Crop failures.

[jansman]

Many of us here are gardeners, and aspire to providing food for ourselves now and in a crisis should that happen. Although a crisis could easily be a job loss or illness of course, and is a real and present scenario.
Protecting and nurturing crops is important to get the end result. What if a crop fails? I ask this as my tomato plants have failed. Bear in mind I grow three dozen for the purpose of preserving, this is serious to me. Other seedlings are struggling too, and I think I have a bad batch of compost. The plants in a different batch are thriving. I must get back to making my own John Innes compost as I always did.
Now we will not starve as a result! And luckily my neighbour provided me with more plants. They have doubled in size in two days in the new compost. There are some things, should they fail, there will not be enough time to re-sow. In fact, your plants may thrive , only to be cut back by plague/pestilence or whatever. If that were to happen, then what would that mean? SHTF a potato blight for instance would be as bad as the Irish Potato Famine.
This is rather a ramble, but I would not want to deal with slugs and snails without chemicals for instance. I have tried, dear Lord I have tried, to use organic methods. They don't work in my experience! Anyhow, what are your thoughts?

[Brambles]

I think for the gardeners among us this is our worst nightmare. I too have had a problem with tomatoes. The first lot of Gardeners delight, Alicante and a nice little french variety I forget the name of all failed to germinate, yet my home saved San Marzano, romped away. I had time to re-sow some more Gardeners Delight and found some Moneymaker seed and I have just potted the seedlings on.
I've simplified much of my garden I've also got into perennial veg and so far my experience is seem to be a more primitive and as a result hardier than the more blousy annuals. I'm hoping in the future to not start as much off from seed.
I know if I had to rely on what I grew, I would be quite ruthless in cutting out some veg that are more prone to pestilence and concentrate my efforts on things that crop more reliably.

(Don't tell anyone, but I'm also Geurilla gardening...Shhhhhhh)

[jansman]

Perennials are the way to go, for sure. Guerilla gardening. What are you planting?

[Brambles]

So far just redistributed some Ramson seed and field garlic. Once I've got few more going I want to put a few kale plants out, some Oca, Hopniss and perennial spinach. The plan is to have a few things elsewhere in reserve, so to speak. It's unlikely they will be picked, cause folk won't know what they are.

[jansman]

That is a very interesting choice Brambles. Food for thought , if you will forgive the pun. I have a good supply of Jerusalem Artichokes. I doubt anyone would know what they were, and they are very hogh yielding too.

[Brambles]

I've chosen things that don't really look like 'food'. Once I have a few more stock I want to put out some Oca too. I have found as long as it's planted deep enough, it's not as tender as I've read.

It's always a worry at this time of year, hoping your plants thrive and you get to harvest a decent crop. It must have been a nailbiting time back when what you grew directly affected your survival. We're so lucky, if something fails, we can always nip to the shop.

[Stasher]

We had a similar crises earlier this year when the local mice ate just about EVERY planted seed in the greenhouse. The dining room became our new propagator! TBH alpha male is a little over protective of his plants and we have more feed and different types of soil than I can remember! It is crushing when things go wrong like this - I always think of the phrase 'don't put all your eggs in one basket'. We try to stagger our planting so if there is a greenhouse disaster we do not lose everything. On the slug front we normally have more pellets that we can use in a year. Going organic is a lovely idea, but from a practical point of view in my opinion, it is better to use minimal chemicals and achieve excellent results. Hope the rest of the year goes better

[featherstick]

Sorry to hear about the failures.


I have read that once you start taking off side shoots from your tomatoes, you can use the early ones as cuttings for new plants, doubling your numbers. I haven't tried but I will this year.

[jansman]

I've chosen things that don't really look like 'food'. Once I have a few more stock I want to put out some Oca too. I have found as long as it's planted deep enough, it's not as tender as I've read.

It's always a worry at this time of year, hoping your plants thrive and you get to harvest a decent crop. It must have been a nailbiting time back when what you grew directly affected your survival. We're so lucky, if something fails, we can always nip to the shop.

Exactly! You can see why famine was ever present. The Irish Potato Famine springs instantly to mind.