Freaky Friday!

Even though not much is happening in the actual garden, I found a nice surprise in the heap of weeds near the compost bin...

I didn't get a great picture of it, but this is just part of a squash plant that has spontaneously popped up in an extra-weedy corner of the yard!  It is pretty big, and if this photo were of a better quality, you'd be able to tell that those blobs in the center are actually squash blossoms!  The irony of this is that for 3 years I tried unsuccessfully to grow zucchini... and the one time I didn't even bother, it seems to have spontaneously generated from my compost!  It'll be interesting to see if anything comes of this.  What a punch to the gut if all the plants I slaved over from seed yield nothing, and this rogue vine from a pile of kitchen garbage bears fruit!

Case file: Zucchini

I think I've cracked the case of the Huge Zucchini Plant with No Zucchini!

After many hours wasted looking online, watching videos about hand-pollinating zucchini, trying to hand-pollinate zucchini, and then having no other option but to blame and bemoan the state of the dwindling bee population... it turns out the culprit all along was my soil!

The soil I had so industriously and regularly supplemented with 10-10-10 fertilizer may actually have had perilously high nitrogen levels, which prevent the formation of fruit!  (learned in my gardening class, supported by multiple Google searches)  Huge leaves, but no fruit.  Two summers in a row.  Two summers of the same fertilizer, industriously and regularly applied.  Two different zucchini transplants, two others planted from two separate packets of seeds...  and when they weren't growing, I added more fertilizer.  The common denominator?  The soil. 

Step one is not adding any more of that 10-10-10 fertilizer!  Then checking the results of the soil test to see what other things I may need to do.  My hypothesis at this time is that the pH of my soil is high, which would indicate high nitrogen levels (I think). 

Summer's Final Friday Failure

Remember the replacement zucchini?  Well, it did eventually flower, and there seemed to be progress...

...until there just wasn't any progress.  They stayed looking like this for about 2 weeks, at which point, with a great sigh of resignation, I pulled the plants out of the ground.

Another Friday failure?

After the Zucchini Fertility Debacle, I planted some more seeds with the hopes of being able to fertilize them by hand if needed, just so I could get some zucchini this summer.

Not sure that it's going to happen.  Although they are growing, there is nary a flower in sight.  Sad day in the backyard farm.

Tomato time!

No update on the beetles... I planted a thousand radishes, removed the afflicted plants, and so far, so good (in fact, the radishes have already started to grow).  That one tomato plant doesn't seem to be recovering, though.  Thank goodness I have seven others... because I love days like this:

Yes, I officially have a windowsill full of tomatoes!  Some of them need the sunlight because they aren't quite ripe.  The others... I just put them there for the picture before chopping them up to use for dinner.  Turns out, a windowsill of tomatoes actually doesn't last that long (unless you have a much longer windowsill). 

Although I have thankfully not had issues with animals eating my vegetables this year, leaving tomatoes to ripen entirely on the vine can be a risky endeavor.  They are just sitting there waiting to be eaten, and I do not like to take that risk.  So, as soon as they are mainly red and release easily from the plant (my biggest cue that they are, in fact, ripe), I pick them and give them a little windowsill time as needed.

Tonight for dinner I used some of these tomatoes, as well as my very last jar of last summer's preserved tomatoes, in one of my very favorite summer recipes.  Sadly, I still don't have any of my own zucchini, so I did have to buy it... but this recipe is perfect for those of you who were able to grow both (or, for non-gardeners who got a great deal on those veggies at a Farmer's market). 

The recipe, linked above, is for an Italian vegetable casserole called Tiella.  I saw this on a cooking show years ago and have made it at least once or twice a year ever since.  In fact, today I checked the date at the bottom of the recipe printout I've been using all this time - 2004!  It is really so tasty that it is worth keeping in a binder for 8 years.  Check it out!

You know your zucchini has a fertility problem if...

...it looks like this:

Here are some telltale signs... very little flower action (check), tiny little zucchinis that do not grow, but shrivel up and die (check), leaves much larger than a human head torso (CHECK).

sunday centerfold

Standards are low at this time of year... if you are a plant in my garden that is anything other than green (or, sadly, brown), you will get a lot of attention.  Here is a zucchini flower that is pretty much the only burst of color back there right now!