Your Small Kitchen Garden |

By the time I discovered a lone squash flower in my small kitchen garden, it was crusted with ice.

I regret to say: my small kitchen garden was not at all in the spirit of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day this month. In fact, this post marks the annual transition from active gardening season to armchair gardening season: Snow fell for much of the day.

Snow, in central Pennsylvania on October 15^th. According to the weather service, this is a new record; there has never been “measurable” snow this early in a season.

My Small Kitchen Garden isn’t Done

As final as a snowfall seems, my garden isn’t really finished for the year. I expect to harvest cilantro at least one more time before leaving the plants to fend for themselves. Cilantro is quite hardy, and the clump of plants in my garden is likely to survive the winter and put out new growth as soon as the ground thaws next year.

The weather service has forecast days in the 60s next week, so I’ll be able to pull plant-support stakes and rake leaves onto the planting bed. Also, there are still carrots in the ground, so I’ll dig those after this snow melts.

Were I adding perennials to my garden or yard—fruit trees, for example—I’d still do so in the next month. Planting perennials in autumn has distinct advantages over planting them in spring. I explained my rationale last year in a post titled As Autumn Arrives Plant Fruit Trees.

It’s also not too late to start “burning in” new planting beds. I explained in Your Home Kitchen Garden blog how to start a garden bed in grass without first removing sod. If you start before the soil freezes, a reasonable amount of decomposition should take place over the winter; you may be able to plant in the spring, with an early summer start being nearly certain.

In any case, there were hundreds of blossoms in my small kitchen garden today… but with a wet snow falling, I had little fun trying to capture images of them. I hope November’s Bloom Day is a little less punishing and I hope you all had way more reason than I to enjoy today’s Bloom Day!

Most of the blossoms in my small kitchen garden are on the broccoli plants. There are hundreds of them, and today they were coated with ice.

 

This is no longer a flower, but it looks pretty cool. It’s the spent head of a dill plant. This one head scattered, perhaps, seven billion seeds in my garden (that’s an exaggeration), and now looks like crystal with its coating of frozen sleet.

Technorati Tags: bloom day, blooms, blossoms, flowers

I love to grow winter squash in my small kitchen garden… even though squash plants cannot in any way qualify as small-garden-appropriate. Still, when I plan a progression from spring crops to summer crops, I make sure there’s a place where butternut squash plants will be able to stretch out in July and August.

Poor Squash Production

The first season I grew butternut squash was very disappointing. The seeds sprouted quickly, and vines grew aggressively. It was a bit of a rush when squash flowers popped open; and very entertaining to see new flowers open almost every day. When female flowers opened, I was particularly jazzed: these were young squash fruits that would grow large and provide food later in the year!

My first year growing winter squash, I saw blossom after blossom wither and die, dashing my hopes of getting a decent harvest.

No dice. Those female flowers would blossom and fade in a day, and two or three days later the fruits from which they’d emerged would turn brown, wither, and drop off the plants.

Occasionally, a squash fruit would set: the flower would dry up and fall off as the squash itself plumped up. While this was very satisfying, harvesting only a squash or two per plant seemed hardly worth the garden space.

Since then, I’ve heard this story told by many beginning gardeners—and even by experienced gardeners—who were puzzled by poor production from their winter squash plants.

More Squash per Plant

One summer, as the squash plants started flowering, it occurred to me that, perhaps, a squash fruit that isn’t pollinated isn’t viable. Honestly, I don’t know whether this is true, but the thought led me to a new garden task: I now hand-pollinate all my female squash flowers. Since I started doing this, I’m almost certain that every squash flower I’ve pollinated has grown into a harvestable squash fruit. Now in a typical season I harvest at least five decent squash fruits per plant, and sometimes as many as seven or eight.

A male squash flower (left) stands atop a stalk that stretches toward the canopy of leaves. A female flower (right) lies low under the canopy and grows from the end of a miniature squash fruit.

Life of a Squash Plant

A squash plant may seem to develop slowly, producing small leaves on skinny vines. After a few weeks, however, the plant starts to overwhelm its area in the garden. Large leaves rise 18 inches above the garden bed as the vines thicken and send out branches.

Soon, squash blossoms peak out from under the canopy of leaves… they don’t necessarily rise above the canopy, but their unmistakable orange flashes in the morning sun.

The earliest squash blossoms are males; they can’t produce fruit. These usually sit on stalks that grow straight up from the horizontal vines.

