GA: CUSHAWS ARE HUUUUUUUUUGGGGEEEEE

 Oh my holy heck, cushaws are GINORMOUS!!!  My first time growing them (other than last year or a past year when none actually took).  There are about 4 huge ones growing at GA at the moment.  Each is enough to feed an army or two or ten. They aren't ready yet, as the stems are still very green.  We'll see if they "disappear" before I can harvest them...

Started in PT: cucumber, watermelon, cantalope summer squash, winter squash (forgot to buy butternut)

Started a bunch of seeds in PT today -- some of these will be for the yard, some will be for gaga:

- Cucumber:  Eureka

- Zucchini:  8-Ball

- Zucchini:  Golden Glory

- Zucchini:  Dark Green

- Summer squash:  Golden Scallopini

- Watermelon:  Blacktail Mountain

- Cantalope:  Hales Best Jumbo (from the foil packet collection)

- Winter squash:  Jumbo Pink Banana (used up the last of the foil packet seeds)

- Winter squash:  Cushaw White

I forgot that I didn't have any butternut squash seeds, so I will buy some and definitely grow that too.

Officially no winter squash harvest this year

That one cushaw that had taken and was a nice size is all rotting now at the neck.  Gross.  Officially kaput.

So I removed the winter squash vines to get things cleaned up.

Will take a break from winter squash for a few years!  Which is just as well, because I still have two butternut squashes from last year sitting on the kitchen table...

The one and only cushaw that took is rotting on the vine :-(((

Sigh....  About a week ago, noticed some browning in the neck area...  Now noticing it's getting all sunken in in the neck area and there are more of those brown spots.  Will see what happens...  Sigh!!

Powdery mildew marches on

Whoa, all of a sudden (or so it seems) there's powdery mildew all over the upper leaves of the cushaw, and to a less extent some other cushaw leaves too.

And some of the central zucchini leaves, so I removed their tulle permanently for more air flow.

Pruned the worst leaves and some other leaves too for air flow.

A second cushaw flowered, but I didn't notice until it closed... did the bees take care of it?

Time will tell...

Cushaw looking amazing!!!! Supported it with nylon

The cushaw that opened July 28th most definitely took!  (Noticed it a while ago but didn't blog it until today.)  It's a decent size already!  Used an old nylon to support it.

A cushaw opened this morning! Tried to hand-pollinate, but sketchy males, so not sure if it worked

This is only the second cushaw to open (the first had no males at the time).  I had been saving the few winter squash males from the last few days, but they had been rained on and already visited by the pollinators, so not much pollen was left on them, but some, and I did my best.  Also pollinated with a summer squash too, just in case, no idea if that is effective.

Proactively sprayed horsetail fungicide made May 16th on most zucchinies/rondes

STINKY!!!!!!!  OMG I hope the smell will dissipate after it dries!  Maybe it's meant to be used a little fresher than this...

Because of its stinkiness, I didn't spray any of the central bed plants, nor the hydro meter plant, nor most of the cushaw, nor any of the butternut.  For those under tulle, I sprayed through the tulle.

This is just as a preventive, not seeing any powdery mildew on the squashes yet.  (Despite seeing it on the peas, goldenrod, and yarrow.)

Mineralized phosphate applied to zucchinis/rondes/winter squash and most tomatoes

Bought mineralized phosphate (Gaia Green) from Ritchie's today.  Desperate to try something to get the dang zucchini to make viable fruit (instead of growing to 1 or 2 cms and fizzling out before even getting close to flowering).  I had this problem last year as well with most summer squash, and then there was the winter squash that kept fruiting/flowering but not one single one made it to maturity despite ample hand-pollinating.

I'm unsure of the difference between Gaia Green's rock phosphate and their mineralized phosphate but if the interwebs are true the latter might be fossilized bat guano?  Weird, why wouldn't they call it as such?  It looks like cocoa powder, brown so I could see it being guano as I would have imagined rock being grey?  I dunno.  I messaged Gaia Green last night to ask what the difference is between these two products but haven't yet heard back.  So anyway I fell into the trap of "if it's more expensive then it must be better" and bought the mineralized phosphate, $90 plus tax for 10 kg (22 pounds)!!!!

So for all of the summer/winter squash, plus all of the tomatoes except medium, I used my fingers to sort of dig in shallowly (an inch or two) around each plant and dusted some MP.  Covered back up, then gave everything a watering (it rained this afternoon but that was before I applied the stuff).

Probably too late to do much good, but at least I'll be more prepared for next year...

The zucchini/ronde/squash are looking much better today I think! & 3 zuke plants have teeny zukes

Well the two worst off maybe not looking better yet, but maybe -- time will tell.  But the others I'm feeling a lot better about today!

Hardening off started today for ALL remaining indoor plants (= Group B)

Today = 2 hours in the SHADE (2:30pm to 4:30pm).  (Had planned on be 1 hour, but, oops.)  Then back inside under the lights, which I moved (shelf and all) into the living room since there will be a LOT of in and out while hardening.

