Posts Tagged Y-Star Patty Pan Squash
First Fruits
Posted by piedmontgardener in Favorite Plants, piedmont gardening, Vegetable Gardening on June 19, 2013
Today’s harvest
As the last hours of astronomical Spring wind down, the first summer fruits of the season were ready for harvesting in my garden today. In the basket are a Y-Star patty-pan squash, 2 Noche zucchinis, and 1 Spineless Perfection zucchini. The Noches are the darker fruits on the left. I predict that an equal number (or more!) will be ready tomorrow. Yup, it’s squash-for-breakfast-lunch-and-dinner time!
Of course, we’ve been eating Spring crops for a couple of months. The below-normal temperatures allowed us to harvest truly wonderful lettuces and spinaches until two weeks ago. The beet crop is coming in. We’ve conducted an initial taste test between the two varieties we grew, which I’ll report on later. The carrots are still trying, but, as is usual in my garden, carrots are a bit of an uphill battle. Wonder Spouse harvested almost all the onions two weeks ago. They are stored in the basement until he needs them for another of his culinary masterpieces — oh yes, ladies, he cooks too. 🙂
We got about a half inch from a passing thunderstorm yesterday, so the veggies all looked shiny and fresh this morning. Here’s what one of the zucchini plants looked like before I picked:
Zucchini manufacturing in progress.
This Y-Star patty pan plant looked equally busy:
I see squash bread baking in my near future.
It’s easy to tell by the exuberant growth of the squashes, the zillions of skinny beanlets dangling from the Fortex pole bean vines, the clusters of green globes beneath wide tomato leaves, and the tiny peppers pushing out from sturdy Italian pepper plants that the Summer Solstice is nearly here. In my garden, it will arrive at 1:04 a.m. EDT this Friday morning, June 21.
I didn’t really need a calendar to tell me Summer was knocking at the door. The plants and animals that share my five acres of green chaos have been reminding me for weeks now. As more evidence, I offer two more participants in the ongoing daylily parade.
Daylily ‘Lady Inara’ reminds me of warm summer sunsets at the beach.
Daylily “Prairie Blue Eyes’ isn’t really blue, but she’s a looker for sure.
Happy Almost Summer, ya’ll!
Wishing Debby would change her mind
Posted by piedmontgardener in Native Wildlife, piedmont gardening, Vegetable Gardening on June 26, 2012
Sunflower “Sun Samba” Mix
Oh sure, the garden is thriving right this second. But I see Big Trouble heading this way like a runaway freight train. I’m talking about the 100+ degree heat wave promised for my area in two short days. Right now, the weather seers are calling for at least four days in a row with highs over the 100-degree mark, and five days in a row could easily happen.
I wouldn’t be so worried, if I had gotten the rainfall that so many folks in my region have been blessed with lately. But I didn’t; not even close. Take last night, for instance. A cold front uncharacteristically strong for this time of year blasted through, bringing a line of thunderstorms to just about every yard but mine. I’m really trying not to take the rain snubs personally, but it’s getting harder and harder.
My remaining Y-Star patty pan squash continues to produce well…for now.
Absolutely no rain is in the forecast during the heat wave. Only the slightest of chances are hinted at for a WEEK FROM NOW! That means my already-too-dry soil is going to be baked by a merciless summer sun without any respite except what I can provide with my hose.
Fortex pole beans mingle happily with Spitfire nasturtiums…but for how much longer?
I water my vegetable garden from a shallow well that draws from a perched water table overlaying my floodplain. It is not doing well; neither is the adjacent creek. Neither are the oak trees nearby; they are dropping young acorns by the hundreds in an attempt to reduce their water consumption. I am not sure how much longer I’ll be able to water my vegetables.
Trees that produce fruit early in the season have been more successful than the oaks. For example, my Florida Anise-trees bloomed prolifically this year, and their fruit set has never been so significant. When the seeds inside the fruits ripen, I’m going to carry them down to the floodplain and spread them around to see if new trees will appear next year.
