winter squash

Our 2024 Garden: triple harvest!

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Harvest was split between morning and evening today!

I did a double harvest as part of my morning rounds today. Here is what was ready to be picked.

Three Summer of Melons blend melons were ready to pick this morning, as were some Dragonfly and Sweet Chocolate peppers, a handful of beans, a few Chocolate Cherry tomatoes, a G Star patty pan squash and a Goldy zucchini.

After brining those in, I grabbed another bin before checking on the tomatoes in the Old Kitchen Garden. If you click to the second photo in the slideshow, you’ll see a few San Marzano tomatoes, some Black Cherry tomatoes, and mostly Forme de Couer tomatoes – including a branch I found that had broken off.

I’ll admit, part of the reason I wanted to pick eggplant this morning was to see how the new set up worked, with the vinyl wrapped around the box frame. You can see that in the last photo of the slide show. It seems to be holding up, though we haven’t had a severe wind to test it out yet. More importantly, having the overlap in the middle of the long sides made reaching into the bed to harvest easier than having the overlap on the short ends. So far, I’m happy with how it’s working.

Soon after I finished my morning rounds, I grabbed a melon and a couple of bell peppers for my mother, then headed out to her place for lunch, then helping her with her errands. That took a while, so it was very late in the afternoon by the time I got home.

I’ve been eyeballing the winter squash and pumpkins for a while now, and decided it was time to harvest the ones I was sure were fully mature. After picking, they will need time to cure. Normally, I would have set them up on the picnic table under a canopy tent, but the picnic table is finally giving out and can no longer hold much weight, and the frame on the canopy tent was finally broken beyond our ability to jerry rig it. In the end, I decided to set them in the garage, in front of my mother’s car. The back door and one of the front doors are kept open to allow for a cross breeze, which I hope will be enough for them. We moved the swing bench into the space in front of my mother’s car, now that all the bags of cans are outside, so I put a couple of boards across the arm rests to set the squash on.

After brushing off a whole lot of dust and old spider webs!

Then I grabbed the wagon and a utility knife and headed for the garden!

These are the ones that I felt were ready for harvest.

It’s a good thing this wagon is rated to 300 pounds, because all those squash together were pretty heavy!

In the next photo, you can see them laid out on the boards. I tried to put the smaller ones in the middle, and the heaviest over the arm rests.

In the middle front is a small, dark green squash. That is the first Crespo squash that formed. It got to this size and just didn’t get any bigger over the weeks, so I figured I may as well pick it.

There are four pumpkins from the free seeds I got from my mother’s town. Their pumpkin festival is this weekend. While with my mother, she told me one of her neighbours had some beautiful pumpkins in her section of the garden area. My mother offered to buy one, but she said not; they are for her grandchildren. So I offered my mother one of ours. She said yes – but just the smallest one.

She doesn’t want to actually do anything with it. She just wants to have a pumpkin for a few days. Just to make her happy! Then we can take it back and do whatever we planned to do with it. 😄😄

The rest are from the Wild Bunch mix of seeds we go, so we don’t know the names of them. I thought the two green, flattish ones were a Turban squash, but those get very bright and colourful. They might be a Buttercup squash, but from the images I can find, those are smoother. Still, that’s the closest I can find to what these might be.

There are two of those green ones that might be Buttercup squash. Then there are two of the slightly elongated orange ones with a point at the blossom end that looks a bit like a second them. Finally, there are two large orange ones that are round and slightly flattened.

Some of these have some damage to the skin. I tried to put them on boards or bricks to protect them from damp soil, but these still got too wet on the bottoms.

We’ll just have to eat those ones, first.

These will stay in the garage for a week or two before being moved into the root cellar, or eaten.

Except the pumpkin that will be going to my mother, of course!

I’m pretty happy with this haul. There are still more winter squash in the garden, and I hope the frost holds off long enough for at least some of them to finish ripening. The long range forecast has changed again, of course, and right now it looks like we won’t get cold enough for frost until we get into the second week of October. If this is at all accurate, we’ve got at least 2 – 2 1/2 frost free weeks ahead of us.

