I didn’t realize I’d skipped a day with the squash and melon progress photos, until I started uploading them to Instagram. Ah, well.
While I was taking the photos this evening, I got to the lovely round, blue squash. I believe it had reached its full size and was just finishing it’s maturing on the vine and hardening its shell.
When I got to it, I found it had rolled over onto its top. I went to move it and… well…
From how dry the broken end looks, it was at least partially broken off before I moved is.
So, we now have a winter squash that is too young for storage. We’ll just have to eat it!
I’ve looked through Vesey’s winter squash, and they don’t anything like this sold on its own. The closest to it is the Winter Sweet, and that one is more grey than blue-green like this. The colour is like a blue Hubbard squash, but not the shape. The stem is completely different, too. I’ve done image searches, and nothing quite matches.
Anyone know what this is?
As for what to do with it, the simplest thing would be to just roast it like any other winter squash, and give it a taste.
We’ve had our purple Dragonfly peppers – after picking the last ones, I can already see more ripening! Now we have our first Purple Beauty pepper ripening!
We tried growing this variety a couple of years ago, with little success. Nothing grew well in that bed at all, that year, nor the year after, so I’m quite happy to see a developing Purple Beauty, this year!
While checking on the winter and summer squash, I’m always on the lookout for any female flowers. I want to make sure to hand pollinate them, just to be on the safe side. Especially on a cooler, wet morning like today, when the pollinators aren’t really out much.
This morning, I found two winter squash blossoms to hand pollinate! There are so many male flowers blooming all the time, it’s quite the thing to find a lady in the mix.
I was both happy and frustrated to find one on the G-Star patty pan squash this morning.
There was one, big beautiful flower blooming, with a strong and healthy looking baby squash at the base.
The problem is, there isn’t a single male flower blooming. I could even see another little female flower bud developing, but no male flowers. The only other squash blossoms around are winter squash, and I don’t think using the would work!
Hmm… maybe I can find some male flowers from the green and yellow zucchini plants. They’ve have male flowers, but no female flowers. I think they might be similar enough for pollination to happen.
There are no plans to save seeds, so cross pollination isn’t the issue. I would just like for pollination to happen so the existing squash will actually develop, and not just turn yellow and fall off!
A single Albion Everbearing strawberry, in the bed that was eaten by deer! The strawberry plants are slowly recovering and blooming, and we have out first strawberry since the destruction. I am really impressed with these strawberries!!
Other than this, there was another tiny harvest of shelling peas, and that’s it. The developing pole beans won’t be ready to harvest for a while, and the bush beans are just starting to open most of their flowers.
I also had to add some support to the Black Cherry tomatoes in the wattle weave bed. I’m doing next to no pruning, mostly because I can’t see into the foliage very well. I know myself well enough to realize I’m as likely to accidently break the main stem while trying to break off any suckers. The plants, including suckers, has gotten so tall, it’s well into the lilac branches above them.
Some of the suckers, however, can’t quite reach, because they’re falling sideways under their own weight. All they needed was for some jute twine to be run around the whole row, with the ends of the twine fastened to branches of the lilac at one end.
So far, we have only one San Marzano tomato ripening. All the other tomatoes have plenty of fruit growing, but everything is still very green.
My family will be very happy once those cherry tomatoes start to ripen!
Me; I’d just like to have some summer squash and beans to harvest!
My daughter heard a possible commotion last night, so I popped out to check on the kitties. No sign of raccoons or skunks, thankfully. It was such a gorgeous night, though, I ended up staying out for a while, and even tried to get some photos of the stars.
I was just using my phone’s camera, and I didn’t have a tripod. Instead, I rested the phone on top of the wire covers on garden beds. Which, I discovered, bounced for a while once the phone was laid down! So several of the photos have very shaky looking stars. 😄 I did manage to get shots with the streak of a satellite going by, which is neat.
We are supposed to get some rain late tonight, but I decided to water the garden, anyhow. This year’s garden is unusually full of things that require large amounts of water, and from the looks of the weather radar, the system is going to pass to the north of us, anyhow. We certainly aren’t going to be hit with a storm like what hit Calgary last night! I was seeing photos shared on some of my Zone 3 gardening groups on FB, and it was just devastating. The largest hail reported was the size of a baseball! Scary stuff!
