First Pumpkin Harvests

of 2013

While inspecting my large Rouge Vif D'etampes pumpkin, I noticed a few small gnaw marks on the bottom part of it.  Fearing that rats or some other critter might be starting to get interested in it, I decided to try to cover it with a fabric bag to protect it. While trying to move the pumpkin, I head a crack,  and snapped my stem off my pumpkin!  Thankfully, I think its mostly ripe now, so I think I will let it cure in the garage a few weeks, and then I will begin to make some pumpkin pies, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pancakes!!

I weighed it, and its about 23lbs.  Many of the sugar pie pumpkins have also ripened.  Here are my three little "punkins" holding 2 Sugar Pie pumpkins, and the previous pumpkin. I've picked 4 Sugar Pie pumpkins already, and there are about 8 others on the vines.

Mid June Update

Its mid June already, and pretty hot and sticky out there.  It was extremely muggy today, almost felt like opening a dish washer and sticking your face in there.    My chicks are getting bigger, and are in that "teenage" stage where they have both down and feathers, and still have baby chick voices.   I try and take them out about an hour a day to forage around.  They love it, especially all the interesting bugs and worms they find to eat.

My garden is now mainly squash/pumpkin vines, and some pole beans, and sunflowers.. (they were all volunteers from last year).  The beans have gotten a very slow start, and have been kind of sickly.  But we've managed a few meals from them.

The blue Hubbard squash plants continue to grow huge, despite what I believe is some sort of mosaic virus infection.    They are about 25ft long and branching out a lot.   Fortunately one of the fruit has set and grown very well.

Here is my big one.  Its pretty big now, I would guess its about 15lbs.  

There are 3 other hubbards growing, but they are still around 5 inches in diameter, and I am not sure if they will make it or get aborted.

On the other side of the garden are the Sugar Pie pumpkins and the Rouge Vif d'Etampes.   The sugar pie vines have totally engulfed the area, and have kind of crowded out some of the space I was hoping the Rouge Vif d'Etampes would grow into.  But I am starting to get some nice pumpkins ripening.  Here are the first 2, and there are probably about 6 or 7 other green ones on the vines.  

Here is the Rouge Vif d'Etampes pumpkin.  Its stopped growing.  I would guess its about 20lbs or so right now. Its a beauty, and its color is starting to deepen.  Unfortunately the other pumpkin on the vine rotted away, but yesterday I notice a promising looking freshly set female flower starting to swell up.  

And here are more ball zucchini from our few plants I have.

Pest Status 

The most numerous pest this year is undoubtedly the cucumber beetle, both the spotted and striped ones.  There are hundreds of them around my cucurbit vines.  They are mostly found in the morning on the blossoms, feeding on the flowers and pollen.  I think their biggest damage is the disease transmitting they do. I am sure they are the reason so many of my vines have had mosaic virus infection.  

The aphids have not been a problem yet.  I think spider mites have attacked my pole beans. I always have that happen when it starts getting hot.

The SVBs (squash vine borers) have not been a problem yet. I have not seen any damage yet. I have seen eggs, and have picked a few off here and there, but the vines are so huge I have no chance of getting them all.  I have even killed 3 moths already.

 I think 2 things have helped.   I got a real early start this spring,  and the vines were huge before I ever saw a moth or saw any eggs.  Also I have diligently buried vines.  So most of my big vines are either dug under or heavily mulched so the moths cannot easily lay eggs on them.  Also I have sprayed neem oil on them too, and I think that has helped too.  

Sunflowers

Our sunflowers for some reason have escaped the squirrel onslaught that caused me so much grief last year.  They are all volunteers from last year's planting. Here is a Mammoth variety. The silly plant decided to face away from our yard, so the only way I can appreciate it is to go outside into the alley and look over our 8ft fence. At least the neighbors get to enjoy it!   I have a few of this growing, plus another variety which is also very tall but has many smaller flowers instead of the single big one. Its great for cut flowers.

Summer is Here!

We, not officially, but its early June, and the temps are starting to creep into the 90s.  Most of my cool-weather plants a gone now except for a few small cabbages that are still hanging on.  The warm season plants I have are doing pretty well.  Here are those "volunteer" sunflowers.  They are huge now.  Here is my daughter Elizabeth next to one.  The plant is probably at least 9 feet tall now, and the leaves are huge.  Right below it is my sugar pie pumpkin plants, which are also doing real well and have almost totally filled that part of the yard now.

There are about 4 pumpkins growing on those vines now, and some more on the way. Here is one of them

Its quite a jungle in that part of the yard.  Once again, I made the mistake of underestimating how far the plants would spread.  I can hardly walk among them anymore.  Its quite  a task to walk among them without stepping on any vines.

My Rouge Vif D'etampes plants are doing really well too, and I have a very nice pumpkin growing on it too. Here is the big one:

These pumpkins are a different species than the Sugar Pies... these are C. Maxima.  When immature they are yellow but then turn a deep orange/red later. 

Here is a smaller one that just  was pollinated, and is starting to grow now.

Below is a picture of one of my ball zucchini plants.  You can see one of the zucchinis in the bottom of the pic.  Its a real good looking plant!

