Bowling Anyone?

Six Squash from two plants. 

There is a second wave of female and male flowers 

so I might get a few more - but wait!

This is the first time I have ever spotted squash vine borer eggs but here is the question. Isn't it too late in the season for them and what are these little spider like guys? I read that they are the first stage of the larvae. Could this be true. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Got to Love the Variety

Another wonderful week of harvest. Still getting swiss chard which is pretty good given the warm temperatures. My first two butternut squashes weighing in at 3.5 lbs each. WOO-HOO

The Tomates in this batch can be seen in detail here.

The two first Brandywines

Carrots, cucs and basil .

 An heirloom, seeds compliment of Ana Vitlarica. 

She has not posted in a while and I miss those posts. 

This tomato is 5" in diameter and weighs about 20 oz.

Two more butternuts, zucchini squash 

and a few more tomatoes to add to the mix.

 The summer tomato salad. Everyone should have one.

See some other harvest at Daphne's for Harvest Monday.

Small Plant and Fritters

I have already harvested about 12 squash from the garden. The mix of Patty pan and striped zucchini have kept my kitchen busy with a variety of recipes. In this house, we do potato pancakes twice a year. The frying just gets to me and I am not fond of the lingering oil smell. But, I needed a savory dish that was a little different then the ones I was making and so Zucchini fritters it was. Not sure how many went into the dish but I used a combination of the two squash and had a nice meal with a garden salad on the side. No pictures of the plate. I never get to the camera in time. Wendy has some other recipes on the GTTC every Saturday.

On another squash front - I planted two butternut squash. These are really my favorite squash. Last year I only managed to get four squash from the two plants. I was hoping for more this year, especially after seeing Granny's post last year on how many she got. The plant was growing nicely and one day I noticed about 8 female squash flowers with 1" squash attached. No male flowers were going to open for at least a week and I had to try to pollinate with the pattypan and stripped zucchini. My efforts failed as you can see below. At this point I have 4 that are pollinated and four that have died. I see a few more on the plant that may develop so i am keeping my fingers crossed.

Lastly, I have a Tumbling Tom tomato that looks like a picture from one of those magazines that promises high yield. I bought this plant from the Master Gardeners and thought it would make a nice addition to the patio. This plant is only 12" tall and will not get bigger. Already producing ripened fruit while some of the other tomatoes barely have fruit set on them. We picked one today and split it 3 ways. Not a lot of taste to judge by. I am sure they will get sweeter as the summer goes on.

Garden Happenings

I love this time of the garden when you can see growth day to day. The forever changing perennial garden. The air was so thick this morning with fog that you could see all these interesting webs on many of the plants.

Bean flowers are plentiful. Much different than last year when we had such a hard time getting the beans producing and when they did in August, it was a poor crop. This year I should be getting them in another week or two.

Peas are beginning to plump up.

The big news is that two female butternut squash flowers opened with no males in sight. I clipped one of the male pattypan squash flowers to pollinate the butternut. I hope it works. An unfolded squash flower.

Harvest Monday

(Note! Had a problem with this post and had to recreate it. Lost all the comments. - Sorry.)
Still did not replace the stolen camera. The size of the type, loosely reflects the amount harvested in that category. In the mean time, the phone pictures will have to do for some of the nice surprises.

. . .

TOMATOES

Swiss chard

Beets

Butternut squash

Beans

Yellow Crook Neck Squash

Zucchini

Carrots

Cucumbers

Peppers

Eggplant

And look at this butternut squash. I never weigh my harvest but I had to for this one.

Almost 4 lbs!!

Hop over to Daphne's to see other harvest for the week.

A Few Surprises

Butternut squash about 4" long, and a Persian Cucumber, the first even though there have been many blooms. The first tomatoes which I believe are Sungold and CORN!, First time I am planting it and I had no expectation that it would work. There are 6 plants.