After doing the watering, I went back and picked another handful of shelling peas.
I’m really appreciating the logs on the sides of that bed. I can step on a log and reach the peas, without stepping on any winter squash vines! While watering, I noticed a couple of vines, including one with a female flower, that were trying to climb the trellis netting. The Wild Bunch Mix package did say these were all vining types, and they really do want to climb! The trellis netting is strong enough to hold the peas and beans, but nowhere near strong enough to hold the winter squash vines, not to mention any fruit that might show up on them. I got them loose and laid them on the ground, in the process finding tendrils that had wrapped themselves around bean pods and vines, actually cutting off the bean pod in the process!
I’m hoping to have pole beans to harvest by the end of the week.
In other things, I’m hoping to get meet up with the Cat Lady tomorrow or soon after. I know she has medical appointments today. The last time she set up a vet appointment to neuter 4 of our male yard cats, covered by the rescue, a second appointment was made for this month. Then they had emergency vet car needed, which cost a great deal. The appointment is still on my calendar, though – this Thursday (today is Tuesday), for two cats, preferably female. I checked to make sure the appointment was cancelled, as I know the rescue budget was low. She said she’d contact the vet, but I haven’t heard back about that, yet. I hope to hear from her soon, because I don’t want to unknowingly be a “no show”.
Meanwhile, I got some photos of Peanut Butter Cup this morning for her to share among her contacts.
She has really turned into a beauty, and has the softest fur of all the cats! More importantly, we brought her to full health. She was the only female that was done at the time. While the males could go straight outside after a brief recovery period in the cat carriers, she needed 2 weeks. Once they come inside, they don’t go back out. That’s when we found out she had leaky butt issues, but we got that all fixed up. Gotta love that Healthy Poops stuff! Thank you, M, for sending us that first container! I never would have known such a product even existed. We have been using it in place of the ground pumpkin seeds (pumpkin is one of the ingredients) that we’d been using in the cat soup, along with lysine. All of the cats have been eating it, and it has made a real difference in PBC! No more leaky butt! Her respiratory issues have disappeared, too. We now have special shallow trays for the cat soup, big enough for several cats to eat out of at the same time, with one kept in my room for Butterscotch.
Who still refuses to leave my room!
I don’t get it.
Anyhow, I hope the Cat Lady will be able to share the photos and someone will be interested in adopting PBC.
Meanwhile, I’m basically just waiting for the post office to open for the afternoon. The special sheets for my husband’s hospital bed mattress came in yesterday, even though it was a holiday and the post office was closed! So I’ll be picking those up. If they work out, we’ll order more, and he won’t have to fight with having to use top sheets on his mattress, because regular fitted sheets are too short.
While yesterday’s lawn mowing never got finished, I did get enough done that I can park the truck in the shade of the inner yard. Then I’ll set up a work table and power tools in the garage, gather materials and get started on the outdoor isolation cage for when we can start trapping and spaying the more feral cats. Hopefully, the females! Not that we will have much control over which cat gets trapped.
As long as we don’t end up trapping skunks or raccoons, instead! I don’t think the trap that will be loaned to us will be big enough for raccoons. Well. One of the young ones, maybe, but a cat sized trap would not be big enough, nor strong enough, for an adult raccoon.
Speaking of which, the isolation cage we’ll be building has to be strong enough to keep the raccoons out. Once it’s built, we’ll set it up with the door open, so the cats can get used to it, so I would expect the skunks and raccoons to explore it, too. I don’t plan to keep food, water and a litter box in it until there is a cat actually closed up in it, but it will still provide cats and kittens with shelter in the mean time.
As for the build itself, I’ve got general plans drawn up, but ultimately, it will depend on what materials we find in the barn and the sheds. I’m hoping to incorporate at least one of the many salvaged windows we’ve got. Something that can be slid open to access the inside, rather than a hinged door.
One thing we will probably have to buy, rather than scavenge, is more hardware cloth. I’ve got most of a roll of hex type chicken wire, but a raccoon can tear through that easily.
I was able to get some progress mowing the southeast yard. I was stopping and starting a lot to empty the bag. The area I was mowing is not infested with creeping Charlie, so the clippings went directly for mulch of the strawberry and asparagus bed, and around the sunchokes.
