What I mean is, do you get better crop yield in one year and a year later you don’t get much depending on how bad or good the season was?
I’m at zone 7 UK if that helps. We’ve just started to try gardening this year and the summer season has been scorching most of the time and with autumn rolling in it’s still fairly warm but not sunny.
If you are a ‘set it and forget it’ type of person, then yeah, it’ll be hit or miss. Heck, even if you are active and engaged in your garden, the first few seasons can be hit or miss because you are learning your climate and how to adapt to fluctuations. Once you understand how to cope, it’ll be hit after hit - at least for the majority of your crop.
The strawberries we’re growing seems to be fine, but the cucumbers and courgettes seem to be struggling, some courgettes grew fine but they were on the smaller size. The melons are starting to grow but it’s just a wait and see kind of situation if it actually grows or not.
I guess the takeaway here is to keep trying I guess and hope the next year’s seasons are better. Thank you.
Trying what? You mentioned before things were getting scorched, did you set up some shade cloth or the like?
No we didn’t have the chance to set up any shade cloths, should we have done so? I know you can set them up during colder seasons but I dunno much if you could during hotter seasons also.
Gardening for the most part is a controlled environment so good yields can be expected unless some external force has occurred. Farming, on the other hand, is hit and miss, unless you are rich enough to control that environment.
External force here being the climate/weather variations. Pests too, don’t forget the pests 😅
Hit and miss is probably a bit simplistic, but to some degree, yes, that’s how things are.
I don’t grow in your climate or even the same part of the world as you, but I live in an area of the USA (southeast) where warm season conditions from year to year are quite variable. You never really know what you’re going to get, could be drought, could be exceptionally wet all summer, might be reasonably comfortable temps, might have extreme heat starting in April. Same with bugs and disease, good years with little issue, then a decade where each year brings one or more new scourge that had previously not been an issue.
This year was super weird for me as well. Much wetter, much cloudier than normal, but also repressively extreme heat for a good part of that. Even with raised beds, lots of things struggled to dry out. Things like tomatoes are showing signs of getting too much water, water-born diseases are rampant. And because all the plants are weakened, now the pests have moved in and are insatiable, unstoppable nightmares.
Professional farmers handle this with chemicals, so they’re mostly all quite happy that we finally had a summer without a drought, first time in 5+ years. I would not be surprised to hear of near record crop yields locally this year.
But us random back yard hobby growers seem to all be unimpressed. Even the ones who were generally known for being exceptionally skilled seem to have given up on this year’s crop. Having said that, not everything has suffered. A few things, like herbs and okra, did exceptionally well this year.
Couple of things to mention: Find out what tends to grow best in your climate and try to stick with that (at least until you get some experience under your belt). Find out what growing techniques work best in your climate and try to do that as best you can, but know that it won’t always work out. Go for variety. Try a few different techniques, like do some things in pots, others in a raised bed. Plant a few things in a bit more shade (or a bit more sun) than normal, hedge against extreme heat and long dreary spells. Grow many different things with slightly different needs, shot gun approach, because some years are better than others for different things.
So basically we started growing at a bad year for it then hehe? All kidding aside, the only ones that seem to thriving (so far) are the ones in pots, tatsois, some strawberries and cherry tomatoes, basils, parsleys, sage and spring onion and sunflowers to name a few but I feel like they’re surface level crops I’m guessing (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong 😅)? So the endgame of this point is to try again next year and hope the seasons are better than this year’s? We’ve got some poly tunnels or covers for the coming colder seasons and to prevent pests, but that’ll be another story lol. Shotgun approach? I like the idea haha, just might grow different things and see what grows like you said 👍🏽 we grew some courgettes some grew to a good size but some just were too small for it to be used for anything. Other than that the strawberries and cherry tomatoes and others are doing fine.
I read about leeks the other day, said they grow wild in your part of the world, I could be wrong though.
If it can grow wild, it increases the chances of the plant thriving in a garden. Could look into what was traditionally grown in your area and start there maybe
Could try growing leeks now that you’ve mentioned it, apparently potatoes are easy to grow? They some of our store bought potatoes are growing roots as we speak 😅 probably not the same thing but you get the idea
It is the same thing! The first time I grew potatoes, the neighbor saw I was building a garden, so he gave me some eyed out root growing potatoes he bought at a market and had been growing under his cabinet.
I looked up how to plant them, and did, and they grew into plants. A woodchuck came in at ate up most of my garden that year, but he didn’t touch the potatoes! It was a harvest of potatoes!
Totally the same thing, you got it :)
Probably too late to grow some potatoes now but I’ve got that listed for next year’s crop 🤘🏽 that damned Woodchuck 😅
I’m in zone 7 US northeast. We also had a bad year. Last year was much better.
That’s what I was afraid of lol, it’s been on my mind if whether the weather has something to do with crops not growing. It does make sense that some years climates are different than others, what with climate change and all that.
It’s totally weather dependent. It’s the figuring out how to work with it that’s the tricky part, and it is tricky!
Yeah! Gardening is tough man 😅 but I guess the reward and investment is worth it once you get the hang of it and I can’t wait to reap what I showed no pun intended.
I think you have to find what does good in your area. This year my cucumbers, blueberries, sunflowers, and radishes did well. My tomatoes and peppers were a lot of work to protect and just did horribly.
