Harvest from this seasons Haybales

Well as suspected.. I came home to find the garden looking like a scene out of Jumanji!! In my wifes defense... I have to seriously re-consider the layout of the garden for the spring and summer. It's way to hot and the mosquitos are vicious. So with some careful consideration we are going to start using our deck to grow more produce and grow produce in the garden that is easy to navigate through.

In the basket are some extremely healthy looking butternut squash and some gigantic Avocado Squash that were grown exclusively from the haybales. In fact the haybales have totally collapsed and decomposed and the vegetables are thriving on the rich matter that is accumulated in the raise beds.

Because of the heat and other issues my wife just watered the garden and said the hell with picking anything. I don't blame her... when the weather is 100 degrees and 110% percent humidity with mosquitos so thick they cover any exposed bare skin. The Avocado Squash are supposed to be harvested at around tennis ball size. They are extremely prolific and and if picked regulary will continue to produce amazing sets of buttery textured zucchini quality fruit. These on the other hand are the size of soccer balls and therefore not fit to consume or maybe I will see. But my maion focus for these guys will be to save there seeds for next season. Speaking of next Season.. We definetly need to have a new game plan to deal with this heat.

Growing Butternut Squash in the Fall Zone 8

Over the past few weeks my Butternut squash have been producing many male and female flowers. Our hand pollination techniques are producing sub par results. I have noticed that there are these tiny ants that have been navigating to every open flower collecting what I think is pollen. There are some butternut that have started to grow and then for some reason or another they fail and those same tiny ants are walking in and out of the shell. I suspect they may also be eating the squash. The one pictured has been doing very well along with three others. The butternut unlike other varieties of squash seem to take forever to grow and the longer they are on the vine the more I have to contend with fighting off everything that wants to eat them. Nevertheless, they really enjoy the cool weather and when we have warm fronts that move in they are taking full advantage of it as well. But all in all I am really liking my butternut this time of year.

Butternut Squash Hand Pollination

My Butternut squash have been doing really well. The one thing that I am impressed the most about this variety, is the fact that they don't take up much space at all. Unlike Zucchini the butternut squash stay in there own raised bed. In fact I only planted 6 seeds in half of the bed and they have contained themselves there. The key is to buy space saving Seeds. I purchased this Butternut Squash Space Saving variety From Burpee. The seeds do much better if you soak them for a day before sowing them. We tried sowing without soaking and none of the seeds germinated. When we Soaked them, they all germinated.

I also decided to plant 2 in containers and surprisingly they are doing well. Today I noticed a male flower blooming in his glory from one of my containers and I decided to snip him off with some scissors, pull the flower petals back to expose his pollen and began hand pollinating the female plants in the raised beds by simply connecting the male to the female pollen. I don't have a large garden so hand pollinating will be ok for me. I think I can control it better and from the way it looks I am going to have a bounty of Butternut Squash this fall and winter. More updates to follow..........

Growing ButterNut Squash

I have heard so many great stories about butternut squash that I had to try it myself this year. We used a variety that is perfect for small gardens. Any squash species is a sore subject with the wife. She feels squash are just little greedy bastards that take over as much space as possible. However I had to convince her that Butternut squash we are planting are specifically designed to grow on its own soap box. I have never tasted butternut but there are so many delicious recipes that accompany this vegetable that I have to see for myself. I hope all goes well. I have put a few plants in the raised beds and a few in containers. If the containers go well as planned growing the butternut in them will be the rule. We'll see....