I’d gotten through maybe 2/3 of the southeast yard when I ran out of gas. As the engine sputtered and died, it backfired, which is the only thing I can think of that was out of the ordinary.
After filling the tank, I tried to start it, but it wouldn’t start.
I failed to start it several more times before I decided to let it cool down for a while. This has happened before and we were able to start it again after awhile.
As I waited, I puttered around with some other things around the yard, before trying again.
It still wouldn’t start.
Worse, as I was pulling the cord to start it, I could hear rattling noises.
I ended up putting it away in the garage and got the riding mower out. I decided it was worth a try to see if it would cut.
It wouldn’t start, either. The battery was dead again.
This battery was replaced just last year.
I put the charger on it, then puttered around the yard some more. Tried to start it again, but it hadn’t charged enough, so I went inside to have a meal.
The next time, it started fine, and I tried mowing.
I don’t know what’s going on with that thing. It will cut for a while, and then… not. As far as I can tell, everything is working the way it should. When it stops cutting, I can reverse it, then try and cut the stuff that was missed. Usually, it starts cutting again, but sometimes I have to reverse and try again a few times.
What makes it even more confusing is that when I got to the end of the strip, I would increase the speed to maximum and drive back to the other end, so that while cutting, the grass was always being expelled over grass that was already cut. I didn’t bother disengaging the mowing bed, and it was set lower than the push mower. While going around, and I could see the mower was actually cutting grass as I went over the grass cut with the push mower. However, once I was back at the taller grass and moving at the slowest speed, it would just for a short while, and then stop.
After a while, I just stopped. It was taking way too long and I was wasting too much gas.
So now we have a broken push mower, and a riding mower that doesn’t always cut. This is on top of three desktop computers in the household that had to be replaced, plus a laptop that is out of commission but will not be replaced. Which is also on top of having to replace the van, my mother’s car is making banging noises – and now has two flat tires, one of which has a broken bead at the rim and can’t be pumped up at all.
All of this is less than 12 months.
This has got to be the worse year for expensive things needing to be replaced or repaired – and things we can’t afford to replace or repair anymore!!
Well, I at least was able to end my time outside on a positive note. I did the semi-daily growth comparison photos of all the squash and melons.
I do see a couple of female flower buds near this one, but it will be a while before they bloom. This is on the side where two vines are growing. The third vine is growing between this new bed and the bed with the peppers and eggplant beside it. That one has shown no side of any female flowers, yet.
I did, however, find some tiny green Seychelle pole beans starting to develop on the trellis netting!
Next is the easternmost bed with the Summer of Melons blend of melons.
I had to split the Instagram slideshow photos into two batches. These is from the east facing side.
The problem is, I can barely see my screen in the light, so I couldn’t tell if the camera was focusing properly or not.
I had actually finished taking all the photos and was going back through the beds when I spotted another drum gourd, so I got a picture of that one, too. For all I can tell, there are more of them hiding among the leaves!
Next is the winter squash bed with the peas and beans.
I found a new one on the other side, too. After I took the photos, I found a couple more pieces of scrap wood to put under them. As with the Summer of Melons mix bed, I can see quite a lot of developing melons that are still too small to be sure they are pollinated. There is certainly no shortage of pollinators, though, which bodes well for future productivity!
I was definitely feeling better by the time I was done going through the garden.
Now to figure out what to do about our broken lawn mowers.
It isn’t a lot, but the more they get picked, the more they will keep producing! These are the Dalvay variety of peas that we got several years ago, and still have lot of seeds left over.
There is nothing like peas fresh off the vine!
The purple Dragonfly peppers are ripening much earlier than any of the other varieties we’ve planted this year. All the others are still very green. Eventually, we will have brown Sweet Chocolates, orange and yellow Early Sunsation and Early summer, and Purple Beauty peppers in this bed, too.
We aren’t going to be particularly hot today, so the only watering I did this morning was to fill the reservoirs by the drum gourds and pumpkins. The biggest of the pumpkins is starting to turn orange! I’ll be taking the comparison photos for the series I’ve been doing this evening – and hopefully, I will remember to include the Crespo squash this time! I completely forgot, last time.
