In the gardening world (or in life generally, to be honest), you can’t have everything go exactly to plan.
Although overall, we’re having a very good growing season and are enjoying lots of tasty produce that we’ve been growing. However, we wanted to share a couple of things that haven’t gone quite (or at all!) to plan, to show it’s not all positive. The main thing is that you don’t let it put you off, and you brush yourself off and start again when the time comes!
Complete turnip failure
In our post about these a few weeks ago, the Falco turnips were doing really well. This is what they look like now…
Firstly, the flea beetles attached there leaves. You may still be able to see the remnants of their holes in the leaves. If that wasn’t enough, root fly then flew in to finish them off. These burrow into the turnips and lay their eggs and the larvae then eat the turnip from the inside out. Hopefully we’ll have better luck with the turnips next year!
Uncalled for pepper consumption
The pepper we’re growing this year that I’m mostly looking forward to trying is Giallo D’Asti. We’ve never grown a yellow bell pepper before, and seeing as they’re my favourite when we buy them from the shops, I have high expectations!
This of course also meant that they were number 1 target for any unwanted pests that fancied a munch! We think this one succumbed to a not-so-friendly slug, so we had to take him off the plant and discard him.
Drunk yellow courgettes
The last example is also an unexpected mishap, but for the moment, ends in a happier story than the two above!
The Sunstripe courgette took a tumble last week, snapping off its main stem. We don’t even know why – it hasn’t been windy! Seeing as the plant hadn’t really got going yet, we were a bit disappointed as we were hoping that it starting producing a few more courgettes.
The good news, is that the growing point still seems to be getting food and water. So fingers crossed we still get some more courgettes. We’re just letting it do its own thing now heading towards the ground, rather than trying to tie it back up to the stake.
It's Sow Simple 
Ah no … I find there’s always a few random casualties every year in my veg plot too – this year my sunflowers got munched by pigeons, but like you, my courgettes are doing well 🌿
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Pleased to hear your courgettes are doing well. You’re right though, there’s always something!
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Good advice! There’s always something that happens…critters, bugs, storms, disease, theft, drought…but usually there’s time to plant a second crop, or to repair some of the damage as you did with your squash. Gardeners just keep trying.
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