful runner bean harvest. Daikon radishes went straight to seed. Chard died in the ground. Crystal Lemon cucumbers all got powdery mildew and croaked after only enough fruit to make three jars of dill pickle; last year we had tons of the things, luckily, and the 2023 pickles are still in the larder. Lollo Rossas were very slow to get going, but the remaining ones are now huge (in mini-polytunnels). All of the herbs – all in pots – have survived if not thrived. Strawbs were few and far between but delicious. Chillis went out in the little tunnels for a few months and are now back indoors – Bonnets, Apache and Birdseye all look to be doing well. Courgettes hated this year. Two plants, five fruits. Yet a near neighbour had a glut – grated with onions, rice and cheese and cooked in filo as a pie lashed with butter – scrummy. All in all, not a great harvest. Good job we are not (yet) dependent upon growing our own.
Surprised by your (and others below) comments on Strawberries – I thought it was a bumper year with a wet spring leading to bigger, juicier strawberries.
Certainly when we were in Scotland visiting the boy, there were loads at the Pick. your Own farm and they were good.
Saying that, I’m the last person that should comment – my track record on gardening extends to killing every single herb that I have tried to grow (and that’s in a tropical climate where you drop a seed on the ground and it will be a forest by next week)
…We have a small vegetable patch and a little greenhouse in our back garden. Compared to previous years:
VEG. PATCH
————–
courgettes – in abundance, and still coming
aubergines – only 3, about a quarter of previous years
beans – just won’t stop
(rainbow) chard – best crop this year
rhubarb – picked when younger this year, so technically less. Mrs Biggles does a mighty cheesecake with it, though.
beetroot – very tasty
GREENHOUSE
—————–
cucumbers – very good
tomatoes – small ones excellent, but larger ones poor
peppers – less than last year
figs – worst year to date, failing to ripen and just hanging (on in) there
strawberries – less than usual
Therefore – “mixed reviews”…
I get a nice crop of rhubarb most years. About the only thing that grows well in our patch. Some decent tomatoes in the small greenhouse if I find the time to tend to them. I’m intrigued by Mrs. B’s rhubarb cheesecake – rhubarb and cheesecake are two of my favourite things but I’ve never thought of putting them together. Something to try next year…
In our part of Somerset, lots of veg didn’t germinate or got slaughtered by slugs. Flowers have been very good – Sweet Peas very scented, and nice long stems, though slugs ate all but one sunflower seedling. Our two little Box balls were killed by Box moth caterpillars, which seem to done for every visible Box in the village, including a circa 8 metre hedge.
Greenhouse; tomatoes and peppers late, but very good. Ailsa Craig plant broke, due to size of toms.
Spuds; they self-seed in one of the compost heaps. Looks like a decent crop of Albert Bartlett Roosters.
French beans/Runner beans. Slow to get going, tasty, but small crop.
Alliums; Big onions excellent and lifted, Leeks looking good.
Broad beans; tasty, but small crop.
Sweetcorn; only half a dozen survived the slugs to go in the ground, but very good crop.
Asparagus: old bed good crop, avoiding the ‘compulsory asparagus’ tonight feeling.
Butternut Squash: very slow to get going, looking ok now.
Damsons: massive crop. Are freezing some, giving some away, and the birds can have the majority.
@gcu-grey-area would you recommend planting asparagus. Love eating it, and of course am attracted to the idea of a perennial like rhubarb that just comes up every year. My 20 secs of research is that you buy a crown, and then have to quite carefully plant it in a prepared bed of some sort. I assume you wait a few years for a crop, like with rhubarb. But gardening is always a long game.
It’s probably the easiest veg we’ve grown. You plant it on a small mound of soil, with the roots hanging down the sides, before burying it. They don’t like clay soils. Our veg garden is very free draining, loamy, and only just alkaline. We like it so much we’ve had two beds for a while. We planted a new one last year to replace the oldest one. You can’t crop them for a year, and we stop cropping on the longest day. The beds are in full sun. We keep them weed-free, and tickle the soil over a couple of times a year and spread home made compost over them. When the ‘ferns’ have grown out over the summer, they may need supporting from the wind until they turn gold in colour, Cut them down to just above the ground in January. You should get 10 years out of a bed, though our first was still cropping at 20.
