Friday, May 19, 2017
Perennial Favas Continued
Just FYI, they did not come back the next year. I believe they died over the dry season.
Wintering Squash
I'm fairly new to vegetable gardening. I didn't grow up doing it, and don't have a lot of experience. Fruit trees are what I know, and even they would prosper more with more attention. But last spring I planted winter squash.
I figured squash are fairly easy. Everyone knows that zucchini grows like a weed. Why should hard squash be any different? It was April or May. I bought a packet or two of seeds, and started them in random places around the garden. Several came up. A few survived. I had five or six squash vines around the yard, and was waiting to see what kind of squash I would get. (I can never remember what I have planted, and besides, at least one packet was an assortment.)
They grew. They bloomed. They bore male flowers, as squash often do at the beginning of the season. They continued to bloom, sporadically, into the summer, the flowers continuing male.
I did research. Some people say that fertilizer encourages female blooms. Some people say fertilizer suppresses female blooms, what one needs is tough conditions. I figured, all else seeming to be equal, I would continue with my hands-off approach. Some say sunlight helps, but sunlight is not always available. I put up pole tripods and tomato cages for them to climb.
Come September, they still were growing, still blooming, still bearing male flowers exclusively. I went away for a month to be with family.
When I returned in October, there were two little squash. They bloomed! They bore fruit!
One is about an inch or two long when I arrive home from my trip, and over subsequent weeks gets maybe fifteen inches across, round, mostly green. I get compliments on my watermelon.
The other starts out small, you know, squash blossom sized, gets about the size of a softball.
The first grows into early November, developing white stippling in the green. Then it sits. The other one hangs partway up a tomato cage. They seem inert. There's no use picking them, they clearly will not be sweet. I put a ceramic tile beneath the one sitting on the ground.
The winter rains come, the sourgrass and nasturtium come up, almost hiding the big one. It is late February. There are more female flowers. It looks like they might set fruit, but the fruit fall off after a few days.
The small one from October is near the front door, on the sunny side of the house. I notice it is beginning to turn color. The white stippling is developing a yellow cast.
It's March. The sun is as high as before Halloween, and the day length is quickly heading for half time of the equinox. Even the squash in the shade is turning a shade of cream.
I continue to leave them, waiting for the vines to shrivel, indicating that they are ready to harvest. I wait all summer and into the fall. The vines set more fruit, they get large, but none of them turn any squashlike color, nor do the vines die back. The fruit of the one vine climbing the bamboo tripod gets so heavy the tripod breaks and it falls and cracks. Harvest! I try cooking it. Bland, stringy.
I wait a while and as they continue not to change, I harvest anyway, and cut back the vines.
Still boring. Black seeds. Turns out the only black seeded squash is chilacayote. The immature ones are good as summer squash, but the big ones are useless - they are traditionally candied, but I don't see the point.
But I am happy to have in my yard anything useful that flourishes without care, so they are still here, climbing my fig tree, supplying summer squash and mystifying people.
I figured squash are fairly easy. Everyone knows that zucchini grows like a weed. Why should hard squash be any different? It was April or May. I bought a packet or two of seeds, and started them in random places around the garden. Several came up. A few survived. I had five or six squash vines around the yard, and was waiting to see what kind of squash I would get. (I can never remember what I have planted, and besides, at least one packet was an assortment.)
They grew. They bloomed. They bore male flowers, as squash often do at the beginning of the season. They continued to bloom, sporadically, into the summer, the flowers continuing male.
I did research. Some people say that fertilizer encourages female blooms. Some people say fertilizer suppresses female blooms, what one needs is tough conditions. I figured, all else seeming to be equal, I would continue with my hands-off approach. Some say sunlight helps, but sunlight is not always available. I put up pole tripods and tomato cages for them to climb.
Come September, they still were growing, still blooming, still bearing male flowers exclusively. I went away for a month to be with family.
When I returned in October, there were two little squash. They bloomed! They bore fruit!
One is about an inch or two long when I arrive home from my trip, and over subsequent weeks gets maybe fifteen inches across, round, mostly green. I get compliments on my watermelon.
The other starts out small, you know, squash blossom sized, gets about the size of a softball.
The first grows into early November, developing white stippling in the green. Then it sits. The other one hangs partway up a tomato cage. They seem inert. There's no use picking them, they clearly will not be sweet. I put a ceramic tile beneath the one sitting on the ground.
The winter rains come, the sourgrass and nasturtium come up, almost hiding the big one. It is late February. There are more female flowers. It looks like they might set fruit, but the fruit fall off after a few days.
The small one from October is near the front door, on the sunny side of the house. I notice it is beginning to turn color. The white stippling is developing a yellow cast.
It's March. The sun is as high as before Halloween, and the day length is quickly heading for half time of the equinox. Even the squash in the shade is turning a shade of cream.
I continue to leave them, waiting for the vines to shrivel, indicating that they are ready to harvest. I wait all summer and into the fall. The vines set more fruit, they get large, but none of them turn any squashlike color, nor do the vines die back. The fruit of the one vine climbing the bamboo tripod gets so heavy the tripod breaks and it falls and cracks. Harvest! I try cooking it. Bland, stringy.
I wait a while and as they continue not to change, I harvest anyway, and cut back the vines.
Still boring. Black seeds. Turns out the only black seeded squash is chilacayote. The immature ones are good as summer squash, but the big ones are useless - they are traditionally candied, but I don't see the point.
But I am happy to have in my yard anything useful that flourishes without care, so they are still here, climbing my fig tree, supplying summer squash and mystifying people.
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