My goal for today is to finish mowing the inner yard. I’d intended to do some mowing yesterday, but never got that far. I’d picked up replacement hose connectors, as we have leaking front yard hoses. With one connection, both hoses had already had their connections replaced, and both were leaking. One of them had a 1/2 inch connector instead of a 3/4 inch connector. The clamp couldn’t quite tighten it enough. The other was the right size, but still leaking. So I replaced both.
That took a LOT longer than it should have. The old connectors had to be cut off, one of the new clamps was bent and wouldn’t loosen or tighten properly, I tried to use the old clamp only to have part of it disappear completely, so I had to figure out how to get the bent new one to work, etc. I used Teflon tape on them, too, as an extra precaution to prevent leaking. I think I ended up spending at least an hour fighting with it.
The front tap has three hoses connected, and one of them predates our living here. It’s still one of the best hoses we have, though! It was leaking, so I replaced the rubber washer.
Then I turned the hose back on and…
It’s all still leaking.
*sigh*
I do have the contractor’s grade hose that was gifted to us. It is going to be used to replace the hose in the back and set up a garden tap again. It’s going to be a while longer yet, before we can dig up the rest of the buried water pipe, and I won’t start that until I have the pipe I want to run the hose through to protect it, before burying it.
The problem is, the pipe I’m looking to get costs at least $27 – $35 for a 3″ x 10′ length. The 4″ pipe is easier to find, but more expensive – and I’d need four of them, plus angled connectors for each end. The idea is that, if the hose ever needs to be repaired or replaced, it can be easily pulled out of the pipe without having to dig the trench again. I might be able to find pipe in the diameter I want that’s a better price, but for that, I’d have to actually go into a store in the city that carries them in stock (I’m not finding anything in stock locally) and look at what they have. Their websites are not very helpful.
So if it’s going to be a while before I can even consider using that hose to set up a garden tap, I may as well use it now!
Meanwhile, this time of year is when things like hoses go on clearance, so I should be able to get more heavy duty hoses to replace all our cheapies. I’m getting really tired of having the world’s kinkiest hoses! Even the non-kink hoses I got a year or two ago are constantly kinking!
All in good time, I guess.
For now, though, I want to get the inner lawn mowed, so I can move the truck to the yard and use the garage as a workshop to build an outdoor cat isolation cage. We have some pretty feral ladies that need to be trapped and spayed, and there’s no way we can keep them indoors anywhere for the 2 weeks they need for recovery. Who knows. We might even get them to be more semi-feral than feral while they are in an isolation cage!
We are having a much more pleasant day today, temperature wise. In fact, our overnight low last night dipped down to 9C/48F! I actually had to turn my fans off. 😄 Right now, coming up on 6:30pm, we’re still at our high of 21C/70F, which has been sooooo enjoyable!
I did end up watering the garden this afternoon, though. This time with water soluble fertilizer. The NPK on this fertilizer was 18-18-21, rather than the acidifying, high nitrogen fertilizer I used before. With so many things developing their fruit, they need that higher potassium and less nitrogen.
While I was watering in the main garden area, I saw something that made me smile!
We have pole beans developing! So far, just one purple Carminat plant has them, but the others are blooming, so I’m hoping to expect more. The green Seychelle beans that were planted later, to fill the gabs where the Carminat failed to germinated, will likely be a couple of weeks behind.
While watering the San Marzano tomatoes in the retaining wall blocks, I saw our first tomato that’s starting to show a blush of red.
At this time last year, most things were farther along, and we were still harvesting bush beans, and even some summer squash and some decently sized carrots. Still, things are growing well, for all that they’re behind in the growing season. As long as that frost holds off, we should have a pretty decent harvest at the end of the season.
Plus, we should soon have beans, corn and shelling peas to harvest!
Well. As long as something else doesn’t get them first. Like a deer. At least we don’t have problems with groundhogs this year, and with all the yard cats, rodents and hares are not a problem at all!
It’s time for my progress report! If you’d like to see the earlier photos to compare, you can visit the posts from July 28, July 30 and August 1. Links will open in new tabs, so you don’t lose your place. 😊
I work my way from one end to the other, and try to follow the same pattern, so once again we start with the Summer of Melons mix in the future trellis bed.
