Allotments/ fruit and veg plots - how are yours faring?

Very glad to be harvesting anything at all this year as so much was stolen last year. Bored kids I assume.
Loganberries planted two years ago have produced a wonderful crop. Only one picking of gooseberries but apples and plums have fruit to look forward to.

Thank you for the Cucumber pickle recipe. That is a definite this year I think?

The cucumber pickle recipe Callistemon has linked to (up thread) is highly recommended, it’s truly delicious.

muse I’ve had two blueberry bushes for years and one produces lots of teeny tiny berries and the other produces very few, but good sized ones. Last year I bought two new bushes and left them in their pots and they’ve got a respectable showing of decent sized berries.

I don't have an allotment but do have a 20' polytunnel, raised beds and fruit cage.

Not many strawberries from the polytunnel but 3/4 of the plants are new ones. Runners from last years old plants.

Lots beetroot in polytunnel and outside.

Picked first french beans yesterday.

First year with tayberries. Very sharp but huge. Blackcurrants not quite ready. Autumn raspberries? Poor blueberries. I have had 3 plants for 3 years and never more than a cup full from all three. Rhubarb failure too. No idea what I'm doing wrong as I've grown it at my old house very successfully. Nothing on 3 year old apple trees and cherry plums. We live in frost pocket and think they suffer every year with the ground and air frost.

Supersteak and plum tomatoes very slow but plenty to come. Hope they survive. Most are in the polytunnel. I had three years of tomato blight. Lettuce doing well in polytunnel.

Late purple sprouting broccoli and cauliflower OK. Garlic not quite ready. Sweet peppers small. Mini pop sweet corn nearly 6' tall ! No corn as yet.

Lots of gladioli and cosmos daisies and california poppy (jelly beans). Picking last two for the house now.

Runner beans have lots of flowers. Leeks doing well.

Any ideas about my rubbish attempts at growing rhubarb? Also need to find out why so little fruit on these expensive blueberry plants.

We didn't water this evening

I blame Cummings.

Yes:
www.riverford.co.uk/recipes/cucumber-pickle

But are the tomatoes beyond rescue?
Did the spray go on the leaves or just the roots before or after the sun was on the greenhouse?

I've had a disaster in the greenhouse Despite watering and spraying inside the greenhouse every morning and checking again in the evening, my tomatoes have frazzled. I've had to dispose of one plant (MoneyMaker) completely and the other (Gardener's Delight) has had to be cut back to just one truss. Loads of little green tomatoes have perished. The cucumbers and cucamelon are like triffids; completely taking over the greenhouse with more and more runners. If they all come to fruition..... has anyone any cucumber recipes?

I can’t grow spring onions or radishes

Well interesting I have had an absolute bumper crop of strawberries I ve been giving them away freezing them eating them they are now just about over …raspberries not quite ready yet loads of rhubarb and gooseberries coming out my ears
Only did a few runners peas and broad beans but they ve done well had a few courgettesm, my leeks are looking good as is beet and parsnips No flowers on the tomatoes yet 16 broccali plants with tubes and netting eaten to the ground Cabbages attacked by cabbage whites just veins onions and potatoes looking good but not ready yet
Not a pear to be seen had a great crop last year I think the high winds earlier blew all the blossom off Apple tree seems to have fruit
So good and bad

We were very late planting this year but suddenly have flowers on the beans, courgettes, tomatoes.
Spring onions are rubbish as usual.
Strawberries were terrible.
Raspberries still going strong!

Waitrose and Lidl sell good jam ?

I'm quite new to allotmenting, if that's a word. Still at the clearing and digging over stage, but we did inherit prolific gooseberry bushes and I've made lots of chutney.
I'm having great fun planning it all out (and it's easier than actually digging, especially in this heat) .

Just back from a couple of weeks break.

So the good news

Tomatoes dripping,
Cucumbers - 2 ready
Aubergines growing nicely
Peppers growing nicely

Outside not so good.

Two beautiful broccoli heads that were nearly ready- gone over
Runner beans - all that is left is stalks
Lettuce - bolted
Garlic- ready-
Onions and shallots nearly ready
Carrots growing.
Spring onions disappeared
A lovely cauliflower head though and French beans looking promising.

The garden itself like a jungle

Blackcurrants and apples have really done well here, but strawberries and raspberries have been rubbish. squash plants are finally romping away, looks like we may have a bumper crop of pumpkins but not even had one courgette yet, and tomatoes, in greenhouse, hardly any fruit as yet.

