All of us must have noticed that the weather patterns over the last few years have thrown up new challenges for growing food. Unpredictable extremes seem to be the new norm.

In our new How Did Your Veg Grow Survey for 2026, we'll be, once again, using your data to compile important information about how different crops perform in different seasons.

Click here to fill in the survey

In 2024, we barely noticed that it was summer. Plants sat in cold wet soil with a 25% reduction in sunshine and 30% increase in rainfall. Slug attacks were relentless, with seedlings munched and one person even reporting them felling a tomato plant. One grower described it as the most disappointing growing year in their 50 years of gardening.

Conversely in 2025, plants in many areas were struggling for water with many areas only receiving 50% of the average rainfall. In 2026, things were more extreme with many areas going without rainfall for at least three months. Even those with access to water couldn’t keep up.

The extreme heat had other consequences that we had not seen before. Runner beans often failed to set pods, lettuces bolted immediately and tomatoes failed to ripen. The hot dry conditions also resulted in a flea beetle bonanza: you could actually hear the ground crackling as clouds of them jumped up from the soil when disturbed.

We have been collecting records of crop performance from gardeners over the last four years, and this has already been invaluable in identifying which crops are winners or losers in different scenarios.

It has shown that some of our standard fare is not as reliable as it once was in a changing climate. In long term we may have to diversify and grow new crops such as amaranth, which seem to do well under dry conditions but also able to withstand slug attack in a wet year. Or we may have to grow things at different times – brassicas and lettuces may be better as a winter crop when it is cooler.

You can complete the survey in just a few minutes if you are short on time but there is also the space to tell us everything in detail if you want! Click to fill in this year's survey.