A lot can happen in two weeks!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: squash, melons and pumpkin progress – and my little follower! Also, eye baby update

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After my last post, I intended to grab something to eat, then head outside and see what I could get done while the light was still good.

As an aside, after I published my last post, I hit the AI “generate feedback”. It had the usual, break up your paragraphs, include photos, etc. – then at the very end, it included an encouraging statement about making sure I ate regularly! Too funny!

So, for the AI, should I do that again: this post is going to have Instagram slideshows of photos. Lots of them.

I didn’t get outside as quickly as I intended, however. I had started to make a meal for myself when my daughter came down and asked if I wanted to do charcuterie and Columbo with her.

Heck yes!

My husband doesn’t like charcuterie, and his back can’t handle sitting in the living room for long, so the food I had started to cook because his supper, instead. 😄

My older daughter wasn’t able to join us either; she’s been up all night and all day, busting her butt, trying to get several commissions finished before her end of the month deadline. She did come down and grab a plate to take upstairs, though.

My younger daughter and I quite enjoyed the Columbo episode. It was a season 4 episode, and they were hour long movies at this point of the series.

By the time we were done, there was still light out, so I did my evening rounds, then remembered to take progress photos of all the squash, pumpkins, gourds and melons, with my hand in most of the shots, for perspective.

For some reason, though, Instagram turned my most of the photos upside down when they were shared. They were not upside down when I uploaded them! I also make extra sure when I’m taking the photos, that the camera on my phone hadn’t flipped orientation. It does that way too often.

With that caveat, let’s start with the Crespo squash bed.

There are more of them now, even after losing some! The darkest green one that’s bumpy is the oldest one. They are supposed to get really huge, though, but I’ll take a little one, too!

The second last photo in the slideshow (which is upside down) is in a cherry tree. The last one, also upside down, is one I couldn’t reach to have my hand in the shot. This one is in the A frame pole bean trellis.

Next are the Summer of Melons blend melons in the east bed. I had to split these up into three slideshows to fit them all, even with having multiple melons in some photos.

Still none of them are ready for harvest!

Next are the pumpkins, plus the drum gourds.

Why, Instagram? Why are these upside down?

The only drum gourd we’ve got that was getting bigger seems to be wilting away. There are other small ones on the vines, but none seem to be getting bigger.

It would have been really nice to have at least one drum gourd of a decent size! Ah, well.

Next up, more upside down images of the East winter squash bed.

The fourth photo in – the pale yellowish one – is one I was sure was dying off, but it seems that colour is what it’s actually supposed to be – and it’s starting to develop a textured surface. I hope it matures enough that we can identify the variety.

Here is the West bed of winter squash.

Once again, all upside down!

I’m fascinated by the weird lumpy shape of the squash in the second last photo!

The West melon bed was split up into two slideshows.

Also, upside down.

The first photo is all Summer of Melons blend, as is the second photo. There are actually two melons in that photo; the second one is hard to see, in the back. After that, it’s Sarah’s Choice and Pixie melons.

This set is all Sarah’s Choice and Pixie melons, with our one remaining Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon. The others that started to grow all died off. The one survivor is getting big – and looks more like a squash than a watermelon!

This image from the Heritage Harvest website is what they’re supposed to look like, when fully mature. The one I’ve got not only looks much lighter in colour, with no dark stripes, but seems to be developing ribs.

Considering I pre-germinated the melons after I’d started the winter squash, it’s not possible that I got the seeds and seedlings mixed up. No other seeds I started look like watermelon seeds, either.

Very curious!

While I was fighting my way around leaves and stems – and fighting off mosquitoes! – I had a little entourage following me around. It was all adult cats, except for this little cutie.

I don’t know why this one kitten has decided to follow me around the garden, but it does make me happy when I see it! I was even able to pick it up and carry it for a little while.