Florida Anise-tree Fruits
I spent an hour in the uncharacteristically cool morning air thoroughly watering all the veggies. I’m hoping the good dose of water while it’s cool will allow the roots to maximize their use of the water, rather than lose it all to evaporation. I’m hoping this will fortify the plants against the imminent heat wave. I’ll water again in two days, next time at dawn so I don’t melt — if the well holds out.
Every summer now I go through this agony, wondering how long the well will hold out. Will there be enough so that the tomatoes — just beginning to ripen in numbers — can be harvested? Will the peppers have time to ripen? How long will the beans keep producing? When will the bugs overpower heat-weakened squash plants?
My yard has been in a drought for so many years now that I do not remember the last time my creek ran all summer long, when muddy spots on the floodplain would sink tractor tires during mowing, when summer nights were often accompanied by lightning flashes and pounding rain on the roof.
I know the poor folks in Florida are drowning in Tropical Storm Debby’s rains right now. How wonderful it would be if I could wish those clouds here. Five inches? No problem; that’s what floodplains are for. Piedmont topography and soils are better able to handle such amounts.
By this time next week, I expect to be hunkered down in a darkened house as I hide from searing sun and dream, dream, dream of rain.
This bunny was outside my garden fence today wiggling its nose at the scent of well-watered veggies and flowers.
Cloudy Morning Skies Mean Foliar Feeding Time
Posted by piedmontgardener in piedmont gardening, Tools & Techniques, Vegetable Gardening on June 5, 2012
Tools for foliar feeding
The vegetable garden is enthusiastically growing; visible increases are evident daily. Even so, I’ve been trying to find a good day for foliar feeding for about a week now. For those who may not know, foliar feeding is the application (via a sprayer) of a dilute solution of fertilizer directly onto the leaves of plants. Leaves directly absorb nutrients from the droplets, thereby giving the plants an almost instantaneous boost — much faster than plants receive via soil applications of fertilizer.
I’m an organic gardener, so I use a dilute solution of a mixture of fish emulsion and sea weed. That gallon bottle in the photo above has lasted me several growing seasons, and will last me several more. The empty gallon water bottle on the left is where I mix my solution. I use that old metal tablespoon in the foreground to measure out three tablespoons of fertilizer into the water bottle, then I fill the bottle with water and shake. Measurements are not exact, nor do they need to be. Fish emulsion is stinky and messy — wear gloves.
I pour the dilute solution into that little yellow hand sprayer in the photo. I used to use larger back-pack sprayers, but they are heavy and cumbersome. And now that I’ve downsized my veggie garden, this little sprayer works just fine for me.
The only trick to foliar feeding is finding an ideal moment for spraying. You absolutely can NOT spray the plants when the sun is shining on them. Water droplets magnify the power of the sunlight, and you will end up with damaged, even burned-looking leaves. Your garden must be in full shade, or you must wait for a cloudy day.
Unfortunately for me, my garden doesn’t go into full shade until quite late in the day. Foliar feeding just before nightfall is less than ideal, because you run the risk of the leaves not drying, which can lead to mildew issues. And the mosquitoes are ferocious that time of day, which makes application quite an ordeal. This morning I got lucky. Clouds ruled the sky until about 10:30, so I hustled outside, picked ripe fruits, tied a few tomatoes, then foliar fed my garden.
Today’s harvest: 2 Spineless Perfection zucchinis, 1 Raven zucchini, 1 Y-star patty pan squash, 3 Red Ace beets, and 2 Sweet Treats cherry tomatoes
Even though my veggies were growing well, I knew it was time for a foliar feeding application because of the bugs. I have removed seven young tomato hornworms from my tomatoes, and today I discovered and removed a mass of bronze eggs laid by a squash bug. Foliar feeding makes leaves less appealing to insects who chew on them, and more disease resistant. The dilute sea weed extract in the mix contains a number of trace elements that work to fortify the leaves against intruders.
