Tag: emerald delight zucchini

Seedlings on the Move

I’ve been anxiously awaiting Mother’s Day, and not just because I get to be the center of attention, but because it signals the official beginning of the outdoor garden season in my area.

Generally once Mother’s Day passes, I can start planting the warm weather plants without too much fear of a cold snap. Some things like zinnias, I will still wait a couple more weeks to make sure the ground is nice and warm. It finally seems like the vegetable seedlings I started in the house are ready to move outside. The flowers will wait a few more days (Finally Planting Season is Beginning).  About 4 weeks ago I started:

 

Squash, cucumbers and zucchini really don’t like to have their roots disturbed, so they can be finicky when you transplant them. It’s recommended to start them outdoors, but I’ve had good luck growing them in peat pots or other biodegradable pots to give them a head start. After they get nice and strong in the house, I move them to my mini greenhouse for a couple of days, then outdoors in the shade for a couple more. Then, when they’re ready to plant I gently tear the bottom off the pot and plant the whole pot.

I’m super excited to try out my new trellis for the zucchini and squash. I had to move the zucchini and squash because of last year’s squash vine borer attack.  The other vegetable beds don’t have the space to let them grow free on the ground so I’m trying the trellis. 

It was pretty easy to put together, but best as a two-person job. Gardener’s Supply Company has a nice video to show how to assemble it. It’s made of plastic, so won’t rust but seems plenty strong enough to hold zucchini and squash. I’ll let you know as the season progresses.

I got the squash, zucchini and cucumbers in the ground, but had a little incident with some of the zucchini. They hadn’t grown as robustly as the others, and I wasn’t as gentle as I should have been.

I broke the main stem, which is really easy to do if you’re not careful. Sometimes it heals, but it’s iffy. I planted it anyway and will hope for the best. So far it seems to be holding its own.

I usually try to have a backup in the same pot and thin them after they’ve become established in there ground, but in this case it didn’t grow. I also usually grow more plants than I need and hold some in reserve in case there’s an “incident”. If they all grow in the first couple of weeks, wonderful, I have plants to share.  

My “spares” in the greenhouse with my microgreens.

So far so good! A few days later and everything is looking good, even after some cool and stormy weather. Btw, for our small family 2-4 zucchini plants and 4 squash plants provides more than enough for us and some to share.

My sugar snap peas are doing great in this cool weather and starting to climb up the rainbow spiral stakes and pea trellis. I originally had the stakes “out of order”, but the science nerd in me couldn’t let that be. 🌈 I reorganized them, but from the front of the bed they were backwards, oh well, close enough.

rainbow gardener's supply company rainbow stakes

Last but not least, my mouse cucamelon plants are off to a very slow start and still in the house under the grow lights. I hope they get going soon, I’m looking forward to one of latest food trends!

2018 Garden Recap: Vegetables (Part 1) (aka Attack of the Squash Vine Borer)

In my last post, I wrote about how my flower gardens fared this year. Next up is the vegetable gardens.

In a word, this year the vegetables gardens were a disaster. Not for any one reason, just a lot off bad things conspired to really take a toll and make it one of the worst years I’ve ever had gardening. Makes me long for the days when I gardened in New Jersey and everything just grew lush and beautifully. Except for the year I had hornworms on the tomatoes. Those were disgusting.

Back in the spring, I was so hopeful for a summer of fresh vegetables. But that was not to be. The squash and zucchini was looking great through early July. I was getting tasty Emerald Delight Zucchini (Botanical Interests) and Gold Hybrid Gourmet Gold (Burpee), and the vines were covered in flowers.

Then over about a week in early July, they just up and died.

I thought it was powdery mildew, but it was so dramatic. I’ve had plenty of powdery mildew and it didn’t really look like it. I pulled it all out and threw it into a garden waste bag (you don’t want diseased plants hanging around your yard). Didn’t think much of until I was writing this post and wondered what had really happened. As soon as I started doing some investigating, it quickly it became quite obvious from the pictures that mine had been attacked by squash vine borers, not powdery mildew.

All that orange mess around the base of the plant is a moist orange sawdust-like material called frass, or insect droppings. It was everywhere. Yuck. That is a sign that the squash vine borer larvae is eating away at the material inside the stems of the plants. I never looked close enough to see them, but the evidence was pretty overwhelming. Here’s photos of the adult and larvae (Photo credit to the UMN Extension)

So what to do now? Obviously I totally lost this year’s crops, but how do I prevent this from happening again?