By the time I was done my evening rounds, and getting the photos, it was getting time to give eye baby her medication. We got everything ready, including the modified bottle with cat soup in it. When I came inside, I couldn’t see eye baby anywhere, but when I went out again to look for her, I quickly found her.

She started running towards the sun room from the shelters as soon as she heard me going through the old kitchen doors!

She was purring before I even picked her up!

She most definitely is enjoying these evening ministrations. Which is rather surprising, considering we wrap her up in a towel, dose her with medications, then get the fur around her eye wet, while moistening the … whatever it is… over her eye, and trying to rub the area around her eye as clean as we can first.

She also likes that modified bottle feeding, even though it gets pretty messy at times! No matter how much we mash up the cat food in the water/lysine mix, there’s always bits that manage to clog the modified nipple opening. Sometimes, it unclogs unexpectedly and she gets sprayed all over her mouth with cat soup! Even wrapped in a towel, it end up all over her neck and chest, too. It doesn’t seem to bother her one bit.

She does let us know when she’s done, though.

I still don’t know what to say about how her eye is doing. The swelling of the eyelids has gone down, but not completely. The swollen inner lids seem to be covering the eyeball, and the eye is still bulging out of its socket, though not at much. As we were tending to her, my daughter did see her attempt at blinking, and the eye does move, as if she’s trying to look from side to side.

For now, all we can do is keep up with the antibiotics the rescue provided for us, and giving her the supplemented cat soup. It doesn’t seem to be bothering her, she can obviously see out the other eye that is healed up, and she is quite active and playful.

Time will tell, I guess.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: melons and squash and gourds, oh my!

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While doing my evening rounds, I was able to take progress photos of the melons, winter squash, pumpkins and drum gourds, using my hand as a size reference, before losing the light.

I am just amazed by how many melons we’ve got! Instagram slideshows have a maximum of 10 images. For the East bed alone, I ended up with 21 images. This, even with images having multiple melons in it. There was at least one in the bed that I found as I was taking the photos!

Here are the photos, split up into three slideshows.

Then there were the ones in the West bed. I was able to catch multiple melons in a single shot several times, so this one got split into only two slideshows.

The second slide show include the Cream of Saskatchewan watermelons. We’ve actually lost one of those, but there is a new one that looks like it will make it. Plus, there are more female flowers showing up!

There are even new female flowers showing up in the winter squash beds that I’ve been hand pollinating. It’s almost impossible for them to fully mature with the growing season we have left, but I just can’t help wanting to give them a chance!

First is the East bed winter squash.

Then the West bed.

We do still have drum gourd doing their best.

There’s just the one that’s been getting bigger, but it seems to be starting to turn yellow, so I don’t know if it’s going to make it. As you can see, though, there are more female flowers blooming!

All the pumpkins, meanwhile, have turned orange.

There’s just one that still has a tiny big of green on it.

I’m also really impressed with the Crespo squash. Not only have the vines themselves had a growth spurt, with huge leaves, and the vines spreading all over – including climbing a nearby cherry tree! – but there are more squash developing!

One is definitely a loss, but we’ve got two new ones along with the very first one that is getting all nubbly. There are more female flowers that have been hand pollinated – including one on the vine climbing the cherry tree – but it’s too early to know if the pollination took. Plus, there are more female flower buds that will probably bloom in a few days.

All this, and the only thing that’s been harvested is one winter squash that broke its own stem. Nothing is ready for harvesting, though some of the winter squash are close. With the melons, some of them are supposed to be early melons and we should have been able to already harvest some of those, but with so many things almost a month behind, that hasn’t happened yet. All the melons and squash are supposed to be short season varieties, but that wet, wet spring we had really set things back.

We have only 18 days before our average first frost date.

Looking at the long range forecast, the predictions have flip flopped again, and it’s now looking like we’ll, at the very least, have a first frost in the second week of September, with highs around 15C/59F and lows as far down as 2C/36F, which can have frost – but then we are supposed to climb back up to highs of 29C/84F and lows of 13C/55F.