The acorn squash are doing OK too. I was hoping to have a few more squash by now.  So far I have 2 that are almost ripe, and a couple more that are getting there. The plants seem fairly healthy, but the vines are rather thin and small.  Now sure what's up with them.

I think I have some sort of mosaic virus among my plants.  I have  a ton of cucumber beetles flying around.  And I read they are carriers of the virus.  My pole beans have not been doing very well.  Many of the leaves are blotchy looking, and are curled up. The bean pods are small too.

Unfortunately my Hubbard squash vines have been showing many of the symptoms...  Mottled looking green/yellow leaves, curled up leaves.... But the vine are still growing like gangbusters.  So I have not had to heart to rip them out, since the plant seems to be able to deal with it somewhat.  What's been real sad is that I have lost all my squash in progress.  They have all grown a little, then turned yellow, and started rotting.  What a bummer.  I hope the plant stops aborting them.  I wonder if its the virus having an effect on it.

The German Chamomille is doing great still. Tons of flowers now.  We have been picking lots of them to dry for future tea.  We have also made some tea from the fresh flowers.  They have a great apple-like smell.  No wonder they call it "Manzanilla" in Spanish, which sounds like "manzana" which means apple.

Mid May Garden Update

Hello again! Its mid-May, and my garden is looking more like a jungle now.  Many of the cool weather plants have gone to seed, and I've let many of them flower so I can get seeds for next year.  This weekend, I got a bunch of broccoli seeds pods which I had allowed to dry off, and my daughters and I worked on extracting a bunch of seeds from them, and saved them for the fall.  I have some collard seed pods that I will probably harvest soon to do the same too. I am also letting a lot of my spinach go to seed, to see if I can save some spinach seeds too.  I had 2 kinds of spinach,  one the savoy kind, and the other a regular type leaf spinach...so the seeds I get might be interesting.

My snow peas have produced very well but are taking a beating from both the powdery mildew and spider mites.  They lower part of  the plants is completely infested, and the upper part is still producing. I might pull up all the plants soon to give more space to my Rouge Vif D'etampes pumpking vines, which are getting quite large now.

My son's flowers are doing pretty well too.   Here is some Germany Chamomile  in bloom.  We have already picked many of the flowers and are drying them out for use later as tea.  You can also make tea with the fresh flowers... they have a wonderful smell, sort of like apples. 

And here is one of his California poppies.   They are stunning, and are blooming like crazy.  plus I found out you can also use the plant for making tea...  supposed to be medicinal too.

The Cucurbits

Here are the Rouge vif D'etampes pumpkins.   They are growing real fast now, and the vines look real healthy.   I saw my first  Squash Vine borer moth today, and  fortunately was able to kill it.   I inspected all the vines, and just found one egg, on a sugar pie pumpkin vine.  

And here are some of my sugar pie pumpin vines, next to 2 volunteer sunflowers.  

 In dealing with SVB, I think I will skip the tulle netting over the plants. The plants are all very big now, and I have buried many of the vines, so I think they could probably survive some attacks, if my other preventative measures dont work as well.   My current battle plan then is:

1. Neem oil. - I bought some pure cold-pressed need oil, and began applications.  Its the real stuff, not the clarified hydrophobic extract, which has the azadirachtin removed. I got it from ROT Organics, a local company :   http://neempro.com/neempro.php

I started applying it a few weeks ago, and applied again today, especially after seeing a SVB moth flying around.  (Look at my 2012 Blog entry that deals with SVBs... that has more info on these pests).

2. Hand picking eggs.  I plan on inspecting the vines every few days to pick off any eggs.   

I still have a small patch of mustard.  I've picked some of the leaves, and we had some mixed mustard/collard green for dinner last week.  The pumpkin vines (both a sugar pie pumpkin and Rouge Vif D'etampes will soon overgrow this area, as you can see the vines in the background too).

Here is one of the acorn squash, the Table Queen Acorn.  I have about 3 growing, but some of my newer female flowers have recently aborted... I hope I can get more from these plants.

And here is the Hubbard squash. This one has been growing for about  a week now.  The ones before have aborted unfortunately but this one looks like it will stick.  The bad new is that my vines have been looking kind of sick recently.  I suspect it some sort of mosaic virus.  But I hate to pull up my plants, so I'm just going to wait and see what happens. The plant is still growing like crazy, about 3 - 4 inches a day, but the leaves come out blotchy looking and curled up.  Hopefully the plant can survive and still produce.  What a bummer though.. I was worried about the SVBs but didn't anticipate getting hit with mosaic virus...

Chickens

The other big news is, we have chickens now!  I love those little fuzz balls.  They love walking around looking for bugs, and pecking at stuff.    Here are 2 of them, an Americauna chick, and a Gold-Sex-Link chick.

Here is a Black Sex-Link Chick next to a  pumpkin blossom.

May 2nd - Cold Again!

Its been a pretty strange spring, we've had unusually cool weather at times.  Last night an unusually strong cold front blew in and its been in the low 50s all day, and will get into the upper 30s tonight.  Its also been really windy, and my poor snow pea plants,which are really tall, were blown over, so when I got home from work, I had to tie some rope along the fence to support them.

