Hokkaido, zucchini, marrow, and pattypans do not look promising, although I should get some, at least of the last sort. The butternut squashes, on the other hand, have grown like mad, and they were completely unaffected by the slugs. And today…
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
… I got the first three female flowers. I hope my attempts at manual pollination worked, because unfortunately, there weren’t very many male flowers open at the same time, and some were already closing.
However, this is really promising. I got the first female flower full seven weeks earlier than last year, so even if we get the first frost at the average time (end of September), I could look at a substantial amount of fully ripe fruit. I do not want to get my hopes up; that’s usually a surefire recipe for disappointment, but there are plenty more buds in the making and the vines are still growing in length by about 5-10 cm a day, with some reaching the very top of the trellises already.
I only wish the loofahs were flowering too. They are not; the vines still only grow in length, even though they have reached the roof of the greenhouse already.
One of my two watermelon plants already has a developing fruit, but the plant itself isn’t growing too well so we’ll see what happens.
The other plant is growing better, but not currently making any female flowers. There were a few earlier, and I wasn’t quick enough to hand-pollinate any of them.
Two of the half dozen tomato plants are growing well. First fruits should ripen in August.
I first read pattypans as partypants.
The best of luck with all your gardening!
@lumipuna, I never had luck with either watermelons or cantaloupes. The seeds either did not germinate at all, or if they did, the plants remained tiny and sickly the whole year and never produced a single flower. I am surprised that you have any plants at all so far up north.
@Ice Swimmer, that misreading did give me a chuckle.
My surprise here is zucchini not doing well. Maybe it’s a regional thing. Here in New England, when animals ate almost everything and most of what was left died anyway, you could always at least count on more zucchini than you could use. I always figured after the holocaust the world would be left with cockroaches and zucchini. One year the pumpkins were stunted and died, but the zucchini were so big and abundant the kids made Zuke-o-lanterns for halloween.
@Matthew Currie, the zucchini were first damaged by late cold weather and subsequently mauled to near death by slugs. As a result, I only have two live plants that do not look very promising. They might still take off, but I shouldn’t expect an overabundance.
Update: I finally pollinated a flower on the other watermelon plant.
I started experimenting with the watermelon long ago, while I had a garden plot. It wasn’t a particularly warm microclimate, so the whole watermelon business was really haphazard and dependent on hot summers, even though I tried to build beds and used fleece coverings. When I succeeded, people were duly impressed.
I used the same seed pack for many years, though not on every year. I gave up the plot, and eventually moved into my present home, where the Glasshouse Balcony (TM) has great microclimate but no space for more than one or two plants.At one point. I saved seeds from a fruit I’d managed to grow. Now, after a break of several years, I planted five of those seeds. They didn’t look very good quality seeds, so I thought I’d be lucky to get anything. To my surprise, all five germinated into healthy seedlings.
lumipuna I’m very impressed!
@lumipuna, that really is impressive; my hat off to you.
My other squash and pumpkin plants started to blossom, and by the look of things, the zucchini were totally obliterated and only marrow and pattypans remained, plus three Hokkaido. Up to today, I have manually pollinated 12 butternut squash blossoms and one that I did not even notice was kindly pollinated by insects. That means that today, I officially look forward to having more butternut than I had last year -- last year I harvested 12 fruits overall, and only 2 of them were ripe.
If they grow at the same speed till the end of August, I could actually have more butternut than we can comfortably eat. I am trying to curb my enthusiasm.
Speaking of “impressive” -- the one fruit that started developing early seems to be now ripening prematurely, weighing maybe a couple hundred grams, while the plant remains stunted. The flower I pollinated last weekend on the other plant has begun to develop into a fruit, and more female flowers are coming. The fruits of this variety don’t weigh more than 2-3 kg at best.
Good luck!
Mine are flowering, but I haven’t looked at which kind. Leaving for the holidays anyway, so I trust them in the care of my sister