Sometimes when I have foliar feeding solution left over, I spray plants outside my fences. When I do that to daylily buds, I’ve noticed the deer pass them by. I guess sea food isn’t their favorite.
The entire garden smells faintly of the ocean after I apply this fishy goodness, but only until the droplets dry on the leaves. Today that happened very quickly; our humidity is uncharacteristically low. On a more typical humid summer day, drying might take an hour or so.
No matter how careful I try to be, I always end up smelling like the solution, so if you try this technique, plan on time for a shower when you’re done.
As I mentioned, the veggies are cranking bigtime, as evidenced by the first tomato harvest of the season today — 2 Sweet Treats cherry tomatoes. Last year, these were just turning red on June 21, so I’m about three weeks ahead on tomato season. Squashes are producing regularly. The Y-Star Patty Pans have really great flavor. We’ll definitely grow those again.
Y-Star Patty Pan squash plant is producing tasty results.
The Fortex pole beans clearly plan on world domination this year. I took this shot of their trellis this morning:
Fortex pole beans
Fortex flowers have been blooming for about a week now, and the vines sport many tiny new beans.
Fortex is just starting to produce baby beans
The Jade bush beans got off to a slower start, but they are making up for it in productivity. Here’s what their small row looked like this morning:
I’ve found the Jade bush beans produce better with a little support from bamboo stakes.
The new fruits on the Jade bush beans are about three times longer than the Fortex babies:
Jade beans are growing very quickly.
More Sweet Treats cherry tomatoes will be ready for harvest in a day or so:
Sweet Treats tomatoes are ripening quickly.
And the two paste (roma) tomato varieties are sporting reddening fruits:
Super Marzano tomatoes will be ready for sauce soon.
Viva Italia paste tomatoes will be ready soon after the Super Marzanos.
As you might imagine, there’s much more going on in the garden and yard these days. I took a lot of pictures today. Soon I’ll show you some new current bloomers and some coming attractions.
Now I go to bake the season’s first batch of zucchini bread. Soon the house will be filled with spicy cinnamon goodness. And thanks to the return of the clouds that are holding down our temperatures well below seasonal levels, the warmth from the oven won’t be unpleasant.
I love any excuse to play in the dirt with plants, but I find it’s equally satisfying to cook and devour the fruits of my labor. I hope the gardens of my readers are as productive as mine, and that they provide you with delicious meals all season long.
First Fruits of Summer
Posted by piedmontgardener in Native Wildlife, piedmont gardening, Vegetable Gardening on May 25, 2012
Two Raven Zucchinis, Three Spineless Perfection Zucchinis, and Two Y-Star Patty Pans
Yes, it’s that time, folks, when squash shows up nightly on the dinner menu, and the aroma of baking zucchini bread fills the house with cinnamon-squash goodness. With today’s harvest, summer produce is officially in the house.
Wonder Spouse and I have been working hard to get the vegetable garden weeded and mulched for the season, and we’re nearly done, I’m happy to report. That’s good, because as you can see above, the summer vegetables are cranking bigtime.
And well they should be. Our high temperatures are mostly hovering in the mid to upper 80s, with nighttime lows in the middle to upper 60s. Combined with heavy, humid air and occasional thunderstorm rain, these are close to ideal growing conditions for the summer garden. We did get a bit of pea-sized hail the other afternoon, but it wasn’t heavy enough to do any harm that I could see. Compared to areas near me, I’m still low on rainfall, so I am providing extra water to the squashes (big moisture consumers) and the last of the spring veggies still struggling to hang on.
Here’s a shot of the Rainbow Chard, which is all that’s left of my lovely bed of greens. The lettuces and spinaches all bolted for the sky when the 80-degree temperatures settled in.
