Garden Klog

This One No Words Will Suffice

 

But a pair of fingers will...Death To Squash Bugs!!!! <G>

Squash Experiment 3

I uncovered the new experimental  squash bed yesterday as the plants (both the squashes and the herbs they are interplanted with) were swelling the row cover like  some sort of stove-top popcorn pan.  I don't know if it was the giberillic acid or the conditions under the cover but the ones that I sprayed are certainly larger, and more elongated than the others that were planted under the earlly pole beans.

The herbs, in fact were in danger of shading the squashes, so I harvested some each of the dill and cilantro and then put strings on the largest of the squash. To recap the plan: I planted a mix of summer squash varieties aproximately one foot apart down the center of a three foot bed with a seven foot tall teepee trellis above. Then I sprayed the squashes at the five leaf stage with a 25 ppm solution of giberillic acid to stretch the internodes and now I am going to braid them up strings to the crossbar as if they were melons or cucumbers.

The idea is to see if the extra air helps prolong the health of the foliage and the wide spacing makes the fruits easier to find and harvest. I am also hoping giving the plants more room will make it easier to control the squash and cucumber beetles and thus prolong the harvest period.

If this seems to work, I may do a more formal experiment next year.

Squash Experiment 2

 Well, that didn't take long!  Nothing like 90 F temperatures to get squash seeds up out of the ground; I planted on the 10th, and on the 14th, they were breaking ground, so I had to stop what I was doing elsewhere in the garden and get them covered up with floating row covers to keep off the cucumber beetles and squash bugs. You can see the first seedlings next to the still young cilantro plants in this closeup.

 On both beds that represented something of a challenge since both beds still have growing crops in them that I don't want to remove until the squashes really need the space. That effectively doubles the crop per square foot, which I consider one of the more essential -- and more interesting -- of high yield vegetable gardeing. Call it Square Foot, call it French Intensive, call it High Yield, call it Urban or Suburban Agriculture...whatever the term it means permanent beds, close spacing, interplanting, succession planting and season extension.

 The bed next to the porch just required that I bend the standard metal hoops to a slightly tighter (and thus higher) radius and be mindful of the adjacent shallots while putting on the cover -- not really any different than I did with the first planting back in April that just succumbed to the squash bugs last week. One hopes that the shallots will do better on the edge than the salad greens with that first planting did!

The other row -- the one planted beneath the bean trellis  -- was a bit more involved. In this case I had to rig my row hoops a little differently to fit under the existing trellis. What I decided to do was double over the length of row cover (effectively doubling its thickness) and instead of wire hoops used curved bamboo.

 The bamboo I chose was the older pieces that I had used years ago as a pepper trellis and whose "legs" had partially rotted from soil contact. By cutting the legs down from about 36 inches to 18 inches, I ended up with solid structure again, and a good height to fit under the bean trellis. 

The only problem with this second system, of course, is that the plants will fill the cover more quickly and it will have to come off. We'll look back at this experiment when we get to that stage.

Squash Experiment

Most gardeners -- and even gardeners' friends -- know about the zuchinii glut. Oh, yes! But there is a second squash "problem," too, and that is the way the plants get out of hand and block nearby paths as they vine out...yes, they call them a bush plant, but mine get at least four or five feet long, and that is way too big for a three foot raised bed garden! This year I am going to find a solution.

When I was in Holland for the Floriade 2002 (the next will be in 2012), I saw one greenhouse where they were growing zuchini vertically, trained to a wire and told myself that one day I would try that as a way to keep them out of the path: letting them grow up instead of out, just like with my melons. 

Well, this is the year! I just planted two (short!) rows for my second planting of summer squash, one for each of the trellising methods I'm going to try:

The first is just off the back porch, where I had the spring broccoli, and where I moved the seed grown shallots and temped in some cilantro and dill. I put a seed every six inches or so, in a line down the center, where I had already planted some cilantro and dill (they will both be harvested at about eight inches, and so will be gone by the time the squashes need the room). That bed will get the bamboo teepee and top bar treatment, and each plant will get its own piece of twine braided around the growing stem.
 

I put the second planting underneath the first crop of pole beans, which are just finishing up (they had a really tough time earlier in the season, having been frosted twice, then eaten by bean beetles, then suffering through that phenomenally hot and dry June) because I have another set of pole beans just beginning to bear. This set will get the wedge-cage treatment, with a piece of twine to the top bar, but only to center them until they drape through the wire. After that they are on their own.
 

 In each case, I think I will spray half the planting with some gibberellic acid to see if lengthening the internodes helps the system...I tried that once with my peppers and tomatoes back in 2005 and WHOA BOY! the tomatoes grew to almost ten feet, and the peppers  to eight, with one African pepper plant (I am standing beside it in the picture) producing almost  six bushels of fruits!