Oh, I like them very much! I have grown them every year since trying a few years ago, for the first time. They definetly have more flavor than a standard zucchini, and also are useful/good into that “oversized” category. (Never a problem for me.)
I also had one keep for months like a winter squash.
A cool thing about the trellis design is that it is so mobile. I just zip tied this to my fence to grow beans this season. I could climb on it.
My little compost bin has a lot of uses. It makes me feel better that I never really “waste” food which is nice. It also gives me a lot of free soil and worm castings. Any small lot should consider a compost pile. They can smell if you don’t do it “right” but it is pretty easy to manage if you have enough browns.
In my small lot, I just planted near the fences and kept the middle clear enough to use. The previous owner planted a lot of invasives and just had trees everwhere. We got rid of most of them, but kept the bayberry for privacy and the weeping cherry for ornamental value. I still snuck an apple tree at the end.
I feel like I have a lot for a small lot, but it is still not super productive yet on year 2. We plant on moving eventually, but I want to prepare to stay longer than we’d like.
Summer blooms starting to pick up in this part of the street garden. It makes my heart swell, even in the rain, which is good since it rains Every. Single. Day. One picture of nodding onion starting to bloom for the first time.
Put in this little fence around my side berries, now there’s 3 nectarines in there, and the “driveway vegetable garden” and it got a new cage, so I can actually access whats in there. The hoop structure we built was a btch. The containers have smaller melons that will grow onto the ground and one up the fence.
This is the same side of the house and I’m thinking I can consolidate the trashcans a bit more and fit another elderberry on this side…fall project.
I pulled the crap cherry tree and a world of possibilities opened up! Added some more native perennials (and room for more this fall), planted a Favorite pomegranate in the middle and will put a romance Cherry near the street and something else closer to the veg bed. Evolutions…
Are you certain it’s rot and not borers? I always lose my squash mid summer if I don’t spray a little BT.
No idea, I never looked it up, and, as I think I mentioned, I was never that invested in summer squash. Happy with a few rounds of harvest and then pulling them. But, thanks and I’ll keep that in mind this year. That is, if I don’t pull them soon because the birds are driving me INSANE. Every single flower male and female is eaten before they can mature. I bagged everything big enough and we’ll see if I can’t get them to break the habit.
Without knowing anything I’m sure it’s vine borers. I quit growing squash due to losing the war with them. I may start again next year and do a DE regiment to try to get back to plentiful squash harvests. Wanted to take a few years off in hopes the vine borers numbers lessen.
it’s a mess and starting to feel like baby jungle to the west, disorganized junk to the east, and me and my helper with a big lettuce in the middle
first picture is my t post tomato row. got peas on it here and there, tomatoes are short but starting to flower anyway. behind is the other side, more tomatoes, so it’s a path between two rows of them. behind THAT is peas, corn and peppers mixed all in and behind THAT is the fence with trees along it
pool is gonna go. the dog doesn’t like it lol.
All the rain has turned the veg gardens into jungle here as well.
Hibiscus moschuetos has been loving the rain- on the right side of picture along deck. And that’s with half the canes gone/broken from a storm a few weeks ago. Like my over achieving elderberry, I’ve learned the hard way that I have to stake these so they don’t get trashed. Monarda, echinacea and rudbeckia around the birdfeeder. Surprisingly, monarda has boxed out a lot of the rudbeckia spread over the years.
Containers got moved to the deck for more sun, yet continue to drown in the never ending rain. All the stone fruit is sick. I think I have watered 5 times in 2 months.
I have to redesign this area of the street garden for a third time. With the pink muhly’s half dead, it’s too empty and no early summer color. Fall project.
Beware of woodland sunflower! It’s the tall stuff with purple stems. Heliopsis divaricata. I knew it could form colonies, but this is out of control growth for one year, especially when surrounded by (dis)obedient plant (physostegia), some solidago, New England aster, zizia aurea etc natives that spread etc… have to try to dig some up in the fall. Would be fine if my neighbors didn’t have untended invasive honeysuckle hedges…that I tried and failed to get the owner to remove. I offered so much. She came by, pulled out a single weed killing one of my plants in the process and left. I swear the hardest part about city gardening is neighbors!! Anyways. This area was planted 1 year ago and is sorely lacking early color. Going to transplant some manarda and other things into there to break up the green for June.