You can pollinate a female flower using a male flower from the same plant, but I like to find a male flower from a different plant. I snap the stalk that holds the flower (they are brittle and break off easily), then I peel the petals away much as you’d peel a banana (center). I end up with a stamen at the end of a handle (right).

 

To pollinate squash, I simply use the doctored male flower as a paintbrush: I hold the stem and brush the stamen around on the pistil of the female flower. A squash fruit grows very quickly after pollination. If the plant gets enough water (and if the days are hot), a fruit can reach full-size in seven-to-ten days… though it might take several more weeks to ripen fully.

A squash bud blossoms in the morning, glows orange until midday, and starts to fade in the afternoon. By nightfall, the blossom is droopy, at best, and the flower is useless by the next day… but another set of blossoms opens on that morning.

You might see such blooms for a week or two before the first female blossoms mature. A female blossom grows in the direction of the stem that holds it. There is a tiny squash behind the flower, and the flower itself may actually lie on the ground when it opens. While male blossoms congregate near the original roots of the plant, female blossoms grow near the ends of the vines… but I’ve never seen a female blossom open when there were no male blossoms open as well.

Caution! Bees seem to think squash flowers are what it’s about. On a good day, the squash bed is abuzz with dozens of bees. In my experience, they pay no attention to me as I wade through the sea of squash leaves. They are so single-minded, I’ve actually had bees land on the male flowers whose petals I was stripping. Despite heavy bee activity, I still hand-pollinate. I try to avoid arguments with the bees, and I’ve never been stung in my squash patch.

Squash Plant Maintenance

As a vine, a winter squash plant sends out tendrils that can wrap around anchors to support the vine. This being the case, some gardeners train their squash plants up and away from the soil. One great advantage of this is that the fruits develop off the ground where they are less likely to succumb to insects and rot caused by moisture.

But I wonder whether training squash vines off the ground cheats the grower out of a few pounds of squash per plant. You see, squash vines branch, and the branches are thinner and flimsier than the main vine. Still, those flimsy branches can grow quite long and they can produce fruiting flowers. No problem so far.

In my experience, the fruiting flowers of slender squash branches are smaller than those of the main vine. Many fail to blossom; they simply shrivel and drop off the plant. I’m about to offer a guess about squash culture, but first: one more fact about how squash plants grow:

Squash vines aggressively seek supplemental sources of water. At each node where a leaf grows from the vine, the plant wants to drop roots into the ground. If the vine lies on your garden’s soil, the plant will re-root itself in dozens of places. I must believe (without knowing for sure) that these roots support the plant’s growth.

Here’s that guess I warned about: A squash vine that can’t drop supplemental roots into the soil will produce the flimsiest of branches and, probably, less fruit than a vine that re-roots itself all over your garden bed. Believing this, I let my squash plants have plenty of room, and I leave the vines in place so I don’t disturb the roots they inevitably produce.

Squash vines produce tendrils (left) that are capable of supporting the plants off of the ground. However, if a node where a leaf stalk emerges from the vine rests on damp soil, the vine drops roots there. For the sake of this discussion, I lifted a vine (right) and its newly-forming roots came out of the soil.

Now I’ll contradict myself: Two or three squash plants growing from a common point can intertwine and become very inaccessible. The main vines and their branches criss-cross and overlap while the canopy of large leaves blocks your view of the vines. As fruit sets and enlarges, you’ll see many flimsy branches grow from the main vine, and it will be obvious that most branches won’t produce fruit.

When my squash patch becomes particularly overgrown, I remove many of those useless vine branches; I use a paring knife and cut them off close to the main vine. Again, I don’t know for sure, but my plant sense tells me that the vines and growing squash fruits that remain benefit when the plant isn’t trying to grow so many new branches.

When Squash are Ripe

It’s a little early to be concerned about harvesting winter squash. But if squash fruits ripen, cut them off the vines and take them inside… there’s no sense leaving them in the garden where they can fall victim to insects and other inconveniences. If your plants are still setting fruit… or they haven’t yet started, you may face decisions about when to harvest. I wrote a post last autumn about harvesting and storing winter squash. I hope you find it useful: Harvest Squash from your Small Kitchen Garden.

Here are some links to articles about diseases that can damage your squash plants… and to a few discussions about cooking winter squash:

• Downy Mildew Alert « Weekly Crop Update – edu and Kate Everts, Vegetable Pathologist, University of Delaware and University of Maryland ; keverts@umd. Downy mildew was observed on cucumber in our sentinel plots on Wednesday, July 9 near Georgetown, DE by Emmalea Ernest. She found several small spots on 3-4 leaves on the susceptible slicing variety Straight Eight’.