We do have plums which I hope will grow to a good size but it is a fairly new tree. BIL lost all his in that cold snap.

Why do spring onions never grow to a good size?

Strawberries look all but over - a very poor year.
Raspberries are ok but not plentiful although we seem to have plenty of blackberries to come on.
One picking of gooseberries!
Not very many blackcurrant- normally I have a freezer full of soft fruit so have lots of blackcurrants from last year (and the previous year).

My parents-in-law live five minutes from me (and my allotment) and yet, unlike mine, their apple tree is fairly laden with fruit. We have not had a single stick of rhubarb in spite of putting in three extra plants last year, so I’m intrigued that some of you have done well with yours. Interestingly our strawberries have self-seeded and the little plants have produced masses of tiny strawberries that are absolutely full of flavour, they’re like little sweeties.

Beetroot is one of our staples and has always grown really easily, but we’ve had to put in a second sowing this year as the first lot amounted to nothing. Walking round the allotments it’s interesting to see what’s growing on other plots and not one has a productive apple, pear or plum tree this year.

Here in north Nottinghamshire- on my allotment over the road we have-

Lovely crop of roses and dahlias for cutting

Just pruned Stellar Cherry. Good crop last year, nothings this year.

Very little on Vic Plum, or my three pears.

Red and black currants absolutely dripping. I have told allotment neighbours to help themselves (also good crop of raspberries)

Six green courgettes cropping well
Not so the yellow ones, not getting much bigger than my thumb.

Kalettes lush and tall under netting.
For later in year.

Tried two different varieties of sweetcorn, I think they were Goldcrest and Invincible, both tall and lush, tassels just emerging.

Alisa Craig onion, from seed four to a station, been picking as spring onions for weeks, now bulbing up nicely. Super crop.

Beets bolting, as has spinach.

Runner beans, climbing and flowering and tiny beans coming now.

Leeks, a few sending up the flower spike. Pulled them this morn.

All first early potatoes very good. I did a random grid method of planting (as Monty has done in the past). Did have a good manure mulch though.

All in all reasonable.

The original cucumbers and cantaloupe melons were killed off by cold weather but the replacement are romping away now and are laden with fruits. Same with tomatoes, although one plant is very slow at setting fruit. The hanging basket tomato is laden with cherry tomatoes and should be cropping shortly. Lettuce, onions and cucamelon have been cropping for a couple of weeks now. Blackcurrant bush is almost ready for cropping - but it will be a race with the pigeons as to who gets there first!

Peas beans very good crop courgettes amazing the plants are three foot tall. Black currants and apple trees doing well blackberries too raspberries not good lettuce mould set in. Onions and potatoes good the cauliflowers all separating like net curtains but overall good year.

Yup, funny year. Good crop of broad beans which had been over wintered under cover, potato crop is smallish and late. Summer fruiting rasps have been good, Autumn ones are late but good crop of red and black currants. Courgettes are hopeless this year with some slug damage but are starting to recover, I'm picking French beans but the runners are way behind. Beetroot has gone AWOL but mange tout are flowering. I have a huge crop of globe artichokes which were grown from seed last year but they are horribly spiky! The apple trees are OK but the plums are non existent. Tomatoes are slow but some of the sungold are nearly ready to pick.

We had lots of strawberries and rhubarb too. A small crop of gooseberries, I chopped the bushes back last year.
Greenhouse tomatoes coming along, the outdoor ones much slower.
Salad leaves and lettuce are keeping up with being used more at the moment.
Beetroot and carrots not good. We had enough broad beans to eat for a couple meals and freeze one bag full.
Only planted a small row of potatoes which we have been using this last week.
Runner beans finally getting near the top of the poles.

No apples, either. I have an old tree of a lovely old dual purpose variety which is usually dripping with them. Can't see any on it at all.

Virtually nothing anywhere near harvesting yet as the really cold weather in late spring held stuff back.

However, autumn sown onions are a big success. Onions are about the only thing that the local wildlife doesn't find tasty!

Courgettes, climbing and dwarf french beans, peppers, tomatoes, spring sown onions and leeks looking promising...

I bought some perennial sprouting broccoli plants earlier, I don't think I'll get anything off them this year, but looking forward to next year ? I grew some from seed once, about 40 years ago but we moved house after their first year so I never knew how well they performed. Then I forgot that such a thing existed...

Courgettes devoured by slugs, first crop of beans didn’t appear so started off a second crop, showing but very behind so not sure what will happen. I haven’t planted much else this year as I have been looking after elderly relatives again.