I’ll bet if I look again in the morning, the long range forecast will completely change again.

Meanwhile, we are under a heat warning right now. Over the weekend, we’re expecting highs of 30C/86F, with the humidex at 38C/100F. The predicted rain and thunderstorms are no longer in the forecast, though other parts of Canada are getting thunderstorm warnings right now. It’s just not supposed to reach us, anymore.

Looks like I’m going to be watering the garden in the morning, again!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: first garlic, plus winter squash, melon and pumpkin progress

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After I did as much as I could on the cat isolation shelter build, I finally got around to harvesting some of our garlic. In particular, I wanted to get the garlic that was sharing a bed with tomatoes. The tomatoes are getting so huge and bushy, the garlic was barely visible!

The challenge was to find them and dig them out without breaking any tomato plants!

Not all of the garlic planted there in the fall emerged, but I think I found all the ones that did. The soil was surprisingly compacted, and the head buried much deeper than I expected. I could actually hear the wood on the handle of my digging tool making cracking noises if I went to deep, trying to loosen the soil.

Unfortunately, when I got them all out, I discovered they were just crawling with black ants!

After trimming the stems, most of them got strung up and are now hanging in the garage. Normally, I would have hung them under the market tent, but that broke over the winter. Right now, the garage is the only place that’s out of the elements, but still has air circulation. Since I’m using it as a workshop right now, I can at least be sure they won’t be forgotten about!

Before I headed in for the evening, I finally went out and took progress photos of the winter squash, melons, pumpkins and gourds. It’s been quite a while. The last time I normally would have done it, I did our garden tour video, instead.

If you want to see how they looked earlier, you can visit these links.

July 28
July 30
August 1
August 3
August 5
August 8

It’s now the 14th, so there is quite a lot of difference since I last posted photos. We lost a few things, and some look like they will also be losses, but I also found more melons, including a couple I found just this evening, while taking the photos!

With that in mind, I will start with the melon beds. First, the east bed. There were so many, I had to divide the photos between two Instagram slideshows.

This Summer of Melons mix is really prolific – though with where we are in the growing season, it’s likely we’ll only be able to harvest the earliest varieties, whatever they are. The mid and late varieties are unlikely to have enough time left to fully mature.

Then there is the west bed of melons, which also had to be split up between two slideshows.

If you notice some blood on my finger in the last photo, I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes while trying to take these photos!

In the above slideshow, you can see the only two Cream of Saskatchewan watermelons we’ve got right now, and the older one is dying off. The plant has more female flower buds and is blooming like crazy, but it’s probably way too late. While I was giving my sister a tour of the garden, she was telling me things are late in her garden, too. She’s not growing melons or squash this year, but she says her tomatoes are way behind. She barely even has tomatoes forming right now! That wet, wet spring we had has really affected so many people’s gardens, all over the province.

Next, we have the pumpkins.

We now have one completely orange pumpkin, and two that are starting to change colour! I’m really impressed by how well the pumpkins are doing.

And look!

We even have a drum gourd that’s getting bigger!

There are other drum gourds on the vines, but it’s still too early to tell if they were well pollinated. There are lots of male flowers, but I haven’t been seeing the female flowers when they first bloom, so I haven’t been able to do any hand pollinating.

Next is the east winter squash bed. This one has the most squash developing on it.

It does look like we’ll be losing several of them, though. Those big yellow ones that are now turning orange are looking awesome!

The west bed has only a few squash left.

One of them looks like it’s going to die off, too. It’s getting more yellow instead of more green.

Last of all, I did remember to get pictures of the Crespo squash!

It looks like we’ve got two surviving squash developing. I’m seeing at least one more female flower bud, but it’s too early to know if it’ll be a survivor. Again, we’ll see if they have enough growing season left. These are supposed to get very large.

