The Squash Are Dead!
This picture was taken on my squashes last sunrise.
A month or so ago my squash got the dreaded powdery mold, and together we beat it with a milk and water mixture. But then they started to look kind of sick, and a cold night happened and they were never the same. The squash started growing weird looking or half rotten vegetables. They plants where long, leggy and tired looking. It was time to come to grips with it.
The Squash Are Dead!
For months my husband and I have been eating a good portion of our food daily from the garden, working everyday towards self sufficiency. It is a lifestyle we believe in and strive for. This has been possible partly because of these wonderful squash plants. They pumped out food like it was magic. We ate them a different way every day. And because of that our confidence grew that maybe we could grow all our own food.
With that being said I have to keep up on my replanting if I want to eat from the garden year around. Time for a replanting!
My Septembers garden has some good and bad news. Good is the starts I planted are doing awesome, bad the birds ate all my seeds and the sugar pea seedlings. I saw the little seedlings come up them, bam! They where gone. The birds had never attacked my garden before. All year long they have been great friends of mine eating all of the bugs that pestered my plants. I could not be mad, their food is low right now. But I knew not to plant seeds until this was figured out. I found some great, a little overgrown starts at a good price. The math worked.
I placed alternating dinosaur kale and marathon broccoli filling the space evenly, giving these large plants some room to grow. Then I planted garlic randomly scattered throughout, three bulbs worth. I took the red onion seedlings and filled in all the rest of the bed. The onions took forever, there was way more than I had originally thought, I'm excited. The red onions look limp and defeated, I bet next week they will be settled in and strong.
I also placed a few dill plants. I had planted a dill plant with my September garden and it has deterred pests very well.
The lengthy dill plant guarding my plants from hungry bugs in my September garden planted a few weeks ago.
I had a few extra red onion seedlings making it possible to fill a gap in my august garden the cat had made.
The September garden was going strong, minus the seeds I planted. I had originally planted beets and onions. The birds slurped them like spaghetti. So I planted a tough contender, large wala wala sweet onion seedlings and filled the bed up as I intended.
I am so grateful to be able to participate in my food at this level. I feel my mind shift and my world slow down. I am more aware off my breath and anticipating the weather down to the moisture in the air. I have a place of peace that feels my soul as well as my body. I am honored by the process.
Thank you so much for reading my blog! If you like this post lets be friends and follow me.
Big Love.
Ren
Yeah, my cucumbers got cucumber mosaic disease after I beat the early fungus and I came to the conclusion it was time to let them go since I need to put my remaining energy into getting ready for next spring. It's sad to let our vegetable plants get beaten. Good job not letting the setbacks defeat you!
Thanks @lturner! I get attached to my plants, watched them their whole lives. It is good to move on to new ones to love. Thanks for reading!
I liked how you used the dill to thwart bugs. I'm interested to see how that works.
"The squash's last sunrise." Sad and beautiful at the same time. Haha. Poor moldy squash.
The dill works great! I was sad, I will miss those squash.
I love your plan! A garden for every month, that makes a lot of sense! Thanks for sharing, sorry the birds got your seeds!!
I agree with you! What a great idea!
(going back to re-plan some gardening strategies for 2018)
If I plant something every month then I know something will mature most every month once I get the cycle going. Thanks @tiredmama, let me know if you do a monthly garden I would love to see it. Have a great day.
that's a good job. look at my blog. there I wrote about simple and effective vegetable planting. and I also wrote about how to make fertilizer from goat urine, and rice wash water. maybe you can also do it at home. I do this through integrated farm program. Good luck
More like plans in the making right now! I need to acquire more materials for greenhousing or learn to like winter produce lol
I have found that my neem oil and Dr. Bronners Sal Suds work very well at beating powdery mold. It's doesn't work for all pests and diseases but most.
I have been hearing a lot about neem lately and am excited to get some to have on hand for experimenting. Thanks for the tip @mericanhomestead, hope your enjoying this fine day.
No problem!
Yep, It's like magic. Eating from the garden is like a miracle that repeats itself every year!
That's is a great way to put it, its the best thing. I love it. Thanks for reading @homesteadbuilder.
This looks so exciting! Did it yield a lot?
Buckets of squash! The best squash plants. Thanks for reading, I do find gardening exciting. You never know what you will find in the morning. Thanks for reading my blog.
I love squash! My favorite is spaghetti squash. How about you?
My favorite squash is the little sunburst squash, love the taste and look. Thanks for reading.
I don't think I've ever had those. What do they look like?
How pretty! How do they taste?
Very good, like a zucchini but a little more tender if you don't let them overgrow.
a very nice plantation, I like your explanation. and your post helps me, because I am a gardener.
Thank you.
I am so glad! I love steemit, we can all help each other globally. Thank you so much for reading. I hope you and your garden are very happy.
Thank you, hopefully as you say.
Looks like you have some Swiss chard growing there...(August planting?)
Yep! Good memory! I love Swiss Chard, anything I can stir fry I am a fan of. Thanks for reading and looking!
You can do it! I found that this year my pumpkins did that as well (the half rotten thing) and they were my first year. After consulting a friend of mine who used to supply the squash to the local elementary school, she said it was because they were not being germinated. She showed me how to take the male flowers off the squash plant, and walk around and manually pollinate the female flowers. After doing that, my pumpkins returned with strength (one is over 50LBs right now, and is the biggest in town!)
As for the Pea Shoots, I found that especially Sparrows love the sweet tenderness of the shoots, and they would always crop it them off at the top of my arch if my support. If you use a teepee support system, it should allow the shoots to grow upwards and prevent the birds from stealing their tender shoots. You can also make a protective barrier with them from hula hoops and netting. Just separate the hula Hoops so they can be used as arches, and the birds will not be able to get past the netting. Hope that helps for future years!
Awesome reply! Great information! Thank you so much @prairiepinner. I love the hula hoop idea, I bet it would look so cute to have them protecting the plants. I think it was thee sparrows that got my peas too. The pollinating tip for the squash is gold, I will remember that for next year.
Wouldn't a net placed above the patch of garden protect the seeds for a while? it's awesome you eat what you grow. For me homegrown vegetables are harder to come by in the big city.
A net is a great idea. I tried it once and got everything really tangled, then the birds left the garden alone. I think the fall seeds are going to need a net next year. Do you have a good farmers market in the city you live in? I have shopped at farmers markets the whole time I was living in the city down in southern California. Just taking to farmers and buying produce I knew who are where farmed it made me feel connected. Thanks for reading my blog @calatorulmiop.
The thing is some people that look like farmers sell produce that is not theirs and the quality is similar to what you find in supermarkets, it takes some effort to find farmers.