Friday, June 25, 2010

June Update: Cucurbit Crops

I have three beds of Curcubitaceae Crops, Beds 3, 6, and 9.

Bed 3 has the obvious row cover and trellis.
The row cover is my attempt to warm the soil to help my melons. They had to wait in their seed starting blocks for the longest time and did not transplant well. I recently reseeded directly in the ground in the hope I might get some healthier plants going.
The middle of the bed holds my zucchini. I'm growing 2 hills of Golden Yellow Zucchiniand three hills of Dark Green Zucchini. I'm showing off my largest plants, others that were transplanted later are smaller.
At the far end of the bed are my cucumbers. Matt built these frames with props and I strung twine to be the trellis. I hope this is a better year for cucumbers than last.
So far I'm able to push some of the larger plants through the first square of the trellis so that they will begin to climb. I have 3 plants of slicing cucumbers and about 18 plants of pickling cucumbers.
Beds 6 and 9 are harder to see in the overall photo because they are next to taller crops like the brassica row. Both rows are for pumpkins and winter squash which look pretty similar. Here are some of the plants. Again, the earlier I got them transplanted, the larger they are. In bed, 6 I have 2 hills of Jarrahdale Pumpkins and 2 hills of Pie Pumpkin.
In bed, 9 I have 2 hills of Buttercup squash, 2 hills of Delicata, and 3 hills of Butternut Squash. Here is what row 9 looks like from the end.
With the exception of the melons, many of the cucurbit crops have signs of buds that are developing. We hope to have some zucchini soon.

2 comments:

Debbie in MS said...

Your plants look great!! I know you look forward to harvest!!

Daphne Gould said...

That is a lot of cucumbers. I suppose I have a lot too since I still have two houses worth. The ones at the old house are flowering but not so far at the new house as they were planted later.