Mine set 1 very quickly, then I thought it wasn’t going to be as productive as people say, until today I realized it’s setting squash all over the chicken coop and fence it crawled across. I’m eager to try this one, it’s my first time growing it and was a “late” planting.
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Mine have been setting but I’ve also lost a high % of set fruit to BER. I do have at least one more I found that’s close to ready.
I ate the first one because it had a blister on the other side. It probably wasn’t 100% ripe and it wasn’t cured. So not as sweet as a properly ripened and cured one. It’s a mild flavored squash.
Since mine was under I topped it with maple syrup, cinnamon, ginger, and powdered sugar. Normally I eat squash plain, either dry roasted or roasted with a coat of olive oil.
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Oops. Found this marina di chioggia hiding too late to pop it into a better position. Very sad! I need better squash management. The other is growing at the top of the cattle panel arch and at least seems like it will be easy to move.
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I think someone is growing naked pumpkin seed plants? If so, can you report on them. Any difference between the available varieties? I might shoot myself in the foot and fight SVB “one more time”
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it has been a bad squash year! my crookneck hardly made any, i had stinkbugs on a few things that killed the yellow zukes and the pumpkins. the tromboncino did pretty well though, sweetmeat too.
i got one futsu and one candy roaster. two mini pumpkins. no white acorn, no triambles.
trailing green marrow that i planted as a test ended up being the main squash i had through the summer. it’s now autumn beginning and the winter squash are holding only a few.
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Came home from vacation to find a legit overgrown jungle. So much for heavy pruning and tending prior to leaving doing ANYTHING at all to help. Mini paulista x jing dong whatever is just as rambunctious as tromboncino. So, one took over half my veg gardens and the other the other half. Massive pruning and everything is back in order. Someone was picking squash but clearly missed a few as we found a huge king ka ae and these bigger mini paulista crosses. Here are the overgrown ones along with a 4’ tromboncino my family member knocked off while I was gone…gave away the mini crosses to neighbors and no clue what to do with the kka behemoth.
picked one sugar pumpkin, one cool big gourd cross, and a Thai kang kob to test if they’re ready. Whole bunch at the same level of ripening. It’s missing the silky sweet overtone of the one I bought years ago that sent me on this thai kang kob path. Maybe it’ll be there in another week or two. Skipping next year if not. Oh and a crap little acorn in there from my last standing plant that I came home to find dying of SVB. In September. Done with that! (Crimson sweet in there)
Lots and lots of musquee de Provence pumpkins that I’m super excited to try. As a visitor said- they look like Cinderella’s pumpkin! They’re big and beautiful. Only the 2 oldest are tanning up. The other tan thing is a Long Island cheese. So many of those.
found a big 20+ lb Jack o lantern growing through the fence 18” up. Not good. Built it a stand and got it propped up.
This gourd cross was looking a little boring but the warts are turning green, making them tres chic
there’s so much to ooh and ahh at in the pumpkin patch and backyard squash areas this year. Managed to get an over abundance of edible winter squash, and a good array of volunteer gourds for the kids/visiting kids, so I’m thrilled. Growing a solid pumpkin patch has been something I’ve been working towards for the last 4 years. And, by the time we hit September, this pretty much all I care about! Burnt. Out. Ready for the vines to die back, harvest it all and clean up shop. 8 more weeks…
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This season in “It came from the Compost”, things are getting wild and uncertainty is growing!
Starring:
Zuccghetti
Co-starring
The Minions
With a surprise guest appearance by
Zuccghetti’s twin brother who was separated at birth and raised by cucumbers!
Some may ripen. Some may rot. They might all end up back in the compost! Stay tuned.
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Is this squirrel? I have random eaten marks like this in various winter squash and watermelons for the last few weeks. Haven’t had this happen before. Driving me insane. This is the latest in a big tromboncino
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most likely rats
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Bummer, I was afraid it might be mice. Thanks. I thought I saw one tonight. Have never seen a rat here, but they’re all bad!
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56” tromboncino! No idea what I’m doing with all of these! I can still see a slightly fingernail dent, but starting to pick them and other squash because the vermin is taking bites of everything. Maybe Fatty the Rat from 2016 is back.
I just did the simple math and realized I have 3 musquee de Provence that pollinated 11+ weeks ago. That seems so long. Picked a few more TKK and going to get a few Long Island cheese later today.
