Category: squash

Winter squash spreading

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Plot at Community Garden, covered with squash vines

I love this photo although it’s a bit fuzzy. The evening light, the barn next door, the trail head and surrounding forest. The echinacea glowing pink at the left edge and the pile of wood chips at the right edge. Most of all, the happy squash plants.

I really struggled to nurture these plants through serious transplant shock and then countering a squash beetle threat. I tried row covers, but found eggs on the plants that were under cover! So off came the covers. I then inspected the back of each leaf daily for a few weeks, tearing off the part of the leaf where eggs were laid. Not a single beetle on my adult plants. And they are growing like crazy! Some plants didn’t make it of course, but the others are just enjoying the extra room.

Growing squash is always fun because you don’t know what you’ve got under there until the foliage starts to die away. But I know I have at least a few butternut squash and a few pumpkins. I haven’t successfully grown butternut squash for a few years so this crop is especially sweet. On the other hand, my delicata and hubbard squash crops were a miserable failure this year, so there’s always some balance to contemplate.

Climbers

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Squash heading up and over the chicken run. We stapled some chicken wire to sticks to give it something to climb on.
Peas growing exuberantly toward the sky.
Scarlet runner beans, favorite of hummingbirds
Green bean tendril has reached the top of the corner trellis
Green bean flower is a pretty pink.

Mid July

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The garden is full of delights. And as always, mysteries.

This morning, a heavy dew or maybe a descended fog spangled everything. It burned off as the sun got hot.

I took some photos. I tried to photograph dew but it never comes out as beautiful as it is,

Globe thistle getting ready to bloom
Baby patty pan squash
Early cabbage “Farao” recovered nicely from cabbage worm attacks
Corner trellis with carrots, arugula, lettuce, kale, and escarole inside and cucumbers starting to climb outside
Broccoli side shoot
Noticed first sunflowers in bloom yesterday
A forest of volunteer sunflowers in a potato patch
Black admiral on the raspberries
Some raspberries are ripe
Indigo Apple tomatoes
Picking blueberries daily

Community garden planted

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I put the squash plants in at the community garden. Planting is done there! Now I’m waiting for the plants to do their thing while I nurture them as best I can.

Three rows of squash
Too small to see, but leeks are in the trench and Cippollini onions are to the left of the trench
Six rows of onion plants, one row of shallots

There’s also a nice perennial sunflower and echinacea plants, not in bloom yet.

Garden work mid-August

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Is it still mid-August? A lot has happened. We harvested the fava beans on August 11. Had a big party, the third annual, to shuck the beans. I have three small freezer bags of leftovers, which is good. I didn’t take any pictures, unfortunately.

We have picked over 20 pounds of blueberries, all in the orchard except for two containers harvested atop Schoodic. I know that should be quarts, next year I’ll switch to the more typical measurement.

Blueberries in orchard

We are still waiting for the Reliance peaches to ripen. Last year they were all taken, probably by squirrels. This year we took more precautions (netting around the trunk). Sam propped up the heavy branches. They have great color, but are still quite hard.

Peach tree with branches propped

Reliance peaches ripening

Sam’s working on improving the orchard fencing. Too many deer are getting in there.

Orchard fence improvements

He also added two more raised beds in the hoophouse. Over the next few days I’ll plant some fall and winter greens in them. The peppers and eggplants in the older beds are growing but not exuberantly, but the basil in there is doing great. We had to protect those beds from deer who came to munch one variety of pepper when we opened the roof to the sun and rain.

Hoophouse with two new raised beds

I’m picking green beans almost daily in the main garden. Also sowed some fall seeds in empty spots.

Seedling carrots

Newly planted lettuces framed by Bianca’s white runner bean

The fava bean area freed up, so we put up a pea trellis there. Also planted cilantro, broccoli rabe, and spinach in that area.

Newly planted fava bean area

Harvesting lots of food: beets, cucumbers, a few ripe tomatoes, lettuce, escarole, radicchio, carrots, costata romanesca zucchini, kale, chard, dill, artichokes, broccoli, Savoy cabbage, fingerlings, strawberries, blackberries. Coming along: squashes, a few ears of corn, cabbage, soybeans, pattypan squash, lots of tomatoes!

Garden scan

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Row by row scan:

Flower row with garlic bed beyond. Mostly poppies and daisies at this time, but sunflowers coming.

Three sisters row. Corn (a few stalks), squash, green beans. A few volunteer potatoes. Horseradish at one end and comfrey at the other.

Broccoli (Aspabroc and DeCicco). Started under row cover. Vulnerable to porcupines! Saved by electric fence, now harvesting. Some cabbage, I think.

Fava bean row, plus some Dazzling Blue Kale and volunteer wild arugula from last year.

Parsnips, first and second year. Turnips. Beets. And a patch of broccoli rabe bolting. Will replace with some carrots.

Mixed greens row. Chard, radicchio, ruby red orach, Salanova lettuce, escarole, some volunteer dill, baby Turkish rocket, and some room for succession planting.

Soybeans just flowering, fingerling potatoes, carrots. Artichoke at the end of this row and three others.

Tomato row. Plus one marigold at the top.

Fence row – scarlet runner beans (not shown), rudbeckia perennial, zucchini, patty pan squash, Hopi black sunflowers, Chinese cabbage.

Lettuces under the corner trellis. Also visible – a few cucumbers starting to climb.