Wow. Summer comes crashing down! Ep 231 || Plot 37 

I know just how you feel Jessie, and up here in Scotland we hardly had any summer at all. A few odd days of sunshine, mostly rain and very chilly winds all through the summer months. My veg were so poor this year. 6 courgette plants, not one courgette..just not enough pollinators. I just want winter over and spring to come and I can start again lol. To add insult to injury the weather says down to 0 deg on Thursday night and a possible frost!!!! Ah well.....that's a gardeners life🤣🤣🤣

I feel your pain Jessie You’ve had such bad luck with badgers & foxes. We always have to cover most crops cos of cabbage whites & pigeons. I wish you every success with your new cages 🤩

Yes, this year has been pants weatherwise. I'm 66 years old and I don't remember a year like it. Still hopeful for an Indian summer to get everything ripened. hugs

Hi Jess out of all the channels I have watched over the years yours is only one I have kept watching without fail. I feel I know you and you are my friend. Please don’t give up will you. Take care and mum xxx

Scaffold net keeps butterflies out.

Despite the slugs, weather, foxes and badgers and the delay in the chillies, you completed two major projects with the poly square refurbishment and new greenhouse flooring. All contributed to setbacks but great for an earlier start next year. 👍🏻 The new lift up netting cages will also help manage next year’s fox cub antics. Your chickpea harvest is a lovely pick-you-up bonus. It’s been a particularly trying year. I think we’re all a tad uncomfortable with the lack of pollinators. Doesn’t seem right does it…. We’ve been blessed with the absence of blight and have enjoyed watching the daily harvest of blushing paste tomatoes turning red on the kitchen table; roasting them in batches and making the sauce, ketchup and marinara to replenish the shelves after the right-off from last year’s particularly vicious blight. Won’t matter if blight arrives now: we’re expecting 6 C tomorrow night and 3 C by the weekend! 😱 Hope your new transplants settle in well and undisturbed….

Came here to see about today's video, weird to not see one on a Tuesday anyone else seeing it is it just me?

Hi again. Just a tip from a US youtuber. If you are worried about Tom's not ripening, pick them when there is the first hint of a change of colour. They will risen perfectly on a

I just wanted to give you a big hug when you said 'we're just running out of time ....'. Onwards and upwards!

Love your show I watch you every day...and whenI go outside I leave you on for my parrots to watch..they love the music and when you laugh so do they.lol.I wish we were neighbours..greetings from Australia Michelle..

It’s been such a hard year this year and it’s good to see we are all struggling

I feel your pain. Here in Pennsylvania we've had horrific heat and drought which has done in what the ravaging deer, chipmnks and bears didnt get!😢😂

This year has been crap, but I'm loving this Autumn, I am preparing for a great year next year and excited about Autumn as I've already started sowing & growing ready for Spring.

Keep your chin up Jess. Picked all my green tomatoes and loads of ripe chillies, so proceeded to make green tomato and chilli chutney.. 17 jars!! X

I hate this whole year as I have s.a.d and it feels like it has been here all year with the gray and depressing weather

❤Filling tea bags with dried herbs I grew for medicinal blends. Any tomatoes left in the garden aren’t worth the nutrients they pull up from the soil so I’m ripping them out to amend beds for the next round of autumn growing. But the strawberries are having another flush of flowers so this wacky weather is making me question everything I plant. Chickens love the bugs I’m making easier to access for them as snacks too! 😂

Yeah this summer has been fairly naff weather wise here in West Yorkshire, even things that usually do well in the green house haven't done as well as usual. Colder weather plans such as kale have done ok. Im finding my pear tree (that last year fruited in the summer) thinks its now spring time and shooting out a tone of blossom in mid September! Bonkers! Anyway, onwards and upwards. Plans for 2025 are in the making!! Great video Jessie as usual.