Its been a great spring in the garden.  We've eaten lots of cabbage, lettuce, collards, turnips, and spinach so far. Lately, we've also had tons of snow peas. Here is some of the harvest in the kitchen ready to be prepared.

We've also picked a few carrots.  Here is a really fat carrot we picked. Some have been real short but fat.  

I had my first Hubbard squash blossoms a few days ago. But strangely, they were female flowers! So since there were no male flowers around, I picked the flowers and used them in a salad.  Usually the plants put out a lot of male flowers first.  My theory is that the cooler weather, and cold blasts we've had this spring has made the plants think they better start making fruit quick, cause winter is coming.

This blossom opened yesterday morning.  There were a few males open, so I was able to hand pollinate this one. (in case the bees dont) I hope it sets, so I can have my first squash of the year growing.

Garden Update for 4/28/13

Nice warm day today, in the lower 80s.  We got back from a camping trip this weekend, at Cedar Hill State Park, with some families from church that homeschool. (we also homeschool). Got home around 2PM, so this afternoon, and was interesting in seeing what my garden looked like after being away a few days. I worked a little on expanding my fenced in area to accommodate the growth of the Hubbard squashes.  

Here is a pic of the 2 Hubbard Squash plants.  The main vines are probably about 3 feet long, and there are a couple side shoots on each that are getting pretty long themselves.  So those side shoots that showed up real early ended up developing well.  One strange thing is that I am getting female flowers even before male flowers.  I have 2 large female flowers that will probably open up tomorrow morning, but unfortunately without any make flowers, nothing will come of them.    I have mulched the vines with grass clippings.   No signs of SVBs yet. I have checked and found no eggs on any of my cucurbits yet.

Below is a pic of my Rouge Vif D'Etampes (cindarella) pumpkin plants. They are starting to really pick up some steam now, and this one is about to start running.  Its growing among some spinach and collards/broccoli plants, that will probably be harvested the next few weeks, just in time for these plants to start taking over.

Here are the California poppies my son is growing.  They have a really bright orange yellow color and are pretty stunning.  The plants are beautiful too, with the frizzy leaves.  And next to them on the upper right are some of the mustard plants.  Right above them is a sugar pie pumpkin growing among them.

I still have cabbages going strong.  This head is getting really big.  Its the biggest one I've had so far.  Not sure if I should pick it soon, or see if it gets bigger.  It will be in the mid 80s this week, so I am concerned it might start splitting.  We'll see...

Here is a look at the most of the garden. The snow peas are huge, but the bottom of the plants are starting to yellow off. I wonder if this is natural, or maybe the warm weather is affecting them?  But in any case there are plenty of nice pods to pick from them.  Should have enough for a number of good meals.

Mid April Update

April's a roller-coaster month in terms of weather.  Last week it was in the 50s and 60s for highs, and now its warmed up pretty good again.  The past few days, its been in the mid 80s and pretty muggy.
So at this point, my garden is in a transition state from cool weather plants to warm weather plants.  I still have many cabbages growing at various stages, and we've eaten lots of them so far.  Here is a picture of some of the remaining ones, with the snow peas in the background.

The snow peas are huge. They are just about as tall as I am now.  We picked a few yesterday and ate them with a salad... all from my garden, including lettuce, spinach, radishes, and even a carrot.  I have a few carrots growing, but the funny thing was that when I pulled it, it was very fat but short.  I think maybe since I transplanted it, it didn't grow well afterwards, and grew fat instead of long.  

My older spinach is starting to bolt unfortunately.  Hopefully some of the younger batches I planted of the spinach will still have a few more weeks before they bolt too.   I also have a few bolted collards and cabbage plants that I might keep until I can get some seeds from them to save.

The squash is loving the warmer weather.  The Hubbard squash are really starting to take off now.

The vines are starting to run now, and there are tiny flowers starting to form.  I was really suprised to even see a couple of tiny female flowers forming already! I marked them in the picture below.  

Their vines are really thick too, and the leaves are starting to shade the small lettuce plants underneath them pretty good.  I have been mulching them really well.  I have also begun looking for squash vine borer (SVB) eggs, since I am expecting them to arrive any time now.  I am still trying to decide if I will cover these soon, wait, or just spray the neem on them and see what happens first.  So far I have not seen any eggs or moths.  

The Table Queen Acorn  squash next to them is also starting to vine now.  They look small next to the Hubbards. I also see tiny male flowers on the vine forming.  I will need to start encouraging them to grow the other direction, so they don't grow the same direction as the Hubbards

Besides my main bed, I have couple other areas in the yard with things growing.  I have some ball zucchini seedlings growing in 2 hills.  Here is one of the mounds.

And along the back of the yard, here are some sunflowers that seeded themselves from last year.  Next to them are the Sugar Pie pumpkins that I mentioned last post.  This are growing pretty well too.
I expect a battle with the squirrels with the sunflowers. Last year, a squirrel chopped all my sunflower plants down when they were beginning to flower. I found that spraying hot pepper on the plants repels them, so I will probably have to do that to these plants as soon as I see the flower heads forming.