Winter Squash

Oh, my. 2/6ths of us were away for a few days, so nothing much got done except watering. 1/6th was busy taking care of 3/6ths and the other 1/6th and I were busy having fun. :)

We got busy again this evening! D. managed to finish another bed (60 square feet). Moments after he finished adding the last load of compost I made three mounds and planted butternut squash, sugar pumpkins, and banana pink jumbo squash (20 square feet each; 1 mound for each variety w/5 seeds, to be thinned to 3 plants).

I also planted a long, narrow bed (2.5' x 32') along the fence with 1/3 Sumter, lemon, and alef beta cucumbers, 1/3 pickling cucumbers, and 1/3 listada and Turkish orange eggplants. I tucked in 7 or 8 Titan sunflowers in the back of the bed too.

Lots of things are sprouting now. The corn is about six inches tall. (I don't think "knee high by the 4th of July" applies here!) The soy beans and pinto beans have all popped up. The pintos have a couple of sets of leaves already. Soy beans are still on their first set. Lots of greens, carrots, beets, etc. all coming up too, but still quite small. The nasturtiums that I planted to grow on top of the chicken coop are coming up too. (Nasturtium buds can be pickled just like capers.)

I learned something about watermelons. Last year, our watermelon just wasn't that sweet. Okay, but not great. And it should be great, since the #1 crop in this part of the world is watermelon! It turns out that if you have a lot of immature seeds inside, the plants weren't pollinated well enough. There should be about 90% black seeds, and then the watermelon ought to fully ripen and be sweet! Who knew? Well, I didn't! I guess I'll be out there hand-pollinating them this summer. I want some good watermelon this year.

Today one other thing was accomplished. D. placed his final order for all the irrigation parts we need, including timers and everything else. For $615 we got enough irrigation supplies to water our entire 1,800+ square feet of fruit and vegetable beds w/timers and fertilizers too. And we should have a few supplies leftover to create a mini-waterpark for the kids!