Q: What is a pumpkin’s favorite sport?

WOOT WOOT!! We still had a pumpkin at the garden!

A: Squash!

 Hahaha… and of course, so appropriate, because look what else popped up again… one of the ones from last year must have escaped and the seeds crept into the ground.  We harvested two along the ground and will be cooking them for dinner soon.

ACORN SQUASH!

Before shot… seemingly healthy pumpkin

After shot… dried pumpkin seeds

I guess we’ll try again next year!

Here they are:

Sure Thing Zucchini

Golden Squash

Greyzini

Largo

I think I figured out what to do with the barrel, which I marked TBD. I really ran out of room in the back row with all the squash and pumpkins, and I know the eggplant is going to be tight with them as is, so I didn’t want to risk planting more squash plants. However, I ended up without any golden squashes! I read that summer squash can actually do well in large containers, so I’m going to try for it in the barrel. I have one ready to sprout this week, and hopefully I can get it in the ground (or barrel) in a few weeks.

Future Home to Golden Squash

The zucchini that was doing great in the pot a few weeks ago ended up catching an orange fungus — GROSS. I think it was probably a combination of all the rain/moisture we’ve had and potential damage during the transplant of a larger plant, that cause a weakness and allowed for the fungus to settle.

Sorry for the bad picture (I am realizing lately just how terrible of a photographer I am… I am actually thinking now that maybe an adult school class would probably do me a world of good, we’ll see), but you can see the bit of orange at the end which is fungus. This is actually the better of the two zucchinis, and I didn’t actually get a pic of the REALLY gross one. It looks like it’s contained to the fruit, so hopefully the rest of the plant will be OK. It looks like there are several flowers that will produce fruits on both the zucchini plants, so I hope to find out soon.

Good news though, the Largos I guess were small enough not to have been damaged in the transplant, and there are quite a few small ones that will hopefully be ready in a week or so.. or maybe I should stop saying that, because every time I’ve said how ‘good’ the squash is, shit happens. Oh well, here is a pic anyway.

The Sure Thing Zucchinis are ready to go, and growing like crazy. I’m (finally) going to plant them in the garden this weekend. I might even be able to harvest 1 or 2 by then!

So far, I’m pleased with my ability to identify the squash based on the seeds, and it looks like I’m spot on. Unfortunately, the goldens are not doing so well. I have a bunch of those seeds left, so I’m going to start from scratch for one of them, and I’m hoping at least one of them pulls through once I get it in the garden. Might not be terrible if they are little spaced out with timing. Largos and the lone Greyzini are going ok, but way far behind these Sure Things (I guess the name is appropriate!).

I do think I isolated at least 4 Greyzini seeds — or at least the squash variety that I have not had success growing yet — and I will plant them this weekend. They are a little longer in comparison to the others. Compared to the first seed packet, there is also more seeds in general, so I will plan to vacuum pack them and use them next year (also, next year we will not plant so early). I guess not too disappointing after all!

The Golden Squash plants are doing awesome! Seriously, like, really awesome. They even have little buds that are starting to flower. We are not sure if we should actually try to grow little squashes inside just yet, jury is still out if we should let them be or try to preserve energy by taking off the buds.

Goldens April 2nd

The Sure Thing squashes are not far behind, and once they started growing, they kept going!

Sure Things April 2nd

The original largo never popped up, but I did have 2 more of those seeds left (well, I think – remember, this is all my google-educated guess). I planted these directly in the terracotta pots, and finally, Largos have arrived!

Largos April 2nd

Unfortunately, the Greyzini did not actually pop up either. The seed was just dislodged and pushed to the surface in the last picture. I was quite disappointed, as that was the only Greyzini seed in the pack. I ended up emailing Burpee customer service to express my disappointment in the lack of 25% distribution of the seeds since I didn’t have a backup. They responded with their apologies, and I should be getting a new packet any day now. There is still plenty of time to sprout one.

Mmm… can’t wait to GET MY SUMMER SQUASH ON!

I picked up a Burpee Summer Squash Gourmet mix seed packet for that contained 4 different varieties of squash: Golden Zucchini (Which is just a variety of Yellow Squash), Greyzini (I’ve never heard of this before, but here is a description), Sure Thing Hybrid (after some research, this seems like regular green zucchini), and Italiano Largo Hybrid (also a new one for me, but its supposed to have a nutty Italian flavor– though I’m not really sure what that means, I’ll have to report back on that after a successful harvest).

The cost, $2.95, was a little more than most seeds ($1-1.50), but since we had 4 different plants with 1 packet, and were weren’t going to have 12 plants of each variety, it made sense to buy the mix. Plus, we got to try two new varieties of summer squash that we would probably not have tried otherwise. The package was supposed to be 25% of each type, but it definitely wasn’t. I grouped them by similarity, and after a google search of squash seed images, I made an educated guess as to which seed would produce which squash. See the image below: Starting at the top left, and moving clockwise, I think I have 1) Golden – these had a less pronounced ring at the edges, 2) Greyzini – slightly irregular shape, 3) Largo – they were the largest, 4) Sure Thing – very pronounced ring at edge, medium size

We planted 6 seeds, 2 Golden, the single Greyzini, 2 Sure Things, and 1 Largo.  The Goldens were the first to pop up and are already transplanted, and still going strong. Next, 1 Sure Thing, and the other one is a few days behind, and I plan to transplant them tonight. Finally, it looks like the Greyzini is starting to pop up, but the Largo is still no where to be found. We have 2 more Largo seeds, and if there is no action by next weekend, we’ll try again.

Zucchini Mix, Top Row, Goldens already removed.

First Golden Squash

Second Golden Squash

I’d like to have 6 seedlings to plant in our garden in May, post-frost danger. Right now, the Goldens and the Sure Things are about the size we’d buy them to plant directly in the ground; if they keep going at a good pace, they will be nice and big by the time May arrives, and maybe we’ll even get an early harvest (knock on wood). Who knows, maybe we’ll even start a second batch that would take us into early fall.