First off, I need to be better about practicing crop rotation. I pretty much never rotate crops to different garden areas, but obviously I need to be better about that. Squash vine borers spend the winter in the soil near their recently infected host plants, so I need to have next years plants as far away as possible.

Then, according to the UMN Extension, I will need to check for adult squash vine borers starting the end of June. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen them, but I will be on the lookout after this. You can also try to use some kind of container filled with water with yellow food coloring added to attract and trap them.  Check each day to see if you’ve trapped any.

If you do find the squash vine borers in the area you’ll need to change things up a bit. Easiest is to practice crop rotation. You can also try planting other crops that aren’t as susceptible like butternut squash, cucumbers, melons and watermelons. Although none of them are really substitutes for summer squash and zucchini.

Try planting a second planting in early July after any adult borers have finished laying eggs on the mature plants. But, this is tough in the northern climates that already have a short growing season.

Try using a physical barrier.  Wrap a collar of aluminum foil around lower stems to prevent egg-laying. Alternatively, secure floating light fabric row covers over your squash until they start to flower. Don’t use row covers if the infected squash plants were planted in the same area as the previous year. This is because squash vine borers spend the winter in the soil near their host plants. When the adults emerge the following summer, they may be trapped under the row cover instead of being kept out.

Hopefully this was a one time event and I can go back to having way too much squash and zucchini for one family to eat. Whenever something like this happens, it really makes me appreciate the organic farmers who grow on a large scale and how precarious each year’s crop is. At least I can just pack it in for the year and go to my local farmer’s market.

There’s a lot more good information on how to deal with these pests at these sites:

I would like give a shout to the land-grant University Extensions and their educational and problem-solving assistance they provide to the public. These community outreach programs provide invaluable scientific knowledge and expertise on a variety of topics. I’ve watched a number of webinars on gardening topics from the University of Illinois Extension and have found them to be really interesting, useful and free!

Have you ever had a whole crop wiped out like this?

Next post will look at the rest of the vegetable garden–stay tuned!

July Vegetables

My spring vegetables really took a beating from the rabbits and the weather. Even though I had shored up the rabbit fence around the yard, all it took was a couple of holes and I had a nice happy family of rabbits devouring almost everything I planted. Radishes, swiss chard, spinach, lettuce, kale, beets and carrots were all gone. The last straw was when my bean plants were each bitten cleanly off at the base.

Since this spring was a loss, I put up a rabbit fence around these two beds to protect what was left.

By now the weather has turned too warm to replant any cool weather seeds, so I’ll have to put my focus into what’s remaining and plan for some fall planting.

The Gourmet Gold Hybrid Summer Squash (Burpee) is truly a beautiful bright yellow summer squash and seems to be an early and heavy producer. A great addition when trying to eat a “rainbow of colors”. The Emerald Delight Zucchini has just started producing and so far I’m liking what I’m harvesting. Both are wonderful on a fresh veggie platter!

The garlic was ready to harvest last week and it’s now curing on the porch! I’m so spoiled by the amazing taste of homegrown garlic, that come late spring I dread having to buy garlic.

I planted the hardneck varieties Music and Purple Glazer, and the softneck Early California from Botanical Interests this year. My WI garlic is a little bit behind and probably won’t be ready for a couple more weeks. Want to know more about growing and harvesting garlic? Check out my previous garlic posts or search for the tag “growing garlic” on the right sidebar.

The Early Girl tomatoes have lived up to their name and already been producing tasty tomatoes perfect for salads and sandwiches, and the Better Boys aren’t too far behind. The Super Sweet 100’s cherry tomatoes are just starting to ripen as well. Tomato season is here!

Last but not least are my potatoes. I planted a lot of Yukon Gold and Dark Red Norland potatoes. Even had to buy more potato bags to plant them all. They look really healthy this year since they’ve had plenty of rain. Want to grow your own next year? It’s really easy to do and fun to find all those potatoes in the fall. Check out my how-to’s on planting, growing and harvesting potatoes.

How are your vegetables doing? Have weather or creatures been a problem for you?

Maybe since it’s been cooler in WI, and the garden fenced in better, I’ll have better luck with the mid-summer harvests of my spring planted seeds that I planted there. I’ll be checking on that soon.

 

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