I do feel for you and I am impressed by how positive you manage to be but this year has been challenging for many people. Like you, I feel sorry for those who have just started their growing journey. Having grown up in Surrey and going to college in Twickenham, my future husband and I loved walking in Richmond park. We moved to Norfolk over 50 years ago and 10 years ago moved to Suffolk - just on the Norfolk/ Suffolk border. We are 10 miles from the most easterly part of the country and this year we have had so little rain this summer that we have lost some plants and some of the vegetables have suffered. The garden is too big to use a hose so the vegetables and fruit are certainly not providing the crops that we hoped for. The polytunnel where I grow the tomatoes reached 54° C and so stopped setting fruit. We don't have badgers and the foxes leave the vegetables alone and aim for the chickens who free range. Following such a wet Winter and Spring where we were wallowing in mud and walking a river path in one of the tunnels the ground now has huge cracks. Oh, and every time that I planted a crop and watered it in the moles tunnelled up underneath them! Who'd be a gardener. Apologies for the waffle. 😊

Jess, have you ever had fried green tomatoes? They are wonderful. I freeze green tomato slices so we can have them over the winter. Try em, you'll like em.

We had 2.1° in my polytunnel last Friday morning… then it rose to 37° in the day, with the doors open. Madness. We have some sun forecast next week. I’m hoping that will help ripen what’s left on my tomatoes 🍅 🙏🏻

We’ve taken a green pepper that we picked, at home, on holiday with us and it’s now half ripened 😂

Oh Jess, it does seem like summer just wasn't with it this year! I'm holding thumbs and crossing everything else for your tomato harvest 🤞 I always enjoy your videos but today's was especially endearing, thank you for sharing all the ups and downs 💜 The girlies are looking fabulous!

I love how the colours in lily's fur coordinate perfectly with the array of colours in your chickens! I've also noticed no butterflies this year on my buddliea, and less bees and hoverflies too. Strange!

Hey Jessie hope this finds you well. I think It was last week or the week before I mentioned these connectors and pipes that we got a few years back. We used 3mm cabinet screws as the plastic connectors could crack in cold weather if they are glued. The good thing about it, is that you can pre drill the holes in the connectors and just screw in on site, no matter the weather, no waiting for it to dry either. Yes the weather has been terrible and we are due to get Nov 4c temps at night this week! Not great for birthday planning an outdoor event, I must say! I already topped our tomatoes for cuttings as the met office were mentioning the long term forecast. They also said that it is coldest summer since 2015. Weather suddenly is 6 weeks early. Hopefully you are picking the ones that are starting to blush already as technically they are vine ripened as they weren't picked green and sprayed. I have already resigned myself to the fact that we will not meet our goal this year with tomatoes, we will be lucky if we match last years results! Luckily by cutting them early, I have at least 4 cuttings of each I want to over winter that have since rooted and making my way (down town hehe) through potting them into fizzy bottle pots I made. EEk! Those millipedes are scary looking! Did you give them to the chickens? I was looking at some butterfly hatching kits for a birthday present and they are about £7 -24 depending on where you look. I was thinking about hatching them and releasing them in Richmond Park or Wimbledon Common to increase diversity? Probably better than them living in our darlek composter! Our chilli's aren't doing so well indoors and somehow have aphids on them that I can't get rid off! Only one has produced a solitary chilli this year. Bit disappointing after chilli plants for 3 years and having a disappointing fresh start this year! I am going to take them outside through their windowsill they are on and just cut them back now to hopefully over winter. I just want to clean the whole area down so it is safe for the tomatoes to go from the utility area to the window sills with the grow lights. We also have 3 Cali wonder sweet bell peppers I want to bring indoors. They did ok and some started to ripen. We had to bag a lot of them as a caterpillar or other bug tried to make holes in them. Can't complain with fist sized green peppers though. Yes, we did have quite a few courgettes this year but then it dropped off. Our cucumbers were late but the pickling Sremski we planted later is doing well for now. It's only hubby and I that like them pickled in the house and we have a jar of garlic dill fridge pickles so ok. Still have pickled beetroot from last year. Our stars of the show this year are Yellow Kentucky Wonder wax pole beans and Honeycomb F1 tomatoes! New to the garden but pulled us through this dreadful summer! I really hope to get the remaining tomatoes to ripen and survive this cold snap we are going to get. I literally have chamomile and other stuff ready to plant out! lol I pulled the trays back in when we had those loud thunderstorms and heavy rain! lol We have a new toad again thankfully. Bit younger than the one we had for a few years before the heatwave of '22. Not complaining but it would have been more than welcomed earlier this year! I am literally sacking off this year and winding down all of the summer crops and focusing on getting the autumn/ winter crops in now. I want to restore an old iron bench we have so looking to get measurements and all of the stuff before everything gets even more expensive! Anyway, take care and hope you have a great week! Hopefully it doesn't get as cold as they say! x