• pumpkin plants turn ugly in just a few days – jerry brust, ipm vegetable specialist, university of maryland; jbrust@umd.edu. last thursday, august 6, my pumpkin plants looked great with large green leaves and just a little powdery mildew (fig. 1). just a few days later and they …

• having my way with winter squash « Culinaria Eugenius – Although I must say that I recently devoured a maple cream puree made with the grey squash above, I prefer winter squash dishes that don’t add extra sugar. The marshmallow yam Thanksgiving casserole? *shudder* …

• Five Ways to Eat Winter Squash – I love this Moosewood Cookbook recipe, which mixes kale and chunks of winter squash into a basic white-wine risotto. It’s easier than I expected—although you do have to be vigilant about stirring!—and it’s a very healthy dish, …

• Winter Squash Soup with Gruyere Croutons – Bon Appétit | December 1996. In France, this soup would be prepared with a baking pumpkin. A mixture of butternut and acorn squashes mimics the French pumpkin’s exceptional taste and texture. Pour a lightly chilled rosé with this …

Technorati Tags: flowers, plant squash, pollination, squash, winter squash

My small kitchen garden is still fully abloom, which portends great things to come. The blossoms also provide fodder for me to participate in another Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. Carol at May Dreams Gardens hosts Bloom Day wherein she encourages garden bloggers everywhere to photograph their blossoms, post them on their blogs, and then add a link to the Bloom Day list.

My small kitchen garden this month has blossoms that are quite similar to last month’s blossoms. Still, there are a few changes, and all-new photos. I don’t really grow flowers, but if I don’t get any in my garden, I won’t get any vegetables and fruits either… and that would make me very sad. Please have a look and see what the future holds for my small kitchen garden.

Cilantro flowers abound in my garden. My cilantro patch is very mature, and blossoms are giving way to coriander. These cilantro flower clouds—volunteers that planted themselves last fall—float among my tomato plants. Similar volunteers are making coriander throughout my planting bed.

 

My oregano monster is in full-bloom: dozens of stalks of flowers stand above the foliage. My oregano is spreading; trying to consume the planting bed. So, a few days ago I trimmed back the edges of the monster. I’ll dig out a lot of oregano roots when my annuals die back in the fall.

 

My pepper plants this season have messed with me. Peppers I potted in gallon jugs grow side-by-side with peppers I potted in a handrail planter. The gallon juggers matured and produced fruit while the handrailers turned into bonsai pepper plants. About a month ago, I shuffled plants out of the handrail planter into an in-ground planting bed… but I left some plants in the planter. Now all are growing as though they mean it. So, August has brought a new round of pepper flowers, and I’m eager to harvest peppers in September. Most, I suspect, will end up in gumbo.

 

Oh, beans! I harvested about a gallon of wax beans over the past two days, and there’ll be another half gallon ready tomorrow morning. The climbing beans are still flowering and producing new beans which makes more than a month of production with no end in sight; typically bush beans spew huge amounts of beans very quickly and you need to plant them in stages if you want to harvest through the whole summer. I’ve taken a one-and-done approach with bush wax beans, and they’re flowering madly even as I pluck the gorgeous yellow pods.

 

I’ve been lucky this year to be in the one 50-mile swath of the United States that hasn’t been too hard on tomatoes. I’ve canned 1 and ½ gallons of tomato sauce, I have about 12 gallons of tomatoes ripening on my dining room table, and my plants are producing about two gallons of tomatoes each day. To keep me on my toes, the tomato plants continue to produce those demure yellow flowers. I suspect that flowers in mid August will not produce ripe tomatoes before the first frost.

 

Here’s a volunteer I really don’t want in my small kitchen garden… but it’s so pretty. I think thistle plants are quite attractive, and the flowers are gorgeous. Of course, I’ll pull this plant in a day or two and add it to the compost heap. But there it is blooming on Bloom Day.

