Saturday, July 18, 2009

Cucurbitaceae Update

Seeing that updating the garden plant variety by plant variety is taking so long I am grouping the Cucumbers, Squash & Zucchini together by plant family. I will start with the cucumbers:

Here is an overview of the cucumber trellis. Half of the vines are over two feet high and are full of blooms and the beginnings of cucumbers.

The other half are just about a foot high because I lost a few plants that I started early and had to direct seed them at planting time. They are really starting to catch up now so I imagine they will be just as large as the others in a week or two.

This is the largest cucumber and will be harvested soon.

This is what most of the cucumbers look like. It won't be long until I have cucumbers to harvest everyday!

Here is an overview of the squash trellis. To the right are Delicata squash (seed is from Skippy's Vegetable Garden) and Red Kuri Squash to the left.

Red Kuri bloom as a honey bee runway.

This is the first Red Kuri Squash that is setting.

Here is a close up of the Delicata plants. I started three early and lost two of them before planting. Like the cucumbers I had to direct sown the lost ones so I have two short and one long plant. I hope they catch up fast.

This is the first Delicata Squash setting.

The last Squash I am growing this season is the Cocozelle Squash above. It is an Italian zucchini as far as I can tell. It was said to be compact but it sure seems to be taking over. I will have to prune it on the right side to keep it from smuther my carrots!

Here is one of the two squash that is currently setting. I hand pollinated this one yesterday to make sure it matures.

All that is left to update now is the Brassica's & Root Vegetables.

9 comments:

  1. I am totally jealous of that cucumber! All of mine look like your second photo of the tiny unpollinated ones.

    It's amazing how fast the direct seeded squash and cukes catch up to the transplanted ones.

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  2. Your cucumber vine is so pretty with all those flowers!

    Cucumbers grow so fast... maybe you could enjoy that big one with Sunday dinner!

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  3. I think all of yours are just a bit ahead of mine. I'm very impatient for my first cucumbers. I just love them.

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  4. The cukes look promising !
    Friday, I caught a glimpse of my very first one. Tiny little thing, like those 2 in the photo.

    Nice selection of Curbs - all coming along really nicely !

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  5. You're going to have cucumbers and squash out of your ears before long. The cucumbers grow so fast too. Once you see them as little baby cukes, in just a few days they are ready to harvest.

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  6. Nice squashes. You have so many cucumber flowers!

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  7. They are looking great. My vines here are like 12" long, not big yet, but soon.

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  8. Hello, Could you tell me where you get trellis like that? (I'm in Waterloo...).

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  9. Melissa - To answer your question about my trellises I make them myself. They are very inexpensive and easy to built. I used 2x2 lumber, steel corner brackets, screws & trellis netting. I have a post up about making them at:

    http://veggiegardenblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/how-to-build-removable-vegetable-garden.html

    The trellis netting I get at lee valley and the link for that is:

    http://www.leevalley.com/garden/page.aspx?c=1&p=51218&cat=2,43319,51785&ap=1

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