I got a harvest this morning!
Just a wee one, but big enough that I didn’t have room in my pocket for the patty pan. I’m going to have to start bringing out my harvest colander, just in case!
Also, it is SO much more comfortable to harvest bush beans in a high raised bed. Even in the low raised bed we grew some in last year, while much better than harvesting at ground level, it was still painful. The high raised bed is just awesome!
Not a bad first bean harvest, considering the plants got eaten by a deer. Especially the green beans. They’ve still got a lot more recovery, but I’m seeing so many developing pods in the process! I did pick some beans a couple of days ago; just a tiny handful, and not enough to call a “harvest”, really. Plus there have been a few early Romas ripening every few days or so. I picked one of the two larger G Star patty pans, leaving the other to get larger, while still more are developing.
While checking the garden, I found more blooming female squash flowers to hand pollinate. It looks like we’ve got a few squash that have pollinated successfully. Here are some of them.
In order of the photo slideshow above, we have:
Goldy yellow zucchini. I’m happy to see that large one developing, as there were no male flowers on the plant. I hand pollinated from a hulless pumpkin that was blooming, and it seems to have taken!
G Star patty pan. These are easily the most successful plants we have. I picked one of the larger squash, choosing the slightly misshapen on, leaving the other to get bigger. There are many more developing.
Georgia Candy Roaster. Another one that got hand pollinated from another variety.
Sunburst patty pans. The one surviving plant is looking strong and healthy now, and starting to bloom.
Pink Banana. The first, tiny female flower! I’ll have to keep an eye on it, to make sure it gets pollinated as soon as it opens.
Honeyboat Delicata. There’s still just the one, even though we have the most plants of these. It seems to be doing all right.
Red Kuri. We have a couple of these, one on each plant. Previously, we grew these on trellises. It should be interesting to see how they do, without climbing.
Endeavor zucchini. One sad green zucchini plant is finally looking stronger and healthier, and starting to produce female flowers.
There are others, but I didn’t take pictures of everything. The entire squash patch looks SO much better than last year. The slugs may have done a number on the summer squash, but now they seem to be leaving them alone.
July is almost gone, though. We’re really going to need a long, mild fall for the winter squash to reach full maturity.
I’ll have to remember to take photos, but I’m wondering if I’ve miss labelled the little patch with the African Drum gourds and Zucca melons. While transplanting, there were three labelled Drum gourd, three labelled Zucca melon, and three where I could no longer reach the label, so it could be one or the other. These got planted and replanted when starting the seeds.
Right now, we are seeing female flowers in the drum gourd row that I’ve been hand pollinating. As they get bigger and start dropping down, I’m seeing that they are developing a sort of hourglass shape.
Kinda like this shape, except tiny, and fuzzy.
That is an image of mature zucca melon, from the Baker Creek website.
This is the Baker Creek image for the African drum gourd. The developing gourds we have do not look like that.
If I accidentally mislabelled things, does that mean the other plants, which have no female flowers yet, are the drum gourds? Or are they all zucca, and no drums? The flowers and leaves for all the gourds we’ve grown look very similar. Even compared to the attempted apple and canteen gourds from last year. The plants on the chain link fence were the surviving first seed starts; one of each, and I know those were labelled correctly. They are blooming, but the vines are so long and skinny, and there are only male flowers, so there isn’t much to help identify there.
Curious!
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 