Very warm today and awesome forecast, with highs in the 20s!  Nights going down to 8/9.

I will call all of these Group B (Group A being the zinnias, whose hardening off started a little while ago).

Group B includes...

- basil

- tomatoes

- ground cherries

- zucchini

- rondes

- butternut

- cushaw

- cucumbers

- sunflowers

- tuberous begonia

- and a few scattered slow-growing zinnias.

Cucumber, cushaw, butternut, zucchini, and ronde started in PT

 Trying to limit the number of seeds, not leaving much buffer for poor germination but figure there's lots of time to start more later to fill in gaps as needed.

Cucumber x ~6-8

Cushaw x 2

Butternut x 2

Zucchini x ~6-8

Ronde x ~5

Dud baby winter squashes are delicious as fried squash fingers

Dang, I should have started doing this sooner! The dud baby winter squashes (butternut and cushaw) that never took off were delicious as fried squash fingers. The relatively bigger ones I peeled first, the others I didn't peel. Next time, try not peeling any.

Powdery mildew: Gave up, no point since no squash/zucchinis etc. anyway

Up until last week or so, I was still applying water / white vinegar / oil mixture every few days and cutting off the worst leaves.  Now though I've stopped, what's the point fighting it, since there's still only ONE single winter squash (the vertical butternut), new winter squashes continue dying before flowering, and 3 of the 4 remaining zucchini plants look they are never going to produce anything.  There's only 1 zucchini plant I have any moderate hopes of getting anything else from; one of the rondes has some promising-looking fruit. 

So anyway, yeah, I'm going to let what will be, be with the squash.  (Though I'll keep monitoring the one half-decent zucchini for SVB)

The most promising cushaw didn't take :-((((((((((

The one along the east edge... that flowered and looked beautiful... now has clearly not taken, turning yellow.

wahhhhhhhhhhh

Might not get even a single cushaw, to at least know what a cushaw is like!  Crazy.

Powdery mildew (squash family)!!!!!! Applied treatment, and pruned more leaves; pulled west ronde completely

Argh, 2 weeks earlier than last year's start of PM season!

The last week has been hot and humid with some thunderstorms and a few showers.  Maybe this weather contributed.  But yes, alas this evening noticed it on several of the squashes, primarily the two vertical zucchinis but also most of the other squashes including the central patch just starting.

So, applied this mixture using my sprayer (recipe from this page:  https://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/dealing-powdery-mildew/)

- 4 cups water
- 1/2 Tbsp regular vinegar

Will try this mixture for a few days.  If it doesn't seem to be doing much, then I will go back to the baking soda mixture I started trying toward the end of last season -- BUT MUST BE VERY CAREFUL TO DILUTE IT PROPERLY.

Pruned a bunch of lower leaves from the two vertical zucchinis, and several leaves from the air conditioner ronde and both kitchen window zucchinis.

Completely pulled i.e. removed the west ronde de nice.  It was still just a gaggle of leaves, nothing productive on the way at all, so why have all those PM-spreading leaves for no reason.

Winter squash update: Nothing has taken yet (neither butternut nor cushaw)

There had been several promising ones, but they all either fizzled before flowering, or, in one case fizzled after flowering.

All but one were in the central patch.

Looking back at last year, I wrote a very similar update on July 18th about the butternut, and ended up with a great crop by the end of the season.

Central squash and central ground cherries not growing much, not thriving

This happened last year too, with the central patch.

The butternut and cushaw in the central patch haven't done much, kind of yellowy, whereas the butternut and cushaw in the west bed against the house are looking great, green and vibrant.

The ground cherries in the central patch have kind of frozen in time, don't seem to be growing, not full and lush.  The best ground cherry is still the one in the container which looks great, go figure; the other two ground cherries in the west/north bed are decent too.

The tomatoes in the central patch all look good, though one is on the small side and of course the two determinate Scotias are quite small too, but look healthy (though not seeing much new growth on the Scotias).  The tomato in the container also looks very good.

The sunflowers in the central bed all look good, as well as the short, stocky, lush one in the west bed.

I'm not too worried about those wimpy looking central bed plants, since this happened last year and the squash ended up crazy productive, the ground cherry too.  So, fingers crossed they will pull through.

Transplanted all squashes and cucumbers

- 4 x cucumber (all on the north frame)
- 4 x butternut (2 in central patch, 2 in west bed on south frame)
- 4 x cushaw (2 in central patch, 2 in west bed on north frame)
- 3 x ronde de nice (1 in west bed, 1 south of air conditioner, 1 in meter bed though technically I haven't actually transplanted this one since it's so young, no real leaves yet)
- 5 x yellow zucchini (1 in west bed, 2 north of air conditioner (one of which I'll try to train up a tomato cage), 2 in meter bed)