You haven't had many cabbage whites Jess because they're all in my veggy garden up north 😂. I have been picking off upwards of fifty caterpillars every couple of days. Don't know why I'm laughing either. My crops have been destroyed by caterpillars, slugs, snails, sparrows, pigeons, aphids, gale force winds, torrential rain and cold, cold temperatures ... And voles! You other gardeners out there will get my drift. I've just kept re-sowing and re-planting , re-sowing and re-planting. What else is there. But I fear time is running out. Lovely Greens has some great green tomato recipes! Yes the absence of insects of any variety is alarming. Anyhow, can't be bothered anymore. I'm off to put my beds to sleep for the winter. Best wishes for better times ahead to you all. X

The bright side with the colder wet weather , maybe those white cabbage butterflies will bugger off , and allow the brassicas to grow some leaf .

It’s been a bad year for the vegetable garden. I’m going to close up on my plots and start working on covering the ground with compost and start planning for the next year’s planting. I hope that next year will be a better one………ps you sound much better than last week and I hope you’re feeling better too.

Thank goodness for wine! 😆 ❤

Your biggest nemesis seems to have been the animals this season. A solar powered electric fence will solve your badger and other animal problems. They are very simple to set up. Keep your chin up and your eyes forward. We love your channel.

We're already down around 6 at night at times where we are.

Jess if you put banana peal around 🎉stems of the tomatoes it will accelerate the ripening but they won't produce more fruit, or put a couple of ripe pears in the tomato house will do the same job it's the ethylene gas they give off that does the job, I've not seen any cabbage whites this year

The weather has totally changed looks so cold in mornings and nights but we have just hit a heat wave this week it can't make its mind up. Not been the best year to start for me. Just thinking there's always next year

"What am I treading on? A chicken." I didn't you realise you had to squeeze the eggs out of them yourself.

I think that the best netting for covering your brassicas is old fashioned net curtaining the type that veils are made out of. It lets the rain through but the holes are to small for any type of butterfly’s to get through. Got any old net curtains at home? My father in law years ago used to have an allotment and he was always pinching the mother in laws net curtains. 🤣

They say it's been the warmest summer on the planet ever. North-Western Europe is the exception. I know we have a short season so I only did cherry and determinate tomatoes here in Norway. May was hot like a good July, everything bolted, then came a super chilly June with a hail storm that poked holes in everything. Chillis have done good actually, and are still going, but it might go down to 10 at nights soon. Chard has been a success, from your videos I thought it was tasty. Well, lesson learned. 😅Enjoying the cosmos, zinnias and poppies now and hoping the forth sowing of coriander won't bolt. It could have been better, but it also could have been worse, so I'm OK with clearing pots and planters and sorting out seeds I've collected.

If you leave the beans on the stems, you can dry them like barlottis for winter stews. ! I have Way too many otherwis& sick picking them !😅

tomatoes can be picked and ripened on a windowsill

So sorry to see your fed up. I'm not really ready for it either and September is usually a good month. In Wales, all summer, it has usually been about 6-9 degrees at night. It has had such an effect on the pollinators. The highest we had was the 2 humid nights when it went up to 12 degrees, briefly.

