because my bitter melon and the rouge vi detampfs were not ripe by the hard frost last year I have a tray of them starting now, also pink banana, candy roasters and a delicata I had some seed left from. latah too. I figure the stuff that produced on time and got ripe I can wait until early March/mid March to start.
I’ll up pot in about a month; by later April they can go out. they’ll be crowded but it’ll be ok. will probably start another round of trays this coming week too.
What is your growing season like? I’m in WA and if I started a lot of those now they would probably suffer because I can’t put many of those outside for quite some time!
That being said I want to start some cole crops, and I’ve got a couple onions, one started, one seed pack arrived this morning. I also started a couple types of pepper cause I wanted a big head start on them. I put aside room for them to get bigger…
I plant them into big pots once they sprout third leaf and then they stay there until May. when it’s time to put in ground I dig a hole big enough for the entire pot of dirt to fit into and plant the whole thing damp to try to not disturb the roots much. it has worked pretty well the last 2 years.
they do get big and occasionally flower male before they go out!
giving the rouge vit d’etampfs (sp?) a good extra month of growth this year as they didn’t produce last year except for leaves. I forgot I started these too, but there they are
i grew tromboncino squash with a solid amount of success 2 years ago, ill probably be doing it again. i might also grow sugar pumpkins if i can fence off a part of the yard from the deer.
Acorn squash, round zucchini, scalloped white squash and fig-leaf gourd all flowering. A couple fruits I think are pollinated. Seminole Pumpkin stalled for a week or 2, but is now pushing alot of growth and is getting ready to form some flowers.
Fig leaf gourd male flower and seminole pumpkin female flower. Do the different squash species pollinate each other? Not for like viable crosses, just looking for fruit set.
yes they do! the seed would be hybrid though the fruit will be fine (just like the parent plant it’s on).
I have purposely crossed moschata before, trying to get a more drought proof squash. you need a little space to trial hybrids like that though, growing out cross pollinated seeds. I got one gigantic, bland roaster type squash from them last year. I will try again this year with my “landrace” and see what other seeds make, and if one is decent I’ll be happy
Opinions needed: this is a volunteer jarrahdale pumpkin. It is growing well, avoided squash borer, but appears to have mutant male and female flowers. I’ve seen this in the past but as a one off on a plant, here it’s the whole plant. Here is a picture of both male and female mutants. Does anyone think these will be viable? If not, I want to pull it pronto to make room for others.
We grow Trombone and Tatume here with minimal issues from SVB. I love the Trombone. Super productive, pick it young and it’s like a summer squash, let the skin harden and it’s very similar to a butternut (just not as sweet in my opinion). I did not love the Tatume, kinda bland, but it was productive.
As for combating SVB, we’ve tried every trick in the book. This is what absolutely works - plant something that produces very early and a lot. We’ve had great success with scallop/patti pan squash.
We’ll get a lot of squash, SVB comes, I pull the plant, kill the grub. This whole cycle lasts up til July 1st.
After all that, we plant new scallop squash and get another harvest until first frost.
This year we planted mini butternuts from Row 7 seed company. So far super prolific and early…and, as of now, not affected by SVB like butternuts in the past.
Those look like the ones our Winco grocery stores sell in the Mexican section with the nopales and tomatillos and such. They are the ones I choose if I have to get zucchini from the grocery store.
They are dense and smooth and keep well if they aren’t bruised.
The male flower has the extra bulge on the bottom that is not normally there. But, you saying long neck is sparking me to remember that we had some gourds on the steps nearby last fall, so maybe it’s a volunteer from that and these are normal! Ha! That would be great as the gourds I seeded haven’t done well. Thanks.
We get the minis in the grocery store- very, very sweet like candy! They should be dark tan though. Great for baking as you can cut the refined sugar in the recipe in half. I prefer the larger only because it’s a pain to clean and roast so many little ones.
that, we plant new scallop squash and get another harvest until first frost.