This includes the new melons I found earlier today. I put bricks under the melons touching the ground, except the new ones. I’ve been training the vines of those on the netting, but they came loose, so they ended up on the ground again. I was hoping to avoid using more jute twine in training them, but tomorrow morning, I’ll have to make a point of bringing it with me when I do my morning rounds. I’ve got the wrong kind of netting for this. This finer netting is more for keeping birds out, but it’s what I had. The wider netting I’ve got the peas and beans climbing on would work better, as I could weave the vines around the netting.
As for the melons hanging above ground, some of them look like they’re going to need hammocks to support their weight soon!
There is one that’s looking more and more yellow. I suspect this is a sign that it is going to be a loss, and that it will start to shrivel or rot on the vine. We shall see.
These are the African Drum Gourds I’ve found so far. At this stage, it’s still possible they aren’t properly pollinated and might just dry up and fall off the vine. I hope not! If I’d spotted the female flowers earlier, I would have hand pollinated them, just to be on the safe side. Ah, well. I’m just thrilled to see any at all.
They have the softest fluff on their surface at this stage, too!
Next is the winter squash bed with the peas and beans.
There’s a couple in there that may or may not make it, and one with a flower that will probably open tomorrow – and I’ll me sure to look out for it to hand pollinate it!
There are so many hidden melons I found among the leaves today! There is even what looks like the first female Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon about to bloom. There are no male flowers, though. Unless there is a sudden overnight burst of male flowers, this one won’t have a chance to fully develop. I don’t think it can cross pollinate with the other melons!
This being the beginning of August, I don’t think we’ll get any watermelon this year. Yes, it’s a short season variety, but just about everything is behind about a month or more. Mind you, this year has been full of surprises, so I guess anything can happen between now and first frost!
I love having things in the garden that let you see just how much growth is happening, in such a short time! Even with taking photos every second day, I can see – and sometimes feel – the difference. Then there’s finding new ones, hidden under the leaves like that. It’s like Christmas! 😄
I so look forward to being able to harvest and try these! Well, not the drum gourds, of course. 😄
This may be the strangest gardening year we’ve had so far, but in a way, I’ve found it to be the most fun, too!
With the photos I took of the garden for my mother today, I realized that I haven’t really been doing general photos to share here. I’ve been doing that in the garden tour videos. So this is basically a photo tour of the garden today, and how things are doing.
The Goldy zucchini is blooming now! I didn’t get photo of the summer squash in pots, but the green zucchini is also blooming, though it’s not looking very healthy at all. The Magda squash is not blooming, but the plants are looking healthier. Go figure!
I set the images on Instagram to include the whole image, not just a cropped square, but for some reason, it didn’t take. So the image with the chocolate cherry tomatoes at the chain link fence is cut off, and you can’t see the potatoes in the background.
The kohlrabi seedlings are getting nice and big! I’m quite excited by them. Every time I’ve tried to grow them in the spring, they’ve failed entirely. This time, I actually have seedlings! They are protected from the deer by the netting but, unfortunately, the cats like to go under it and lie right where the kohlrabi are! So some of them are squished.
I didn’t bother taking a photo of the sad asparagus bed, or the sunchokes. The sunchokes, at least, are doing well, and are very tall.
The late potatoes are really huge and starting to show signs of dying back. The sugar snap peas are still growing and producing, which is a bit of a surprise. Early peas are usually done by now. The carrots seem unchanged, but the chard seedlings are definitely getting bigger, though in some spots, they seem to have not germinated at all.
The eggplants are growing bigger and blooming a lot right now; adding the grass clippings on top of the paper and cardboard mulch seems to be just what the doctor ordered! Even the hot peppers seems to be getting a boost from it, with more flowers, though I can’t see if there are more peppers forming.
The Crespo squash is really sprawling out! Cut off in the image is the single squash that’s growing, though I’m starting to see more female flowers again. Way too late in the season, though, for anything to come of them, unless we have a really long and mild fall.
I had to split up the photos of the main garden area into two Instagram batches.
The melons in the future trellis tunnel bed are doing quite well! I keep finding more and more hidden melons as I try to train more vines up the netting. This afternoon, I found even more, and have been putting bricks under the ones touching the ground to protect them. Even the surviving bush beans are looking really good. The onions gone to seed are getting so tall, they’re starting to fall over!