I’m kinda regretting not watering this morning, even though the forecast is now more sure about us getting rain overnight. Looking at the weather radar, the trajectory of the weather system has changed, so it no longer looks like it’s going to go right past us. Instead, it’s heading towards us – and looks like it’s going to split in half and maybe miss us on two sides, instead of one! Still, we’re supposed to be getting right starting tonight, and continuing through to mid afternoon tomorrow. We shall see what actually happens!

Anyhow… that’s the status of things right now. I’m quite happy with things so far. In all honestly, considering how many winter squash we planted, I would have expected more – I don’t think there are any hiding under the leaves anywhere that I haven’t spotted. It does seem like some plants have more than one squash developing, while others have none at all. In the future, when we have our permanent trellises built – trellises strong enough to hold winter squash like these! – it’ll be easier to see, one way or the other. The squash in this Wild Bunch Mix really want to climb, too!

I’m quite impressed by how many melons we’ve got developing! They have a trellis to climb in one bed, but seem to prefer to sprawl on the ground, instead.

As late as things are, I’m happy with the Crespo squash, too. Last year, we had four struggling plants that ended up being baked in the sun in there location, and only one small, immature squash to harvest. It still made good pie!

They are definitely doing better in the new bed I made for them this year.

Lots to keep in mind for when we plant any of these again, in the future! Every year is a learning experience, and I don’t expect that to ever stop. That’s part of what makes gardening so fun!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: squash and melon progress

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I’ve got my days so mixed up right now!

I have been aiming to get photos of the developing squash, pumpkins and melons every couple of days, with my hand in the shot for perspective. I was sure I’d last done this a couple of days ago, but once the photos were loaded onto my desktop, and I started doing the Instagram slideshows, I realized the last ones I did were three days so.

Oh, well. Not a big deal!

One thing I did not bother with, this time, was take photos of the drum gourds. There’s been basically no change in those, which suggests to me they’ll probably just dry up and fall off.

Which has happened, and is happening, to some others.

Oh! I just realized I forgot about the Crespo squash again. The bed it’s in is in the East yard, and nowhere near the others. Out of sight, out of mind! I did check it today, and it doesn’t seem to have changed much, but there’s a reason I include my hand in the shots!

We might be seeing a slowdown in the garden for a bit, anyhow. The last couple of nights have actually been cold, and it rained for much of today. As I write this, we’re at 15C/59F, and our high was only 18C/64F. It’s going to start warming up again, starting tomorrow, and get fairly hot over the next week. Nothing like the heat we were dealing with before, but hot enough that the garden should recover from the recent chilly nights! Wind gusts have been a problem, though. A lot of the corn stalks were blown over, some flat to the ground. I added twine supports around the bed, but I don’t know just how badly damaged they were. I’ll find out for sure if the stalks start turning brown and drying up! We’re so close to being able to harvest corn, too.

Anyhow…

If you want to compare with previous photos, you can check out these posts. (Links will open in new tabs, so you don’t lose your place!)

July 28
July 30
August 1
August 3
August 5

Once again, we start with the Summer of Melons mix in the Easternmost bed, East facing side.

We actually lost one of the melons on this side, but I did include a new one that is getting big enough I’m pretty sure it’ll make it. There’s a few others that are getting bigger, but I’m still not sure about them, yet.

The West facing side doesn’t have as many melons growing on it… yet? I’ve been letting the vines sprawl among the onions on this side, and there may well be some I haven’t found under the leaves.

Next is the pumpkin and drum gourd bed – but no pictures of drum gourds this time.

The one pumpkin that I figured was dying off is now officially dead. I broke it off and could see it was starting to rot underneath.

I’m surprised by how quickly the oldest and largest pumpkin is turning orange!

Next is the winter squash interplanted with peas and beans.

Yes, one of those that looked like it was drying, finally broke off its stem. There’s one other that I think might be a loss, but we shall see.

The unfortunate thing was the large, round blue squash. It had a board under it, and was leaning against the log frame. When I found it, it had rolled onto its top and was sitting completely upside down. I went to flip it over, and the stem broke right off. I’m pretty sure it was already partially broken from when the squash rolled onto it.

