Everything was going really well in the vegetable garden until it became clear that anything that we grow to eat something else as its eye on as well and is determined to get in first.
Blackfly on the Broad Beans were easily dealt with and a mouse nibbling off the pea shoots was efficiently dispatched but you just can’t see what is going on underground and almost our entire crop of potatoes has been destroyed by a critter that I had never heard of before – the wireworm.
I began the harvest just about a week ago and noticed curious holes in the tubers which under further investigation led to maggoty creatures inside and brown rot. Everything destroyed and I know how the Irish felt now in the potato blight and famine of the 1840s. Kim has had to go to the supermarket to get alternative supplies. I was looking forward to at least a month of home grown produce but it is not to be.
Now I am worried about the beetroot and the carrots.
This is the total crop that I was able to salvage, not a great return on three months work…
Hopefully nothing is going to take a liking to the runner beans but at least they are above ground and I can see what is going on.
Have Bag, Will Travel 
Ah, the circle of life.
. . . although, I think you’re doing a bit better than the Irish in the 1840s . . . no supermarkets system of distribution back then.
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Thanks. Above ground crops are doing just fine!
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Bloody hell, same with mine! No doubt it’s a Brexit effect, those bloody EU Bureacrats get everywhere, probably failed to water them to a correct depth! Unless it’s The Corbyn virus!
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Apparently there is no cure for wireworm so that is very much like the EU.
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Flamethrower?
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I have considered that option. Barbeque the vegetables in situ and cut out the kitchen cooking process.
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Cabbages have run riot though, probably the Farage Effect 😂
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The cabbage effect is most likely down to Boris!
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You’re probably right, bolted, outgrown their boxes, no heart, lots on the outer not much in the middle 😂
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You have to get a better technique on bios, taste better they are better just more work/ And then share some , me no good at that.
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I was planning to achieve an organic garden but I have resorted to chemicals!
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omg run , read the labels !
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Oh, rotten luck, Andrew
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Rotten indeed Sue!
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We gave up on carrots – full of carrot fly tunnels. Thought about doing them in a tub as I’ve read the flies fly along the ground and tubs fool them. Sparrows, the chirpy little b*****ds, eat pea shoots and lettuce (they have very healthy eating habits here) and the cat prefers chasing frogs. Beetroots grow full of fibrous knots. We do get decent potatoes in a tub made out of half an old water butt, but in the ground they take up too much room and some always escape and come up again the following year where you don’t want them. Just once we had some decent cucumbers and one football of a cabbage. So this year we’ve only bothered with tomatoes, runnner beans and courgettes, all looking good.
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Oh dear! There must be a deterrent?
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Apparently not, the advice is to dig and cultivate so that birds can find and eat the larvae.
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Isn’t planting onions next to carrots the deterrent? Always done it, never had carrot fly.
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I’ll remember that for next year, thanks Brian!
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Ouch! Broad beans are the simplest to grow. but a bit of research from local gardeners mightn’t be a waste of time. – Ot you could forget about farming and go on a visit to Spain.
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Black fly seem to like the broad beans. I think I’ll get my bucket and spade and take your advice!
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I’ve never heard of wireworm either. What a dreadful shame.
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Nasty little things and an unbelievable amount of damage!
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One of my greatest pleasures of growing veg was digging up potatoes. I really need to start again. Sorry about yours.
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I am worried about my carrots now, apparently they like carrots as well!
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You must be finding this heartbreaking!
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“Ooh, nasty” says Jackie – I concur
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Horrible things Derrick. Apparently they are a problem in a new vegetable patch where they have been living undisturbed for several years. Ours is a new vegetable patch. The way to combat them is to keep the soil well cultivated and dug over so that the birds can find the larvae.
We have lost an estimated 30lbs of potatoes which would have lasted us for a good few weeks but there is some compensation in the pea and bean yields.
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I planted 50 once and got zero return so I don’t do potatoes any more.. Only what I can see.. 😉
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‘Penny a pound Best King Edwards’, Used to be heard often when I was a lad, and the new potatoes were to die for, Australian potatoes are not the worlds greatest
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What a disappointment! I hope your beets and carrots fare better.
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Married to a potato farmer! Looks like you have a bad case of nematodes. I would change the spot where you are growing your potato’s…or carrots .
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That was sometime ago now so I don’t grow potatoes in the ground anymore, I do them in pots which is a lot more successful…
Thanks for stopping by.
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