2009 is turning out to be a very hard year on the plot. We have planted three runs of carrots on three different occasions and in two different locations, and none of them has taken.
Same with the parsnips.
Things aren’t much better in the greenhouse. The tomatoes, which should be putting out generous foliage by now, are thin and stalk-like and would never support any fruit unless they start bulking up.
And while out first batch of lettuce looks great and we’re eating it leaf-by-leaf in the sandwiches we take to work, the second batch has failed to take at all. Where there should be little green leaves, we have only bare soil.
I don’t understand it. We’re not doing anything different this year to last; we’re using good compost on the greenhouse plants, and we’re keeping everything properly watered.
The high point at the moment seems to be the potatoes, which are going great guns, and the strawberries, for which we were holding out no hope at all. We had a bowl of them for dessert last night. It’s the first year we’ve been able to do that.
All very strange. Let’s hope it’s just us that are having problems this year, and this isn’t a sign of more serious problems being repeated around the world.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Recent weather changes have played havoc with bringing crops on for a lot of people. Parsnips are always tricky to germinate – mine came on well in the warm weather with lots of water.
Carrots have been hit and miss for other people and though mine have appeared, they are very slow to mature.
You could try a general fertiliser to help the tomatoes and maybe the same for the other crops that are slow. Sometimes a feed helps things on.
Interesting – our tomatoes just seem to be growing so slow and they are very much stick like. This time last year they were very much filled out and bush like. Our potatoes on the other hand seem to be loving it all
I have had a similar problem with carrots this year. I have tried 3 different varieties and have only one seedling to show for it. Have just sown some more in a different location so keeping my fingers crossed. Amazingly my parsnips germinated fine and are doing quite well. You could try a liquid seaweed feed for the toms, mine are doing well on that and have begun to set fruit.
No problems with the tomatoes here, either the ones bought as young plants from the garden centre or the ones grown from seed. Same goes for the peppers.
Carrots – well. I set two rows and have maybe 8 seedlings, they are growing very slowly and look pretty weedy.