We do seem to have another of the same variety in the other bed, though, so maybe we’ll still get one that fully matures before it’s harvested!

The squash with the corn was harder to check on.

Not only was I pushing back leaves to try and get clear photos of the developing squash, but I also had to carefully lift the corn stalks that had been blown over, on top of them!

Last of all is the second melon bed, East side first.

In the second photo, you can just see the yellow end of a smaller melon that has died off behind a larger one.

On the West facing side, the single Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon hasn’t even dropped its blossom yet. I’m not seeing any other female flowers developing.

The rest seem to be doing quite fine and getting bigger.

Looking at the long range forecast, it seems that August will continue to be comfortably hot, right into the beginning of September. We might get away with no frost until the end of September. One can hope! I’ll take very frost free day we can get.

While driving around today, though, I heard on the radio that we are coming into a La Nińa winter. Which, for our area, translates into a cold and rainy fall, and a bitterly cold winter.

Like we need another one of those.

We were spoiled by last winter’s mild El Nińo winter, that’s for sure!

Well, we shall see what we get. I just really, really want the cold to hold off long enough for all these melons, pumpkins and squash to fully mature, after having such a late start this spring!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: unplanned harvest!

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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…

… it broke off at the stem!

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.

I am, of course, open to suggestions!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: squash and melons growth progress – and another breakdown!

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Okay, this is getting ridiculous.

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.

This time, I remembered to get the Crespo squash.

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.

It looks like one of those is definitely going to be a loss.

Then there is the west facing side.

I found a new one!

There are quite a few more budding melons, but it’s too early to tell if they were successfully pollinated or not on those.

Next, the pumpkins!

There’s one that’s getting very yellow, and I expect it’s going to die off completely.

The largest and oldest pumpkin is starting to turn colour!

Next, I tried to get photos of the drum gourds.

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.

There’s one in there that looks like it might be a loss, too. The rest, however, are looking awesome!

Next are the winter squash interplanted with corn.

Having been transplanted later, these are behind the first bed, but still doing really well.

The second bed of melons had to have the photos split up in the Instagram slide shows, too.

There’s a new melon in there!

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.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: melons, squash, pumpkins – and our first drum gourds!

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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!

Next are the pumpkins.

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.

We have some first photos this time!

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!

Next is the winter squash bed with the corn.

These were transplanted later, so there aren’t as many squash developing. I did find another with a flower that I hope to hand pollinate tomorrow.

The second melon bed is the one I was really thrilled to go over today!

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!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: melons, squash, pumpkin progress – and it’s crazy hot out there!

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According to my weather app, we’re still at 31C/88F, which “feels like” 33C/91F

Well, this evening (it’s coming up on 6pm as I start this), I got photos of our thermometers.

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.

First, there is our single Crespo squash.

I’ve spotted some tiny female flower buds, but so far, there is only one successfully germinated Crespo squash among the three vines.

Next up is the bed with just the Summer of Melons mix melons.

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 next bed is the pumpkins.

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 biggest squash at the corner of the bed had a friend on its stem!

The next bed is the winter squash interplanted with corn.

Still not very many among these, but they were also transplanted a fair bit later than the first bed.

Finally, there is the second melon bed.

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! 😄

I’m working to change that, though! 😁😁

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: winter squash, melons, pumpkins – and our first Crespo squash!

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I just got back in from taking comparison photos in the garden. It’s just past 7pm now, and we’re just barely starting to cool down. We most definitely broke 30C/86F today, though I don’t know by how much, or what the humidex was. As I write this, we’re down to 28C/82F, with the humidex putting us at 30C/86F – which I think is off by a few degrees! It certainly feels hotter than that out there to me!

But, everything is looking good in the garden. The morning watering is keeping everything from wilting away in the heat. The corn has reached pollination stage, but we don’t have much wind today, so I’ve been shaking them to pollinate the silks, and can see clouds of pollen coming off the tassels! I am so looking forward to trying this variety of corn. Such a short growing season isn’t worth much if we don’t like the corn! 😄 I see some potential problems with growing them in with the winter squash, though; some of the vines have started to climb the corn! The stalks will not be strong enough to hold that kind of weight!

