Crap Summer = Bad Harvest?

[Nellieinthebarn]

I'm not a farmer, and I've only really grown runner beans and radishes with any level of success.

I wonder if anyone more knowledgeable can enlighten me as to the affect this lack of sunshine will have on the UK cereal and veg harvest?

Due to the cost of living our diet has changed. We've cut down on meat and fish, and rely much more on vegetables. I don't really know where we can go if there is a big increase in the price of veg due to poor weather.

Also is this climate change? will this be what its like now? Having a mild panic, as you can probably tell. Is anyone stocking up more on tinned or dried veg?

Apparently, according to radio 4, this summer is unusual as we are more likely to get warmer dryer summers...This year we have been on the north side of the jet stream.

However, not having enough water in summer might be a problem.

We are also due wetter winters: waterlogged fields are not good either. This is the cause of this year's poor harvests.

What's your situation like garden wise?

We've got a garden, but neither of us are physically up to doing a veg bed.

Not up to making compost then.( Ok not the making bit that's easy, the bloody emptying and sieving bit is what takes the effort!)

I would look at something like no dig...and see what you can grow that's not too hard.

I'm trialling potatoes in Aldi potato pots in home made compost. In the ground sounds like too much work for you.

We're in Hampshire. Just cut rapeseed is looking good. Our apple crop is looking good too (for juice). We need some fine weather for wheat & barley, or the grain dryer will be running for ages, which puts the price up.
We've grown broad beans this year as a trial. Yield is good.

Thanks that's reassuring.

We still have a large hay crop we haven’t been able to cut yet.

Will it spoil if you don't get it in soon? I suppose if its late in you also wont get a second cut.

We left it a bit longer than normal because it hadn’t grown well in places. Then the rain came in and we just haven’t had enough dry time since to get it done. It’s certainly not the best quality we’ve had and we can normally rely on these fields for a good crop.
We won’t get a second cut this year now, we would normally do another mid-end August and then turn it and plant Winter Wheat in Autumn.

Hay prices are going to be through the roof next year I predict.

I'm having the worst year yet for vegetables, annual ones anyway. Slugs have eaten almost every French bean and courgette and squash seedling. My perennial kale, rocket, everlasting onions, and chives are fine but we can't live on greens. Tomatoes are running behind. Our local CSA farm seems to be growing veg okay, just on the late side.

I only grow tomatoes here. Really struggled early on with them, lost one of six plants and another hasn't really grown. However, the other four are looking really good and we're going to have a really good crop. I was only talking to someone yesterday and she said her allotment is the same.

Pollination wise, my fruit trees have been very hit and miss. Everyone has noticed the lack of bugs this year, do my assumption is there weren't enough. Could have been the old, wet and eind too I suppose!

It's the hardest year we've had for some time. We normally grow a fair proportion of our f&v. I'm used to random failures here and there (disease, pests, weather, poor care by us), but it seems more widespread this year.

Fruitwise for me:-

apples looking great, blackcurrants/redcurrants good
pears, rhubarb and gooseberries terrible.

Veg:-
Potatoes in the ground - bad. Potatoes in plastic sacks - looking good.
Beans (runners, borlotti, oregon sugar pod, green/purple beans) late this year but finally doing well.
Salad stuff (lettuce and other salad leaves, raddishes) very little success this year.
Courgettes: lots of flowers but litle fruit as yet (and normally we are drowning in them).
Squashes - lots of vines/leaves, but hardly any flowers (and no fruit yet).
Carrots - normal ones not doing well, little round ones in containers doing well, but late to get going this year (first two crops failed - I plant successively every 3 weeks).
Brassicas (broccoli, cabbages, brussells) - not doing well.

Asparagus - nothing this year. Nodding onions - nothing.
Tomatoes - earlier ones all died, but managed to buy some plugs later and they are starting to flower. Fingers crossed.
Garlic, horseraddish not looking good. Herbs are mostly ok. Chillies inside are producing but a small crop, chillies outside are no good this year.

Walking slowly past two local allotments (casing the joint!) it seems I'm not alone in my neck of the woods.

I've got plenty of tomatoes after a slow start but they are resolutely staying green. Hoping the current sunshine will tip them over. My soft fruit crop (raspberries, blackcurrants and gooseberries) was abysmal but we have loads of apples. Cherries were non existent. We have a few pears but it's a youngish tree that got damaged in a storm not long after planting and this is the first year we've had anything off it. Chilli plants and basil were ravaged by slugs/snails but are recovering now they are sitting on top of water butt's.