Due to a generally stoopid busy year (end of an Offspring’s time away at University, long holiday away, Mrs F’s business travel) we didn’t even bother with our greenhouse crop of toms & cues this year.
We saw some magic rhubarb on the West coast of Scotland, though. Lots of cold and rain and a late arrival of summer. There’s a picture, taken somewhere near Gairloch, of me standing underneath some pathside rhubarb with stems the width of my thighs and leaves the size bedsheets.
Like GCU above, I spent much of the Spring digging out blighted Box hedge.
Your magic rhubarb sounds more like gunnera, I believe it can be eaten but must be prepared correctlyn(I’d check up first).
Oo-er… it’s been banned by Defra!
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/08/uk-bans-popular-garden-plant-gunnera-after-study-finds-it-an-invasive-species
Probably the most disappointing year down the allotment for me and I’ve had a plot for around 20 years. The cold spring/early summer just seemed to push everything back in terms of germination, be it in the greenhouse or direct sowing. The growing season has therefore been too short.
As a result, I’ve had few courgettes and cucumbers and okay crops of beans and spuds. All the brassicas are smaller than they should be at this time of year and the leeks are tiny. The squashes look okay and I’ve had decent crops of beetroot and carrots. The parsnips look okay too but I’ve not lifted any yet.
The blackberries have been great (so glad I have a thornless variety when it comes to picking them) and I’ve made some great seedless jam. The two apple trees (Christmas Pippin and Russet) are well laden too.
There’s always something that disappoints and surprises each year. There’s just been more lows and highs this year. No way I’m giving it up though as I enjoy being down there, plus the small garden at home means the back of the plot is an extra wood store for the wood burning stove.
I think it’s the best ever apple crop – not just tons of them but also really big ones, easier to peel and prepare. We have done crumbles, dried them out in slices, given them away, made apple sauce to freeze…and (to paraphrase Jefff Wayne)…and still they come.
Without being a gardener we have a quince tree and a fig tree in the back, each planted from small garden centre potted trees. The fig tree has grown enormously this year, but with fewer fruit than before. Only 4 have ripened so far, I normally snarfing 2 or 3 a day by now. I suspect the rest will fail to ripen, such is the still small size and firmness. The quince has gone bonkers, with loads of fruit, if still pretty small, but they are usually a month or so from dropping.
The smell of quince is glorious.
Anybody want 490 tons of figs? Prune the bastard back hard every spring and every summer the bastard grows fifty feet. Everybody round here has a fig tree so nobody wants any of ours therefore 17000 jars of chutney and 22000 jars of jam available – free to collect.
One year I cut the bastard to the ground and set fire to the stump. That year it grew to 70 feet and produced enough figs to feed all of China. Bastard.
I have a Mahonia large bush/small tree like that. I spent most of the weekend up a ladder, taking lumps off it with pruning shears (bolt croppers). Even when limbs are cut off, the leaves are like razor blades. I’ve killed it twice.
There are two others around the garden to do next weekend.
And don’t get me started on the Bamboo. Or the strip willow.
There’s a fig tree in the village, which overhangs a public right of way. I usually get enough to satisfy my fig craving. Just before lockdown, someone was giving away quince, and I made several kilos of quince paste. It freezes really well. Nothing like a bit of membrillo with decent Cheddar.
Peas an absolute disaster this year but French beans, runners and broad beans aplenty, spuds ok but small, onions (red and brown) pretty good and the usual huge crop of tomatoes. Have spent this afternoon making jars of tomato & chilli ketchup which is just wonderful with dippy chips. Apples also very good, both eaters and cookers, likewise plums but pears virtually non-existent.
I tried growing courgettes this year but the flowers kept dropping without the fruit forming. Plainly I’m doing something wrong as elsewhere it’s just complaints about the glut.
Our balcony gets tons of sun and the pots have to be watered daily. As we were away in the UK for 4 weeks from late July, it suffered more than usual. However my mother’s garden, which covers about half an acre and is three quarters overgrown produced bumper crops of apples, pears, plums and best of all, greengages. They. Were. Superb!