Rainbow Chard is still productive
After I took this picture, I harvested almost all of the big leaves you see here. I’ve never grown this veggie before, and I’m not sure how much longer it can withstand summer weather, so I figured I’d pick as much as I could while it still tastes good.
I haven’t pulled up the Sugar Sprint Snap Peas yet, but their productivity has slowed to a crawl. If I stop seeing any flowers, I’ll compost them. The beets still seem to be growing well. I’m trying to keep them moist, in the hopes that the beet roots will expand a bit more before I must harvest them.
Beets and carrots in front, rainbow chard in back, and a basil in the middle
The tomatoes are all taller than me now; their fruits grow larger — and more numerous — daily. I find I must tie new growth to the trellises every other day. My tomato experiment this year is a new variety called Indigo Rose. The amount of purple pigment produced in the fruit depends entirely on how much sun reaches the fruit. Here’s one plant that gets a lot of sun:
Note how the fruits are mostly purple
Compare that picture with a shot of another plant of the same variety that is sited where it gets more shade:
Only the very tops of the fruits of this shaded Indigo Rose are turning purple.
Whatever degree of purple these fruits attain, I think they’ll look amazing in salads. I sure hope they taste good.
Meanwhile the Fortex Pole Beans have already shot over the top of their 6-foot trellis. Last year, these beans grew up and over the trellis, and then some of the vines started back up again. Given how early we are in the season, I’m thinking this year’s beans may overwrap the trellis multiple times. This makes for very challenging bean-harvesting conditions, because it’s hard to spot the beans hiding deep within the mass of foliage. A taller trellis wouldn’t solve my problem; I can barely reach the top of this one.
You can just about hear them shouting, “To infinity and beyond!”
The Jade Bush Beans were slow to get going, but are now starting to look fairly respectable. We love the flavor of these beans, which is why I still grow them, despite the complaints my knees make when I’m harvesting them.
Jade Bush Beans in foreground, squashes behind
And, as you can see from the first shot of this entry, all three squash varieties are producing with almost frightening enthusiasm.
Y-Star Patty Pan Squash
Raven Zucchinis have darker skin than most other varieties, including:
Spineless Perfection Zucchini — it does seem less prickly
That concludes this vegetable garden update, but I want to close with two more photos I took this morning.
First up is this young cottontail rabbit that was dining on clover growing in my driveway. Apologies for the blurriness, but the bunny was wiggly. Note the dark spots on its ears. Those are ticks, which is not only gross, but also explains why my front flower garden is so full of ticks that I can’t walk through it without picking up several. Yikes!
Young bunny with tick-infested ears
And I’ll close on a more aesthetic note. I grew this yarrow from seed years ago, and because, like most yarrows, it tends to spread itself around, its pretty pink flowers still adorn the edge of my vegetable garden every year. The nice thing about yarrow is that you can hack it back as much as you need without ever killing it.
Pink yarrow — tough and pretty
As Memorial Day weekend begins, I hope all my readers will be enjoying their yards and gardens as much as I am enjoying mine. Happy Summer, everyone.
Imminent Squash Overload
Posted by piedmontgardener in piedmont gardening, Vegetable Gardening on May 16, 2012
Y-Star Pattypans
I took this photo this morning. I’m thinking we’ll be eating squash nightly very, very soon, especially because the zucchinis are equally enthusiastic, as you can see here:
I see zucchini bread baking in my future.
I picked about two dozen peas this morning, along with a bowl full of mixed greens for tonight’s salad. Beet and carrot tops grow more vigorous daily, so I’m hopeful that their root growth is equally enthusiastic. All pepper plants sport small fruits, and the tomato growth rate is making me distinctly nervous. I am tying new growth to their trellises every other day.
I guess this is what a little bit of rain does for a vegetable garden. We’ve still received far, far less rainfall than nearby areas, but, clearly, we’ve gotten enough to excite the veggies.