I am waiting with bated breath for my tomatoes to ripen. Cheers, Upstate NY

Hi to all at 37. Do you think it would be a good idea to snip off the remaining flowers and even higher small trusses to concentrate the plant's efforts into ripening the more advanced fruit? Also snip off the growing tips of all the branches? Hope you see more sun this week. Similar situation here in Northern Spain. I envy you the variety of toms and spuds you can get. Here it's beefsteak or plum or nothing and red or white or nothing. I have used store bought spuds which have chitted to add to the variety. Keep your chin up. Regards from Galicia.

I'm watching this on Tuesday evening and it is pouring down outside, I really hate rain now.

Hi Jessie first time I got some big tomatoes growing and the weather is not helping.I stop drinking wine five years .still miss white wine but been drinking berry juice and home made Apple juice.lots of butterflies in my garden .Good luck with your tomatoes.

Cheers to you, too, Jess! I am also fed up with this awful summer and finding it hard to be my usual perky self. Fingers crossed for the next few weeks... Janet up the river

Warm next week

Maybe you need to cut the tops of your tomatoes, take some leaves off for extra light, also remove any yellow flowers because there are not going to produce any fruits,Thanks!

Never seen Autumn crocus before. That is very nice. Nice to see everything coming together again. Tomatoes looking great too. When can I harvest my sweet potatoes?

All the badly-damaged leaves and catapillers go to our chickens and they love me for it 😊 i said i wasn't going to do any fall planting but i lied lol i can't stop growing stuff

Interestingly, I am on the other side of the planet on Vancouver Island - we're having the same weather. AND the tomatoes are very slowin ripening this year. Interesting. BTW, there are quite a number of ways of rippening late tomatos. Summers in northern North America can be suddenly annoyingly short most years. The late tomatos quite often even have really great flavour. Patience. And do an internet search on the topic. For the butterflies, & their larve, try wedding veil netting instead of the wire mesh. Holes are too small for almost all bugs to get through and it is much more flexible and lighter to work with. Can also work for light overnight frost.

If those chillies don´t ripen for you - just make a cowboy candy with it. Hopefully you will get some tomatoes, the weather should improve. Thank you and your mum for your videos.

Love your intro music.

I think we all feel sad that the weather is crap, and it's now autumn , because we haven't really had a summer this year. Straight from a wet spring to a wet autumn

Plumbers Glue instant fix. Weld on, Wet r Dry..

That's slow motion pole flying killed me 😂

Here in So. Indiana , US, we have. had nothing but sun. I'm not bragging. We have gone 2 months without significant rainfall. Our water bill has been almost $100! Does that mean I have great tomatoes? No. Lots of cherry tomatoes that I dehydrate but not good big ones for me, although others have had them. Almost no zucchini or butternut because of squash bugs and squash vine borer. Cabbage loopers got under my netting for kale and broccoli so they were eaten up. Only my cucumbers did well ( Suhyo long) prolific and never bitter despite the heat. Peppers were ok. Beans were ok but not plentiful. So I'm rethinking for next year. I"m not giving up, though. Cheers!...

Your tomatoes look fantastic and there is still time . 💐🌞 Think positive ! 🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅

You have done a stellar job this year and deserve the reddening tomato's to commence.Geo engineering the weather. When you see the white lines in the blue sky soon after the full on grey skies start blocking the sun.

Hi Jessie, I hope that you're feeling better now after your poorly spell. You mentioned in Vlog 230 that you were going to post links to all the materials you used to make your fabulous made to measure bed covers. Will that be soon? I'm going to make the myself as the creepy insects & pigeons have a field day with my raised beds. I've used carious covers. But yours look just the job to actually work.

Hi Jessie and your Mum, we have had terrible weather rain, wind blowing like a hooly! Yes, we have been thrown into Autumn very quickly. Our temperatuyres are dropping overnight to 5/7! I was at my plot yeaterday, putting my Christmas potatoes, lemon & lime plants in the poytunnel for protection. Including, stapling a piecs of pkast8c to cover the netted part of my polytunnel door!,cant believe how,quickly it has changed. Its been an awful growing year for everyone 😢 great video update. Thanks for sharing and take care 😊

Cats make everything better!