I got the stock tank from tractor supply on sale for $250. I’m gonna set aside some money to get another when they are on sale again. I have ideas of stacking bricks (for free in my area, often) and putting the second one up high to flow into the bottom, or possibly connecting them somehow into a bigger feature, with a big tube fish can swim through. Something!
I gotta talk through it and wonder aloud sometimes.
Are mosquitos not a concern out there? Or do you put dunks in it?
I have fish for that. 
My “driveway garden” where I pulled the failing compact Stella tree in spring and suddenly it made so much more sense. I’m really happy with how it’s coming along. Planted last fall, this spring and more a few days ago, so barely a year old. I think it’ll explode next year. I’m obsessed with the color orange diervilla turns in fall and the ones in the back are starting to go along with the iteas next to them turning red. Both get deer nibbled, but not anything to worry about. The caged tree is favorite pomegranate (notably being ignored by the deer, so the cage is probably unnecessary). Next spring, Rubyrush and Montmorency will get planted in here. Everything will be kept small. There’s naturally another tree spot, but currently would be too shaded by the neighboring dogwood. Waiting to see what happens with the property as the owner passed, and it was given to a friend who doesn’t live here. Playing the wait and see demo, rental, lived in, abandoned? Game…the answer has a big effect on my plantings and plans.
Everything I plant for myself is somewhat meadowscaped with dense diversity.
One great space saving hack is to grow asparagus along a fence and plant strawberries between the mounds. Strawberries can be rather invasive depending on the variety, but they help keep the weeds out.
During the Winter, I haul in leaf compost from the local farm supply outfit and add the material on top of the strawberries. This makes the asparagus very happy, and the strawberries don’t mind.
Brilliant! On the spring to do list. Thank You
my people! I live on 7k square feet in zone 7a/b and currently have 5 fig trees, 2 apples, 2 sweet cherry, 1 serviceberry, a black walnut, blueberry bushes, black raspberry, black huckleberry, prickly pear, am. hazelnut, strawberry, asparagus blackberry and raspberry. oh and flowering raspberry but tbh does not produce great fruit and is more of an ornamental.
I am adding 3 paw paws soon and an american persimmon (not sure on varieties, always taking suggestions here) Considering a pear. I also grow plenty of natives, have 8 8x4 beds for annual veggies. My favorite edible natives that I havent already listed are cutleaf coneflower and common evening primrose.
Always looking for the hacks for small places
In regard to fall, I live in a suburb so I post on my local buy nothing and pick up people bagged leaves and use this as mulch and add whats left to my compost set up.
Sounds like you are packing your space! Love it. Post any pictures of well packed areas. What do you eat/do with the coneflower and primrose?
coneflower you eat the shoots and leaves (though i believe the whole plant is edible on both). eat it was you would spinach basically. young leaves and shoots can do raw, or can cook older leaves (and young ones too).
common evening primrose is also completely edible but imo he only part thats good eating is the roots of the first year plant. a bit of a pepper flavor but a typical yummy tuber, not unlike a potato.
Try growing your squash vertically… up a garden stake.
I tried that for the first time this year and got close to 4 months production from 2 yellow crookneck squash plants.
They produced almost as long as my okra.
Getting them up off the gound… helps with borers and soil born diseases, rot, powdery mildew… you get better airflow and the fruit is very easy to pick and produces very well.
James shows how in the vid above.
TNHunter
I did this for the first time this year, but the cardinals ate all the flowers for the first month (they really liked everything trellised up easy to see and grab!!) and then I was battling squash borers for ages and finally pulled all 3 mid summer at 4’ fall and only 4 squashes for the season. By far my worst zucchini and squash year. I liked the set up, but I’m done fighting squash borer and switching to tromboncino next year.
Ive decixed to try pattypan. If those dont work (some sources say they do some dont) im gonna do a bush butternut and just harvest some young i think.
I did see a video about a parthenogenetic variety but i hate growing under nets even if i dont need tonhand polinate. Dunja is the name of the variety