I did not do any comparison photos of the developing melons, squash, etc., using my hand as perspective, yesterday. So we’ll be looking at two days growth from the photos I last posted.

Except for this one!

This is our first Crespo squash! I hand pollinated it, and it took, so I put a brick under it to keep it from potentially getting a rotten spot on the grass. I would love to get even just one fully grown Crespo squash, but it’s the end of July, so chances of that are pretty low, unless September ends up another warm one without frost – which may be possible, this year.

Digging around in the leaves, I found at least one more Summer of Melons Blend melon developing. There are lots more female flowers and probably more developing melons hidden by the leaves, but these are the largest ones that I can find, so far.

In the pumpkins, where I’d put a board under two smaller ones, you can see that the smaller one is turning yellow and withering away. Pollination didn’t take on that one.

I’m really impressed by how many pumpkins we have from just these two vines!

Among the winter squash, I found one that looks like it took and put a board under it. I also got shots of a couple that may have taken, but they haven’t dropped their flowers yet, so I might be jumping the gun to include them here.

I’ve been looking through the Vesey’s squash selection to try and determine what the varieties are, but it looks like the seeds in their Wild Bunch Mix are not sold separately! At least not all of them.

This is the image from their website for this product. I recognize Red Kuri in the photo, which we’ve grown before and really like. The image includes a squash I know is called Turks Turban, which is one of the squash we’ve got developing, but that one isn’t sold separately.

Oh! I just realized I forgot to get a photo of one large one! Excuse me while I go back out and fix that…

Done…

I can’t believe I forgot one of our largest developing winter squash! It is completely covered by leaves, so getting to it, and getting a photo, is a challenge. I think I can see which it is in the product image, but I don’t see that one among the seeds they sell individually.

Well, once they are ripe, I’ll have to look around online to see if I can identify the other varieties. The main reason we got this mix was to see which ones we like the most, so we can buy just those in the future. Eventually, I want to get ourselves down to just a couple of varieties – three at most – that grow well here, and that we enjoy eating – so that we can save seeds. That’s sort of the goal for most of the things we are growing, really, including the Summer of Melons mix.

Anyhow. I’ll probably take these comparison photos every couple of days, even though some of them show visible growth just from one day to the next. Especially when they are smaller. I like being able to go through the photos later on and really see how much they’ve grown in such a short time!

Tomorrow morning, I’ll be doing the early watering again, before heading to the city for our Costco shop. It’s also local election day for our municipal council, so I’ll be sure to vote before heading to the city.

As an aside, I’ve been playing with the AI assistant function on WordPress. The “generate feedback” keeps telling me I need to break up my long paragraphs. So often, I’ve taken another look at my posts to see if my paragraphs are really that long. I don’t think they are, in the posts I’ve done this with, but the AI sure seems to think so! It also keeps telling me to use subheadings to break things up. I’m not that kind of blog! It suggests adding images, too, though a few times it does recognize that I’ve used Instagram to include images.

What’s really funny is using the AI to generate images based only on the content of the posts. The AI does not know what a vegetable garden looks like. Or strawberry beds. Or a grocery store! At least the cat and kitten images look not too bad. 😄😄 The post I wrote about the washing machine being somehow turned on by the cats and flooding our entry was probably the funniest. I wrote about draining the water with a hose extending through the door.

It decided we had a washing machine sitting outside the door, with decorative nic nacs on top. 😂😂

None of them have been useable for my posts, though. I haven’t tried to tell it what to make for an image manually since I tried to get it to create an image of a mosquito some time ago.

The AI doesn’t know what mosquitoes look like, either.

Too funny!

The Re-Farmer

[Ahahahaha!!! I just tried the feedback option for this post, and it suggested I use the AI to generate images for it. 😂😂😂]