How did I miss it when you went front 3 chickens to 5!? Lol! Hang in there. Tomatoes will ripen!

Was happy to see you a bit more optimistic after the gloomy outlook early in the video. If our plants can just get through this week then it looks like late September will be decent weather. I've bought half my chilli plants at home indoors just to get through the next few days.

Great toms Jessie . I'd take the most forward ones home if you've got a sunny window sill and you'll probably find that they'll ripen pretty toot sweet . I've had a production line of them going for weeks and I grow them outside with a windbreak on the windward side but blight came with a vengeance a couple of weeks ago and half of the black beauty have been clobbered and even a few of the blight resistant crimson crush which was a bit of a shock 😢

Badgers eat mostly earthworms, so they are probably the ones digging in the ground and they are probably going after the little worms eating the roots and all of the slugs. They are doing you a favor actually when they dig.

Jessie if you need more weld mesh. F H Brundle of Rainham have a variety to choose from. I have just ordered 3 sheets of 3ins. by 6ins. mesh each sheet is 4 ft. by 8 ft.and they will deliver.

I live in New Zealand. We have really hot summers and I (unfortunately) still have the same issue with aubergines! I get a few from seedlings I have grown, but the best come from grafted plants and I still feel like that's cheating! 🤣 I love your girlies 😍

Wow, I understand you, I don't want winter right away...... in Iceland, it's below freezing at night and it's starting to snow in some parts of the country love from Iceland

Of course those tomatoes will ripen. If we can pick them green and stick them in a box to ripen, then how much better to let them ripen on the vine.

Every year is so different, isn't it? I've been watching you since the beginning, I think, and have learned many things from you. Thank you! I would love to know how you make that squeezed-out laugh thing! I have tried making that sound, but it just doesn't work for me.

It's the same for everyone. Had 5C last night, heating came on this morning. Predicted 3C tonight :(. Lots of green tomatoes, but been great for apples and brassicas, beetroot, chard. Hey ho.

Everything in my garden (USA) is a few weeks behind, & not as abundant either. Very glad I processed so many beans, tomatoes, & peppers last year because this year it’s hard to get enough to can a batch. Very jealous of your greens, almost everything that’s successful here grew on a vine! Minnesota midgets did fine, pumpkins are coming in, some are ripe. Pole beans have stopped so letting whatever is there dry into next year’s seeds. We do what we can, no? Right this moment, all I can see out there is enormous swaths of powdery mildew - which hit during a DRY spell, so unless dew causes it, it’s not rain bringing it. I want to build bed covers like yours, they are absolutely fantastic, should be brilliant over cone-cabbages (which all failed me this year) and possibly the napa cabbage which were totally ruined by earwigs deep inside (BARF!). Thank you for being such a good garden buddy, Jessie. I needed to report on my yard.

You are not alone Jessie with green tomatoes. Temperature here in South Yorkshire has been 14 during the day and 7/8 at night. Rain, fog and grey skies too. I'm not giving up hope though 😊

We have had a very difficult season and we have lots of toms but they are green but some are going a lighter green now. They are outdoors aswell and in poly. But alls not list as if they just start to turn lighter green then they will ripen indoors on windowsill so alls not lost

Very enjoyable, see you soon.

Save the beans for seed next year.

I think your tomatoes will talk to each other soon and have a red conversation 🤞🤞🤞❤❤❤

Try again: ripen perfectly on a window sill, leaving the plant to concentrate on the rest of the fruit. All the best.

I'm really impressed with all the chick peas you got in that relatively small area! Nice!

Sometimes it seems the odds are stacked against us, this season it certainly seems so for me. In truth l am knocking on, with all the various ailments associated with it. Yet I just LOVE it. Off to clean out my chickens and yes , it’s bucketing down again.👩🏻‍🌾

Not a fan of you tube but just found your channel and I am now hooked! How much time do you spend at your allotment each week? Very inspiring.