Harvested a few yesterday. I still don’t think the TKK are ready the bigger one I really should have left another week. It the LIC seem so and I’ll pick more this weekend. 4 years into growing pumpkins I’m just now trying to really learn about curing v ripening and I’ve definitely been doing it wrong. Going to get them all out of the basement and by a sunny window for a week or two or under a cage on the sunny deck. Squirrel and vermin are too active right now to risk things just left out
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Wait tell me about curing v ripening. I’ve picked mine ripe so far, but cured them in our overly warm laundry room. It’s still not in the temp range I’ve read, but usually 75 degrees/70% humidity and better than the greenhouse, which can pop into the 90s. Last year I had a Musquee de Provence that seemed to continue to ripen (but also cure? It was fine for months) in our (also warm) basement.
Re: pests. Had a red warty thing get gobbled from underneath and then various squash have been scratched up like this, but mostly healed. I’m not sure what did it.
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You’ve certainly been doing it better than me. I’ve just been putting them straight in the basement thinking that since they ripened and sat on the vine they also cured. I had never bothered to look into it…
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I finally did it. I got a squash! This is Sikal squash, a heat and humidity lover that grows on a very vigorous vine. It can be a summer or winter squash, but I grow it for it’s for the summer squash. Very large (I picked it a couple of days after this photo) and soft, no noticable seeds and a good mild taste. Excited for more. Hopefully I get some other squash plants to actually fruit instead of just being decorations.
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Any experience with seminole? I put in a strain from southern seed exposure, after a poor experience last year. I realized that my ohio summer was nothing compared to its native climate, and that it really wanted the worst heat and sun I could blast at it. I also felt it had a bit of a late start and couldn’t get going. I got zero fruit last season. This year I put it in a spot that gets unrelenting sun and had started it just a bit earlier in the greenhouse. It has spread from one end of my garden to the other end and crawled through a stand of cup plants out the other side (~60 feet). It is putting out tons of mostly bell shaped squash with a few small round ones. It has no signs of slowdown. If even half ripen it will be a big harvest from only a couple vines.
Here is a poorly positioned Atlantic Giant. Like I said, with the baby I just haven’t had time to manage these vines. With my hand in the foreground I assure you it’s quite large. I’m not sure why I chose to grow these, but they will probably be cute on our front porch assuming my husband can put them there. The other two that finished on the vine are smaller and I’m confident they can be moved easily. In theory I have forks to lift anything really big, but no clear path to the front door.
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Donut tromboncino in the making…
Anyone grown Chinese tropical pumpkin? I only have 2 measly pumpkins on it. And, they’re small, but I guess the description was for 4lb pumpkins so that’s just my fault for not seeing that. Wondering if that’s a result of direct sowing and not being able to compete with the others that I had started indoors, or if it’s just not great. I think I can harvest them in another week.
I’m happy to say there is minimal powdery mildew in the patch this year whereas last year it was taken over by now. I attribute that to it being mostly c. moschatas this year and avidly removing any of the sugar or Jack leaves that show signs. I’m never growing sugar again (and this year was a volunteer mistake) as it’s the sickest winter squash I’ve had x2 years. I have to make sure to trash those seeds this winter!
Just adding here bc I’ve posted way too many times on this thread…these mutant tromboncino are so weird. One part of one plant keeps making them.
And if anyone likes the most yellow summer squash shape, you should really try the commonwealth mini paulista x jong dong cross because they compete with tromboncino for vigor and how prolific they fruit. I just don’t like the shape for my cooking needs.
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Are these eatable? Will they even cure without rotting? I think they were snacked on aggressively during their softer period and some scabbed up, as you can see they didn’t rot on the vine, but it’s hard to tell. This is two out of many, so if I need to cut these up for livestock it’s fine.
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Personally, I would eat them. They are scarred over and should be fine. I’m sure someone could make a valid argument about not wanting to eat with whatever pathogens were introduced from vermin or whatever.
On the note of scarring over, I’ve been seeing a lot of intentionally creating artistic scars on pumpkins this year. Had two perfect new ones that were mostly grown, but still young/green to try on recently. It’s so easy and fun! You just write on them with a pen (breaking the skin). Oh the world of possibilities! the two I did a week ago are already nicely scarring.
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picked the last few of these blue squashes today. i love these roasted. wish i had gotten more candy roaster this year. more fuji.
i had a bad year for cucurbits in general, no melons, only a few cukes, a few crookneck, one yellow zuke only. two small pumpkins.
moving my entire cucurbit growing area to the front of house next year, may help, not sure.
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