The pumpkins are also doing great and – much to my excitement! – when I was going through the vines this afternoon, I actually spotted some baby drum gourds! I never even saw female flowers, as they were hidden in the leaves! They are still at that stage where they might simply shrivel up and drop off but, hopefully, the pollination stuck.
There are quite a lot of peppers developing, hidden among the leaves. Only the dark Purple Dragonfly peppers seem to be getting ripe, though. The others are still very, very green.
Last night’s rain seems to have given the winter squash a huge boost; they just exploded in flowers this morning! All male flowers, but that’s okay. As I was going through them this afternoon, I kept finding more and more developing squash! I’ve been putting bricks or scrap pieces of boards under them as I find any that look like they’ve been successfully pollinated.
The shelling peas are not getting very tall, but they sure are getting lots of flowers and pods developing! This is really late for peas, but they were also planted late, and I’m impressed with how well they’ve survived the heat. I think the shade from all those squash leaves definitely helped!
There may not be a lot of pole beans, but they sure are getting tall! They are also starting to bloom, so I hope will will have something to harvest, soon.
The corn in the other winter squash bed is also doing very well. A few have fallen over in the wind, but I’ve been able to use the dollar store row cover hoops we aren’t using anymore to support them. Those are turning out to be quite handy, and I think I’ll be picking up more of them when I have the chance.
Finding a tiny tree frog on the biggest winter squash just made my morning! I love frogs! We have SO many of them this year, too!
The second melon bed is also doing fabulous. The watermelon is even starting to finally bloom. I found so many melons in there that were hidden among the leaves! I have been putting bricks, scrap pieces of wood, and even flat rocks under any that I find that look large enough to not dry up and fall off. I’m seeing many, many more tiny melons among the vines, but most of those will probably fall of, We shall see!
The San Marzano tomatoes in the main garden area are looking amazing. These are the ones that were the last to be transplanted, and the weakest, most damaged seedlings. Yet now, they have these thick, strong stems that don’t even really need the support posts! I think there’s lots of tomatoes on there, but it’s hard to see through the leaves. I haven’t been pruning them or anything, so we’ll see how that works out. The onions around them are doing well, too.
The shallots in the other bed aren’t doing as well – I think they’ve been rolled on by cats. The G-Star pattypan plants are getting so huge! The White Scallops are growing, but still quite small. The yellow bulb onions are going okay, except for one corner where it looks like something rolled right over them.
Then there is the strawberry bed. The deer eaten plants are recovering – and even starting to bloom! They might actually produce more berries this year! What an amazingly hardy variety! I’ll have to get more of them, that’s for sure.
The San Marzano tomatoes in the retaining wall blocks are producing fruit and growing, but nothing at all like the ones in the main garden area. The mint is doing well and I later harvested a large amount of it. Enough to make some jelly or a syrup, I think.
None of the garlic is ready to be harvested, still. This is quite late for garlic! The Forme de Coure tomatoes are thriving, as are the Black Cherries. What a difference between determinate and indeterminate tomatoes! Those cherry tomatoes are getting so tall, they’re starting to get higher than the lilac they are climbing through! The little strawberries we grew from seed also seemed to love the rain we had last night, and are just full of ripe berries. Even the luffa are getting noticeably bigger, though still nowhere near producing flowers. Ah, well.
So that is how the garden looked today. I wish I could say my mother was happy to see the pictures, but the closest she could come to a complement was to say how she hoped I’d be giving her some winter squash later on. 😄
Which I was planning to, even though when I did that before – at her request – she looked confused and told me she didn’t know what to do with it. She never grew winter squash. Just zucchini. Ah, well. We’ll figure something out for her!
As for me, I’m pretty happy with how things are looking right now!
The thermometer in the sun room was reading 39C/102F. This thermometer is against the west wall, about 3/4 of the way up to the ceiling. It does not get direct sunlight on it.
The thermometer outside my husband’s bedroom window was as high as the needle could go. If the numbers went that far, it would be about 60C/140F. This thermometer get blasted with the full sun for most of the day, in a mostly sheltered corner of the house. No shade and rarely any breeze.
