23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
Because the plant is staying put and not running around, I don't think it's a decorative gourd. The texture of the rind and the leaves suggest yellow squash lineage. When the plant sets another fruit, harvest it as a summer squash and see how it tastes.
If I had your strange squash I'd let it mature taste it as a winter squash, but don't get your hopes up. In my experience, four out of five times they are dogs, but fun to grow.
When you dabble in open-pollinated cucurbits, some off types are part of the scene.
Agree with planatus. Since you planted volunteers you will likely never know its name as it probably doesn't have one. It is a result of previous cross-pollination of unknown plants. But the odds are it is edible, just not worth the space it is taking up in taste.
As all the previous "help me ID this squash" posts here show, saving squash seeds and growing volunteers very seldom turns out to be worthwhile. It cross-pollinates far too easily to faithfully reproduce from seed without active intervention early in the previous season.
Dave
I live in S.E. Ohio and we have had some 'different' weather from the usual. Lots of rain, but our rains have been interspersed with sun, and there have been a lot of just showers. My garden has been a thing of beauty this year and the biggest challenge is keeping the weeds under control, with the almost constant temperatures and high humidity. I have had issues with fulvia fulva on tomatoes and this is a first I have ever even seen it on outside plants. It's usually a greenhouse issue. They're still producing and are just starting to ripen with no damage to the fruit. Very bland taste this year, but I expected that because of the rains. So far the yields have been lower than last year's but still quite ample. Low insect pressure. The horrid winter had one good effect, I guess.
Mine do this every year when it starts to get too warm. I spray with water to wash all the aphids off, then spray with a mixture of neem/peppermint castille soap and water.
I do this every 5-7 days and if it needs a water spray in-between, go ahead.
Found a nice photo of a cuke and lady beetle side by side
Here is a link that might be useful: Cuke Beetle Lady Beetle side by side
My cucumbers always bite the dust about this time in the growing season from Downy Mildew (even when rotating and following other practices for preventing disease spreading). I have been searching the internet for downy mildew resistant cucumbers. What I found was that in 2004 the disease adapted/morphed and many of the cucumbers listed as downy mildew resistant (DMR) are no longer very resistant.
I did find a study by Twin Oaks done in 2013 that shows the following varieties were the top rated in their trials. I do not know how reliable this trial was though:
Green DMR (Cornell) NY12-264
Suyo Long (Twin Oaks)
Ivory Queen (Cornell)
Shantung Shuyo F1 (Fedco) 341
Has anyone grown any of the above varieties. Where do you buy the Cornell seeds. I went to the Cornell website but could not find these seeds for sale.
Here is a link that might be useful: Twin Oaks DMR trials
My red norlands did not flower at all.
People here say to wait until the plant fully dies back and leave them in the ground a couple more weeks for thicker skins that store well, I didn't have issues storing my potatoes dug up as the plant was dying, for a few weeks at least, but I think it depends on the variety. If you are harvesting a ton of potatoes you want to store a long time then you should wait.
Must be a matter of type, too. We've only hit 80 once or twice this July, with nights in the 40's and a couple days only in the upper 50's -- my sauce tomatoes are ripening v. slowly, and are nothing special taste-wise. However, my Sun Golds are stupendous, as always (also ripening v. slowly)
Very interesting about brassicas, I'm glad I read that! I have some fall seedlings started and was planning to put them in my new hugelkulter bed, but maybe I'll save that for greens and put the brassicas where the squash bugs just did in my zucchini.
These are the beds I just built at the beginning of the month. I lined the bottoms of two of them with chicken feed bags to slow infiltration since we're in such a dry environment. Hoping that will speed up the rotting process. This was a low-tech solution after planning to put together some more complicated self-watering beds.
The beds look very good. It is a lot of OM and a lot of water capacity. No need to fertilize with anything but nitrogen for the next ten years, and plants, once they touch the mycelium, will have access to the whole woodpile in terms of nutrients and water. You should experiment, but I think it would be worth assigning those beds only to those vegetables.
I always grow Tall Telegraph. I use nylon net or cattle panels. They can get very tall and with good production for a pea. I've always had to grow in part-shade in AZ because the early spring weather can be too hot. Now, in NC, I'll try them in as much sun as I can find on my fully wooded acreage.
The EMT posts are 8 feet tall. There are two varieties of peas planted in the bed. Green Arrow shelling pea and Wando shelling pea. Both varieties grew to the same height. The package for Wando says 18 to 30 inches tall. A little variance in the height from the package. It was real aggravating because they were so tall they climbed up the trellis that I was saving for the cucumbers. The Green Arrow pea package says "plants reach only two feet tall.". I used home grown compost (mostly leaves & grass) as a fertilizer and even though they grew real tall they were also very prolific. Therefore, I do not think the height was a result of excess nitrogen. The same thing happened to my pink eye purple hull peas (Coronet). The package said "compact, 24 inch tall plants that don't need staking". Well they are 8 feet tall and hanging over the top of the trellis.
It's a biodegradeable dye. Don't panic.
I use shredded tree branches and under-done compost on my veggie beds.
Yeah much better mulches to use for vegetable gardens - literally 100's of discussions here about mulch the search will pull up for you to read. But it isn't going to kill you.
Dave