Growing Pink Banana Squash

Pink Banana Squash- 9 weeks old

Nothing cheers me up more than a garden nursery.  What cheers me up even more is when said nursery has a basket of Botanical Interests seeds on sale because they expired two weeks earlier. Well, I'm one for a deal! True true that they say old seeds don't germinate at a great rate... I say so what.  I only grow one or two plants, and the seed packets have so many more than two plants. So doing the math, I'd say I'm likely to succeed!
Enter the Pink Banana Squash. If you are reading this page, you have probably done an internet search already.  That means that you have seen the many pictures of people struggling to hold up a giant pink oblong blimps.  I hope the 14-year old inside you giggled as much as I did.  Let's just say the squash looks like something out of a tacky romance novel.

Naturally, I cannot wait for this plant to grow.  It is tucked in the corner of a raised bed on a south on an east facing hill.  It took about a week to sprout.  March 16, 2015 was the day it peeped up from the ground.  Every year I struggle with squash because of the ubiquitous powdery mildew.  This year I am trying something new.  Equipped with a three dollar spray bottle from Home Depot, and a solution of 25% milk to 75% water I am planning on spraying the plant every two weeks (more likely once a month).

UPDATE June 3, 2015:
I picked this first squash on June 3, about 12 weeks after it sprouted.  I was really worried that the plant was not setting additional fruit, so I picked this massive squash early.
UPDATE June 5, 2015:
The first signs of powdery mildew are showing.  I'm going to spray the leaves with the mild milk solution this evening.  Cross your fingers it does the job.  Though there are clearly signs of some leaf burrowing bugs too.  I'm going to focus on the mildew first, then attack the bugs.

Crimson Sweets, Sugar Baby Watermelons & Ollas- Southern California

Its that time of year again! Whoo-hoo! Watermelon season.  Last year I grew Crimson Sweet melons in my back yard--er-- I mean, canyon/very steep hilly area with a few mostly flatish areas.   It was an insane spreader and covered a serious amount of area.  I grew it in a raised bed, and let the vines fall over the corner so as not to take of the entire box.  Read about it here.  At the end of the season I ended up with four 25-30 lb melons, so about 100 pounds of watermelon.  Oh yea!  Being a watermelon freak, I want more.  

Saving watermelon seeds is a breeze.  Eat the watermelon, spit out the seed, rinse and let air dry.  Wrap up the dried seeds and keep in a dry place with moderate temperature.  Plant again next spring.  And that is just what I did.  Let me tell you, you can plant a watermelon farm with all the seeds you could save.  BUT, make sure your variety is open pollinated and that you only grew one variety of watermelon that year.  Otherwise you may get a watermelon vine with no fruit, or a wacko watermelon that may or may not taste any good.  Seems like a fun experiment to grow a mystery fruit, but if you don't have the space to waste, then you may want to just compost those mystery seeds.

Crimson Sweet Seedling & Terracotta Olla Waterer

Did anyone tell you there is a drought in California? No?  Well there is.  In San Diego, we are only allowed to water on certain days of the week and for limited time.  Buzz kill if you are a really into your home garden; needless to say I've had to get creative this year.  I'm doing the olla-thing.  The Olla thing involves burying a water permeable vessel next to your crops and watering your plants by filling the vessel up with water.  The vessel will leach water into the soil  thus ensuring the roots to your plants are nice and well watered.  You don't add water to the surface where it can run off and evaporate.  Ollas are made of earthen clay that hasn't been glazed.  BUT ollas are like 30 bucks a pop!  By the way 'Olla' just means pot in Spanish, so peeps might be really confused if you just start taking about ollas in garden!  

Sugar Baby Watermelon & Strawbs

I went cheapo and bought terracotta pots, glued them together until totally sealed, but for a hole in the top for filling with water.  I "planted" the terracotta olla next to my crimson sweet seeds with the top above ground and filled the vessel with water regularly.  Since I am mostly filling it with water I collect inside the house while waiting for faucets to spit out hot water, I am thinking it doesn't count as "watering."  Low and behold, my seeds sprouted and I've got a baby crimson sweet starting to grow.  I am worried that I didn't amend my soil enough to take into account the extreme clay content in the ground.  But I've mulched it already and am gearing up to add more mulch in hopes of combating this nasty water  deficit.  

Sugar Baby Melons- I picked up some Sugar Baby Melon seedlings at Walter Anderson's Nursery (my favorite SD nursery).  I tucked a plant into a raised bed and am still trying to figure out where I can put another plant or two.  I hope to be knee deep in melons this summer.  Smitty, my 8 year old corgi, loves chomping on watermelon and watermelon rind and I anticipate my chickens be all over watermelon too.  I just can't get enough.  

Header Image Courtesy of irum of freeimages.com

When to Harvest Carrots

Image courtesy of cafe-ole on freeimages.com

My favorite Seattle gardener wondered when she will know when her carrots are ready.   When do you know that root veggies are ready?
1.  You really won’t know until you pull out a trial carrot.  BUT, there are some signs that are indicative of grown carrots.  More on that in a minute.
2.  Carrots will not go bad underground if you don’t harvest them right away.  Some say that a light frost will make carrots even sweeter.  So, if your carrots were ready last week, or a month ago, they are still good to eat (maybe even better). 

Go find your seed packet.  -- What, you threw it out? No, you bought the starts from a nursery and can't remember the name? You need to find out the average length and diameter of the carrot varietal you planted.  When the carrots are ready or near ready to harvest, you will see a bit of the carrot poking up from the ground. You can then measure the diameter of the carrot top.  Compare that measurement to what the seed packet says the diameter should be.
It is likely that the carrot length will be appropriate if the diameter is appropriate.  But, when in doubt, just pull one of them up and see.

In May, I wrote a post about carrots and focused a bit on the lore and scientific evidence about using carrot seeds as a birth control.  Whether you believe it or not, if you are trying to get preggers, I would be careful to not eat a bunch of carrot seeds—just in case!

August is the time to start planting your fall garden.  Carrots are perfect cool weather plants.  Several varietals are great for all areas of the west: Purple Haze, Yellowstone, and White Satin.  Sunset Magazine has a great article about what to plant in your garden in August. Check it out here.