The last thermometer is stored in the top of a cat shelter shelf. The shelf is in full sun, but the thermometer itself was in shade inside. It was reading 43C/109F. Of all the thermometers, I’d say that one is the most accurate to how it felt while walking around the garden beds.
Wow.
Honestly, I’ll take that over matching temperatures on the other side of freezing. Not that we see -60C/-76F, but we do see -40C/F at times, and that is far more deadly.
A couple of evenings ago, I took photos of our squash, pumpkins and melons, using my hand for perspective. Today, I did it again – but this time, I found more to take photos of! Since Instagram allows “only” up to 10 photos in a slideshow, I split the squash and melon photos up by beds.
Yes, I was able to find melons in the second bed this time! I had spotted one before, but today I moved the leaves around and found others.
I dug around in the leaves and found some “new” ones, too. In one photo, there are two melons, but the leaves and vines prevented me from getting a photo of them both, individually, so one of them is only half in the frame.
They’re getting big enough that they are starting to look like distinctively different varieties, too.
The smaller ones are getting noticeably not-small anymore!
The pumpkin vines are getting intertwined with the drum gourd vines. Those have many male flowers, but I have yet to find a female flower anywhere. It’s possible I can’t see any under all the leaves, but I think that’s unlikely. I’m wondering if they are getting enough water? These have a buried gallon water bottle buried next to their bases, so they get watered slowly and deeply, but a gallon of water might not be enough for something like this. I don’t know. It seems to be sufficient for the pumpkins, though!
The next bed is the winter squash interplanted with shelling peas and pole beans.
The first and largest one is among the few Summer of Melons mix transplants that were left over. The others, I’m not sure. They look like they are the same variety, but one was on the far side of the single surviving Cream of Saskatchewan water melon, which I know for sure are not from that mix. That would make them Sarah’s Choice melons. We grew those last year, but they were grown in a bed next to two other varieties and the vines were so mixed up, we lost track of which were which. The other melons in this bed would be the Pixie melons.
Oh, wow. I just linked those to where I bought them, and my goodness, the prices have sure gone up!!! Especially for the Pixies!
If you want to compare how fast these have been growing, you can check out the comparison posts I made on July 30 and July 28.
We may not have anything to harvest on a daily basis this year, but we sure to have a lot growing!
If the warmth keeps up, though, we might actually be able to have things to harvest. The bush beans first had to survive the slugs. Then they had to survive the deer. Amazingly, there are some that have recovered enough that they are starting to bloom! So Royal Burgundy bush beans are a possibility.
There aren’t a lot of pole beans, either, but they are also starting to bloom, so we might be able to harvest both the green Seychelles and the purple Carminate beans at some point. Which isn’t going to be easy, with all those winter squash vines growing around them! The shelling peas seem to be very prolific, with lots of flowers and developing pods, but it will probably be at least a couple more weeks before any of those can be harvested. The corn is also going to be a bit longer; they are sure releasing a LOT of pollen right now!
We also have green tomatoes developing, but nothing is even close to ripening, yet. Then there are the summer squash. I have no idea if we’ll get any green zucchini, Magda, Goldy zucchini or White Scallops, but I think we’ll definitely be getting some of the G-Star patty pans to harvest at some point. They’re not blooming yet, but there are buds starting to form, at least.
What a strange, strange gardening year. That rain we had in the spring really messed things up and set things back. We had Saskatoons blooming, but there are no berries – it was probably too wet for the pollinators. The cherry tree by the house isn’t going to have many berries, though there are some that are ripening. One chokecherry tree in the spruce grove is showing berries, but the one next to the main garden area has almost nothing on it. Even among the crab apples trees, there are a couple of trees where I’m not seeing any apples! These are the ones that have small apples the birds like to eat. The ones with apples that we like to eat do have apples on them, so the timing of blooms and pollinating seems to have been just right for those trees, but not the others.
We have plenty of pollinators, though. I don’t usually see them, but when I’m going through the garden, I can hear them buzzing. I will still hand pollinate the squash if I spot a female flower, but the melons have so many flowers that are so small, hidden among so many leaves, it’s all on the pollinators for those!
With the spring set backs, we can only pray to have a long and mild fall to make up for it!
As my SIL once told me some time ago; if we depended on our garden for food, we’d be starving! 😄
The Re-Farmer 