I really enjoy your videos. It’s been the worse year that I can remember in my 50 plus years of gardening. The light levels have been very low which drastically affects growing, ripening etc. We are all in the same boat which is the only consolation! My tomatoes ate at long last growing, but too late! I have had good cucumbers though. I’m real sad for you with the sweetcorn destruction, it happened to me years ago, so upsetting. An Indian summer is what we all need! I wish when you are making something you could show some slowly so I can see exactly how to do things as I’m rubbish at constructing anything. Also how far apart do you plant your crops? Thanks

Jessie ate one of the green caterpillars 🐛 at 36:46… yum!

I feel your pain. I live in North London and yes, the weather has sure has changed. I sent into my garden Saturday morning to pick raspberries for brekky. Discovered the bloody squirrels had gone for my only one butternut squash. Count believe it brought a year to my eye. Had to bring my aubergine plant indoors after it are my first aubergine 2weeks ago on my bday. Any tips on what squirrels refuse to eat?

Same here with a dissapointing harvest. And now we are on the edge of our seats as we wait helplessly as forest fire burns less than a mile from my parents land/cabin in Eastern Washington.

No pollinators but everyone who has chickens give them caterpillars to eat. 🤷

😢 I felt really downhearted on the plot yesterday just felt glum 🙁 I was just hoping for an Indian Summer. Then I found the biggest head of Calabrese I’ve ever grown!!! Just wish the slugs hadn’t eaten the rest !! What a year but if anything gardeners are eternal optimists 😂 so we’ll just crack on with seed catalogues and a cup of tea ready for next year 😂

I lost all my gooseberry flowers and leaves to caterpillars this year, I was gutted. I’ll be covering them up next year.

I'm right there with you. It feels like everything has just got going, summer really starting.. And grey and cold comes. Its been such a hard year with the weather. I don't feel like we've been given a summer and I'm so not ready for heading into the depths of winter.

🐝thanks for the great video🌻

Glad to have spent an hour with you ☺️

Feel your despair same here in Oregon. Finally sliced the first big tomato. Berkeley Tie Dye tomato GREAT! Don't know if it tastes great but have nothing else to compare it to, lol!

its like we,ve gone from august to mid november , utter kecks

i agree the summer been awful a real downer on allotment

I grew 5 varieties of eggplants this year, and I noticed variety 'Millionaire' which is a hybrid variety, started flowering and fruiting when the plants were still growing, so we had earlier harvests from that one. The rest of the varieties were like usual growth habit of platns reaching a certain size before flower set. Perhaps you can find a variety like that one for next year? :) edit - I've also recently learned that taking off the non-fruiting and even flowering side shoots apparently makes the existing peppers redden faster, similar to what cutting the tops of tomatoes to make the plants focus on ripening existing tomatoes.

Great video today, Jess. Cheers to you, your mum, and next week. ❤

So depressing this year. Autumn and Winter always arrive on time, but Spring can be late and Summer don’t turn up at all sometimes. It hits me hard. I’m a SAD sufferer at the best of times

Great job

Am with you with the season depression lol look at Scotlands weather. Its bloody chilly .. 17 c day down to 5 c at night 😮 .. lol at least the wildlife don't mess with the beds 😅

Hi Jessie - I was watching Pottymouth yesterday and wondered if you have a recipe for lemon drop chilli jam that you can share? Thanks!

Do you pH the soil you grow in makes the world of difference to how things individually grow make a better harvest and understanding the soil you have hope 😊😊😊it helps for next year

Jessie you are so right we really don't seem to have had any real summer to speak of !!.. How about trying to over winter your chilies having cut them back and letting them live over winter in the polly tunnel it's gone cold here in Bristol down to 7 degrees at nine tonight so that will put the brakes on my toms, Not growing any peppers this year,just having a rest but the chilliest of chilli peppers are doing reasonably well and my word them are hot Cheers to you and Mum.