Saturday Gardening Thread: Is that you, Punkin'? [KT]

Above, some results from the evening of pumpkin carving that my cousin and his wife host for the kids and grandkids every year. Looks like fun.

Tool Corner

Want to hold an event like my cousin's? Gordon in Minnesota reminds us that:

This is unlawful in the UK for children to possess

At my cousin's house, the kids are allowed to use knives. Even the girls.

Woman's Day has 60 pumpkin Carving Ideas if you want to hold a similar event, but their definition of "pumpkin" also seems to include squashes and gourds. I liked number 53, which is a Frog Choir, carved from Acorn Squashes. Number 39 is a Monster, utilizing that over-grown okra in your garden, an Acorn Squash and a gourd.

Or if you're not too handy with a knife, you could make your acorn squash into a decorative item using a drill.

Do you have a favorite tool for preparing decorative vegetable items?

Acorn Squashes

This brings us to Gordon's garden.

It was written on the internet that a good yield goal for acorn squash is 5 to 7. Someone has to have the outlier, of course. Ours produced 19 of harvest size, including that green one on the right which managed to hide itself in plain sight. I just found it and only because my toe nudged it.

Fantastic! More about the Great Squash Machine, from earlier in the month:

I was doing final harvest and cleanup last night (three buckets of green tomatoes, one bucket of hot peppers, one-half of mild). Beet pickles are in the jars, carrots are in the crisper and I still have to dig out the sweet potatoes.

That ambitious acorn squash had invaded the beds on either side and was busy setting some new fruit when the frost hit. I went looking for information on eating immature acorns and the machine produced this article, which answered my questions.

I was a bit surprised at the headline: why wouldn't I grow acorn squash at home? The writer named some good varieties, and said they avoided the big problem, which was squash sprawl. I guess my squash plant had not kept up on the latest garden news from 1989! I did learn that the earliest fruit, which have aged to a golden yellow, are still edible. I will need the jigsaw to get them open.

Of course right now the controversy in Minneapolis is the 2040 plan put forward by the ardent urbanists. If we just convert all our single family homes into triplexes, life will be so much better (and ban cars, but that's unspoken). No more sprawl! Sadly the squash plant had no comment. It's not quite dead, and probably is willing to keep producing, but no squash survives November here.

Yes, especially if you have space requirements, you need to know if you have a vining squash plant or a bush squash plant. Vining plants are generally more productive. Glenn Drowns of Sandhill Preservation recommends Gills' Golden Pippin above all other acorn squashes. Of course, you need to know whether you have a hybrid or open pollinated type. Acorn squashes are the same species as zucchini and most other summer squash. And to most small pumpkins and some other squashes. If you grow another C. pepo squash, you need to hand pollinate and isolate if you intend to save seeds of an open pollinated squash.

If you want to eat your acorn squash rather than decorate with it, here is Ina Garten's recipe for Maple-Roasted Acorn Squash.

Wild Things and Wild Places

We have some nice wild things waiting, but for Halloween week, what better than an empty nest in sticker bushes? From Weasel:

A tiny nest I found at WA. Very well made on some sticker bushes of all things bHummingbird? The outside diameter is only around 4" at the most.

A Plea for Help

Lurker and occasional commenter reine:

I need some help from your garden experts! I love fresh cucumbers and have grown them successfully. But this one year, they came out with such crazy deformities I've been scared to try again. See the photos. WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED? I've tried to research it, but can't find any reason they would have turned out like this.

Gardens of The Horde

The Invisible Hand thinks the plant on the left is a Clerodendrum. Anybody want to guess the species? His dog Darla is looking tough. It's her garden. I think I also see a vanquished dog toy.

If you would like to send information and/or photos for the Saturday Gardening Thread, the address is:

ktinthegarden
at g mail dot com

Thanks to those whose photos are waiting in the wings.

Have a great weekend.

posted by Open Blogger at 12:55 PM

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