Then there are the 20-year-old blueberry bush/trees to consider. They are laden with ripening green-blue globes of goodness. I’ll soon be battling the birds and mosquitoes as I pick as much ripe fruit as I can reach.
I know my mouth waters at the thought of all this imminent deliciousness. Perhaps yours does too?
Vegetable garden charges toward summer
Posted by piedmontgardener in Favorite Plants, piedmont gardening, Vegetable Gardening on May 11, 2012
Foxgloves and yarrows invite pollinators to visit.
Last week, my garden sweltered beneath high temperatures in the nineties. This week, the temperatures plunged 25 degrees. This morning, our hill thermometer registered a low of 41 degrees Fahrenheit. In other words, it’s a typical late spring in the Piedmont of North Carolina.
Experience has taught me that the trick to helping veggies survive spring’s wild weather swings is to plant vigorous plants during a settled spell of weather, mulch them heavily immediately, and water as often as necessary to keep the soil evenly moist.
This year, my timing seems to have been pretty good. The spring veggies are still producing, although last week’s nineties caused some of the mesclun mix (Yankee greens, as I think of them) to bolt.
And the Sugar Sprint Snap Peas have been disappointing. It took them much longer to begin to bloom than the Sugar Anns I’ve grown in the past, and the pods started filling very unevenly when the heat hit them last week. The Sugar Anns never faded this fast. That’s not to say the Sugar Sprints aren’t still producing, just not producing up to my expectations. Here’s what they looked like yesterday morning after a piddly rain the day before:
Sugar Anns will replace these Sugar Sprints next year.
As for that rain I mentioned, as usual, my little corner of the Piedmont is being overlooked. The city 30 miles to our east has had two major, multi-inch rain events in the last two weeks. Our two-week total isn’t even 1.5 inches. Of course, the folks in Raleigh also got hail, some flooding, and a few houses were set on fire by lightning. I’ll take gentle, light rain over dangerous storms every time, of course, but I get grumbly when I hear the TV weather folk talking about the “break in the drought.” Not at my house.
Wonder Spouse and I are still enjoying the bed of spring greens, and we do have enough peas to at least add a few to our salads. Here’s what that bed looked like yesterday morning:
Still sweet, tender, and delicious
And the beets are finally looking like they might make some actual beets. If the sub-80-degree weather sticks around and we can get some decent rain, I think I still have a good chance at a decent beet crop. Here they are with the bolting mesclun mix in the background:
The pink flower is a cosmos.
The 90-degree heat was a huge boost to the summer garden. A number of the tomato plants are already as tall as I am, and fruit production is enthusiastic. The peppers are not far behind, and the beans — especially the pole beans — are reaching for the sky. Here’s what the pole beans looked like yesterday morning:
These Fortex pole beans seem even more vigorous than last year’s crop — yikes!
And check out these tomato fruits:
Sweet Treats Cherry Tomato
Viva Italia paste tomato
Early Goliath Slicer Tomato
Indigo Rose Tomato
Check out the way the Indigo Rose tomatoes are already turning purple. I did a bit of research on these and learned that they only make anthocyanins (the purple-colored antioxidant) where the sun touches the skin, and the purple stays only in the top layers of the tomato. So this is one you’ll want to eat skin and all if you’re trying to take advantage of this nutrient. I also learned that the tomato is fully ripe when the bottom of the tomato is deep red. I’ll keep you apprised of their progress.
Last but not least, two of my six squash plants had open flowers yesterday, so I was forced to remove their coverings so that pollinators could access the flowers. The plants look strong, and I’m hoping they’ll be able to resist the squash varmints long enough for us to grow weary of squash-filled dinners.
Y-Star Patty Pan Squash — a new variety for me this year
As you might guess, our yard is still producing many blooming plants. I’ll show you some highlights soon, along with some wildlife updates.
Now it’s time to pull more weeds, mulch, and continuously pray for gentle, abundant rain.
Piedmont Gardener 