Yeah, I need to research stuff, would there be a website that tells you what you can grow in your zone specifically? Or you just wing it?
i use burpee’s website to find out planting windows, and you can check out the farmers almanac website, they have tons of info! But anything can affect your plants- the sun in your area, the soil, if theres big trees around shading more than you realize, certain bugs in your area, temps, even water hardness etc etc
it gets easier every year
I’ll be a bit long winded here, but explain the difference between home and commercial gardening and the yields.
- Due to climate change, it’s nearly impossible to tell how things will yield from year to year now, but stick to the conditions for specific crops
- Commercial yields are gotten from regularity. Same water amounts, same nutritional feeds, and constant. If you aren’t consistent with both of those things, you’re going to get irregular yields.
- Pests vary wildly between locations. If you live in a city, you’re going to have bugs. If you’re in a rural area, you’re going to have ground-dwelling mammals that eat everything.
- If you’re growing from seed, don’t start in the ground. Start 2 months before hand in small containers, then transplant. Isolate any struggling seedlings, as they probably won’t make it.
I see! I had a hunch this year’s climate had something to do with it, it was weird indeed, not so much success with the crops from what I’ve seen with other posts elsewhere, mostly diseased crops which is unfortunate. We tried checking regularly and made sure to water regularly and feed also, but only time will tell if anything comes up, especially whilst trying with out cucumbers and melons/squashed. With pests, we have some Nasturtiums, a couple pots about. We don’t get many pests seeing as the Nastys seem to attract the pests which is what they’re for from what I’ve read. Other than that the only pest we encounter are eggs from cabbage moths? From the tatsoi plants we’re trying to grow, had some pakchoys grown earlier but the caterpillars got to them, forgot to check them until it was too late. Regarding if we grew from the ground or not, yes we grew it from small pots first, determined which ones grew and just “died” and moved the growing ones into a sizeable pot to grow.
Sorry if that seemed too wordy, I tried to be as specific as I could. I appreciate your comment, it was nicely put, basically told me what I needed to know 💯
If you only have moth problems, a soap-based spray will help on fruiting plants. They’ll stay away unless it’s some fruit.
Distraction plants are great. If you find an imbalance, go to a local nursery and get whatever bugs they recommend: ladybugs, Mantids, Nematode spray…etc.
Regardless of those things, just be super consistent with the watering and fertilizer. Get compost tea locally if it’s free or cheap, and you’ll be in fantastic shape.
How often and during what time of day would you used the soap based spray? I usually use it sometime before the sunsets. Yeah we grew some Nasturtiums to attract aphids away from the actually crops, seems to do the job, plus any ladybirds we find in our garden I usually pick them up and put them where the aphids are and watch them go wild lol.
We have some coffee grounds saved up since my sister works at a coffee shop and she takes them home, do they work? Apparently they do, but not as effectively from what I’ve read, maybe I need to do more research on that part. Other than that yeah, usually check the soil if it’s dry and needs watering and do the regular feeding.
I would usually recommend using it after sundown. Moths are nocturnal.
Don’t use it during the morning or daytime because you run the risk of it still being liquid and creating a lensing effect when the sun gets hot and burn the fruit. Same reason you shouldn’t water any plants during full sun.
Yeah that makes the most sense tbh, but what I’ve read and what I’ve experienced it doesn’t seem to work with the soap spray? They just keep coming back, the eggs I mean, or do I just keep doing it everyday? From what I see the moths don’t come out everyday just probably in good sunny weather if that makes sense.
…I don’t know why you got downvoted 😬
No idea. Don’t worry about it though. 😎
I would say that’s true, especially for anyone without long experience, and even increasingly for experts with climate change causing unexpected weather fluctuations.
Yeah, I guess you could say we’re level 1 noobs here for now 😂 hoping next year’s climate is better if not, just keep trying on our end 👍🏽
I’m sure you’ve already learned some things about what works and doesn’t in your microclimate. In Zone 7, could you possibly plant something now for a winter crop? (I’m in Los Angeles so I wouldn’t know what to suggest)
We started growing some plants a bit late into late spring, early summer seasons, luckily some grew but not to perfect size, the cherry tomatoes we have are growing nicely but I hear the 2nd year is going to be better, also same with the strawberries. But the ones struggling are courgettes and melons and the cucumbers too. I could try planting some garlic and onions but I think I’m too late into the season now, maybe next year perhaps?
I cut my cherry tomato plant down to a stump when the crop is done and the vine shrivels up, but I keep giving it a little water and I usually get a whole fresh vine and winter crop.
I only have pots on a balcony but it’s a very big balcony.
I’ve been watching how to overwinter tomato plants for the winter and yeah that’s what they said to do like what you did, basically to cut all of the leaves and leave some of the main stems and water them iirc, I can take the plants indoors right? I also have a small greenhouse too if I can put them in there during winter, or is inside the house better?
If you have a greenhouse try that!
You win some, you lose some. Weather every summer is different so what thrives in my garden changes every year. You can plant more heat resistant plants next year. My long beans went crazy in our higher humidity while my spinach struggled.
Long beans? That’s not a bad shout tbh, we’ll try that next year for sure. Yeah the weather seems to be the main issue with mine and everyone else’s problems this year. You win some you lose some is right!