 

The big change in my small kitchen garden from mid-July to mid-August is the overwhelming emergence of winter squash. I had set seedlings in the garden on the first weekend of July, and a month later squash plants covered a big chunk of the planting bed. The vines are maxing out. That is, they continue to put out more stem and leaves, but the new stems are very slender, and they don’t seem to support fruiting flowers. New fruiting buds are tiny, and they seem to wither and die even before the flower opens. That’s OK, there must be 15 – to – 20 butternut squash fruits under the leaves. And, despite the lack of viable female flowers, the vines continue to produce daily explosions of bright orange male flowers. I couldn’t choose just one squash flower photo for this blog post, so I’ve included three of my four favorites (the one I didn’t publish was a bit esoteric).

 

A volunteer tomato plant, self-seeded from last year’s crop, makes a small jungle surrounding a squash blossom in my small kitchen garden.

 

Few things are better in my small kitchen garden than the time I spend among the squash blossoms in August.

 

Thanks so much for visiting!

Technorati Tags: beans, bloom day, cilantro, flowers, herbs, oregano, plant squash, plant vegetables, squash, tomatoes, vegetables

In the category of Flower closest to my kitchen: A bell pepper plant is just starting to set fruit. I have great hopes as there are already dozens of banana peppers and a few jalapeno peppers ripening just a few feet away.

Flowers are not the point of a small kitchen garden. However, without flowers, there are very few food products a kitchen garden can produce. So, though I often joke that I’m too lazy to plant something that I won’t eventually eat, I am very fond of flowers.

I’m also very fond of the on-line gardening community. While many participants in that community discuss their food-growing activities, it seems a majority prefer the time they spend with their flower and ornamental gardens. From the photos on their blogs, I know I’d enjoy spending time in their gardens as well… but I have no flower- or ornamental-garden to offer in kind.

And then there’s Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day started by Carol over at May Dreams Gardens: on the 15^th of each month, participating garden bloggers post entries about what’s abloom in their gardens. This month, I’m joining the gang. But my post isn’t about nasturtiums, pansies, cone flowers, daisies, black-eyed susans, and clematis. You won’t find such things in my garden (sure, you’ll find them in my wife’s garden, but she doesn’t blog). Still, my small kitchen garden is blooming its head off, and I’m psyched because nearly every blossom means another goody to eat growing in my yard.

In the category of Tallest herb in my small kitchen garden: Dill weed volunteers grow where seed fell from last year’s plants. This variety of dill grows about five feet tall.

 

In the category of Don’t get me started: If I left all the volunteer cilantro plants to grow as they please in my small kitchen garden, I’d never again have to plant the herb. However, the volunteers rarely start where I’d like them to. Shortly after they flower, the plants produce coriander: the round seeds that either plant themselves in the garden or season a variety of Asian and South American foods.

 

Yes, more cilantro flowers. I wanted to point out that flowers aren’t the be-all and end-all of pretty in a small kitchen garden. Several varieties of variegated lettuce are still growing where I planted them, and they provide an attractive background for this volunteer coriander factory.

 

In the category of Invasive, noxious herb: About five years ago, I planted a tiny oregano plant from one of those 1.5-inch-cubed nursery pots. There is now a five-foot diameter circle of densely-packed oregano shoots, and they have just started to flower. No doubt, this fall I’ll be excavating oregano roots to decrease the plant’s footprint by at least half.

 

In the category of Winningest weed: It’s tiny. It likes my small kitchen garden planting bed. It’s gorgeous. I had to kneel with one elbow on the ground to get close enough for the photo.

 

In the category of Most fun for the money: In my first year growing climbing beans, I have become enamored. The flowers look a lot like all other bean flowers I’ve grown. However, I’ve had a lot of fun tying up strings and training the bean vines to use them. The tallest climber is about to pass the end of its string and become entwined with the kids’ play set (my youngest child is 13 years old, and the play set sees play about once a year).

 

In the category of Another tomato blossom photo: Yes, I’ve photographed a lot of tomato blossoms over the years. This photo is a little different as it vaguely captures the components of the tomato support system I erected this year in place of tomato stakes.

 

In the category of It’s cool to be different: I love the round cluster of flowers that emerges at the end of a long onion stalk. Ideally, your onions don’t flower; flowering generally results in a smaller onion bulb with a short shelf life. However, crazy weather can cause flowering, and growing onions from sets can also lead to flowers. No matter. My onions are plump and I’ll use them quickly once the stalks flop to the ground. My onion flowers look grand.

 

In the category of: Who’s happy on Garden Blogers’ Bloom Day? And: who doesn’t have clover flowers in their yards and gardens?

 

Technorati Tags: beans, bloom day, cilantro, dill, flowers, herbs, onions, oregano, peas, plant vegetables, tomatoes, vegetables