This week I am excited about these four kabocha squashes. This is all the winter squash I got this year, my smallest winter squash harvest ever. For a while I thought I would get none, so I am happy to have at least a few. Looking at the bright side, those are four heavy little squashes that I will not have to worry about keeping safe from mold and rodents during a long winter. They won’t last long…
Week after week the plants seemed so happy. They looked verdant and lush, unblemished, perfect. I’ve never seen such beautiful winter squash vines in my garden. Now, here’s the catch: those gorgeous plants did not produce female flowers. You tell me, what good is a squash plant without female flowers?
Every day I checked, ready to hand pollinate any female flower that came up. Most days I came back to the kitchen with a good handful of male flowers and no pollination needed. The total for the whole summer were five female flowers. One didn’t take and here you have the other four.
I guess it was our unusually cold summer that did it. Does heat trigger female flower production in squashes? It looks like it…
We eventually got heat, in the fall. As soon as the heat came powdery mildew covered those perfect verdant vines entirely. I’ve had it with the squash this year! I just pulled the plants, took the four kabochas, and didn’t even check whether they were ready for harvest or not. It doesn’t matter if they didn’t ripen properly, they’ll be eaten soon. I do hope they developed at least some of their characteristic sweetness. I do hope.
While the winter squash was driving me insane, another heat loving cucurbit was doing surprising well, a melon, the Ambrosia cantaloupe. I had chosen this variety precisely because it needs less heat than other varieties to develop an intense sweet flavor. I covered the soil with IRT mulch and hoped for the best. I couldn’t have chosen a better year to give this cantaloupe a try. We’ve been having a steady stream of pretty decent melons. Not fantastic, but better than any other local melons I tasted this year. They are as good as I can expect in cool weather and the last few ones harvested during these recent hot days have been very sweet. All in all a success that makes up for the poor showing of its cousin, the winter squash.
I’ve also been harvesting a variety of other heat loving vegetables: tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, tomatillos, green beans have all been plentiful. A bonus of the cool temperatures was a constant supply of lettuce throughout the summer. Now that it is hot, the lettuce is starting to bolt but it still tastes pretty good. To round up the harvest I have some kale, onions and nopales.
For more delicious pictures and stories of harvests and to add your own, head on over to Daphne’s Dandelions, host of Harvest Monday, and take a look at what other gardeners have been up to this week.
October 11, 2010 at 11:15 am
Beautiful squash and melons! It’s impressive that you managed to grow them so well even with the cold summer you had in CA.
October 11, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Thanks for the encouragement. I hope next year I get more squash.
October 11, 2010 at 11:45 am
I’m not sure if its the heat or just perfect conditions all around that triggers the female flowers on some squashes. I’ve also wondered the same thing. I have one growing right now that hasn’t put out a female flower yet, and the temperatures have been about 85 degrees. It’s not in the best location though. I had extra plants and just put it in a back corner as an experiment. Nice melons!
-Mary
October 11, 2010 at 1:20 pm
I guess you are right, perfect conditions is the name of the game. In my case, heat was the only element missing. This plants seem to know when it is safe for them to invest in the long process of making fruit.
October 11, 2010 at 1:32 pm
I had problems with my winter squash too. Though I must say your four Kabochas looks great. Well done despite the lack of females
October 11, 2010 at 1:53 pm
I’m glad that the few squashes I got seem great. At least I got something. I am sorry that they didn’t do well for you either.
October 11, 2010 at 1:41 pm
4 out of 5 squashes sounds like a pretty good pollination rate to me. Last year our weather was cold and wet and the winter squashes didn’t like it at all. The same varieties this year did great in the heat.
Ambrosia has always been one of my favorite melon varieties, and yours are beauties. Commercial growers don’t usually grow it because it doesn’t stand up to being tossed into a truck. I can almost smell the aroma from here!
October 11, 2010 at 1:52 pm
20% failure rate and pollinating by hand? In any case, the sample was way too small to play with statistics…
I’ll grow Ambrosia again, they seem to agree with my garden better than Crains (although Crains are so good when they grow well).
October 11, 2010 at 2:42 pm
I once grew Ambrosia melons. I got exactly two. But they were so delicious. We don’t usually get good melons up north.
October 11, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Wouldn’t it be nice to know in advance how the weather will turn out to be? had you known, you could’ve planted melons this year, since it turned out to be so hot for you…
October 12, 2010 at 5:52 am
Like you, we had a very cool summer but unlike you, we did not get a late season warm up. It was a bit of a bust this year for the warm weather crops – tomatoes, peppers, and winter squash. I did get some pumpkins but they are struggling to finish maturing.
The Ambrosia melons and Kabocha squashes look beautiful – if not many they are good quality.
October 12, 2010 at 9:17 am
I am sorry that the warm weather crops did not get what they need up at your place. Hopefully you will have an abundant fall crop to make up for it. Some years the weather is all upside down.
October 13, 2010 at 10:10 am
Nice harvest, it’s nice to have ripe melons this time of the year. We have enough heat to grow fruits in our neck of the woods, but leafy greens are challenging, I’ll have to think of some way to grow greens next summer.
October 13, 2010 at 11:32 pm
Leafy greens are a challenge in summer dry climates, definitely. keep us posted about your experiments!
October 13, 2010 at 4:21 pm
We’ve been chasing squash, summer and winter, all season here. Female flowers have been scant, so we’ve had our R-rated squash pollination routine every morning in the gardens, all season, just to ensure the few female flowers that open don’t go to waste. Your Kabocha look fabulous. Are you planning to soup them? I’m hoping for just enough butternut this year so we can stock back up on butternut ravioli’s in the freezer, to see us through winter!
October 13, 2010 at 11:43 pm
Yep, I hear you, hand pollinating is a regular routine in this garden too.
I’ll roast them, most likely, since it is my favorite way to eat winter squash