First Harvest!

Mmmmm.... Green Beans! Picked, cooked and eaten within 15 minutes- now that's good stuff!

Doh!

Upon actually, you know, looking at the plants it's pretty apparent which one is not like the others... aka, which is the butternut squash. They were squished in the back of the cage and I hadn't looked past the giant leaves that look like the zucs. They're much more vine-like though. Since they clearly want to head somewhere, I've pulled them out and set them under an old screen door. I'm hoping they'll head horizontally across that.

I put all the beans where they had been in the cage. That displaced the other zuc that was still in the cage (the one I thought was the butternut squash). Its my best looking one in terms of the beautiful green leaves. I don't know if that was because it's spent its whole life up till this point in the cage, protecting it from whatever has caused the white on the rest of the leaves. I'll have to see what happens now that it is out with the others. I did toss up the rest of the screens we had laying around to form a little (not so stable) fenced in area that will keep out probably nothing. I've got a roll of screen in the garage I could use to make an enclosure of some sort, but I don't have time for that kind of project at the moment. The zucchini are growing so hopefully no wildlife gets to them before I do.

Mystery Squash

I planted zucchini and butternut squash, but didn't bother marking which was which. As the containers have shuffled around I've lost all track. I think this may be one of the butternut squashes that is getting ready to flower, but I'm not sure. Whatever it is, it seems quite happy to have its own container as its gotten quite large. None of the other plants I think might be butternut squash have blossoms yet, and one of the girls on this one looks like its going to beat the boys, so if it's going to pollinate it'll have to be from one of the zucchini plants. Of course it might actually be a zucchini plant itself anyway... Next year I'll remember to mark them!

As for my first zucchini that seemed to be growing under an immaculate conception theory, sex ed appears to have caught up to it. It looks like its shrinking.

Surveying My Plant Kingdom

The zucchini plants have fanned out over the yard for no particular reason. I moved a bunch of the pots in and out of the screen cage a couple days ago and this is where everything landed. The zuc in the front is not very happy because he was one of the ones that got evicted from the cage. I think the leaves had been leaning against the screen and are missing the lack of support now. Most of the pots have two zuc plants each in them because I was too kind hearted when they were babies to pick one to sacrifice. On the left inside the chicken wire with the small window screen on top are some of the beans. They're pressing the top of the screen though so I think they'd prefer something taller. Inside the cage are more beans, two butternut squash plants, a zucchini or two that hasn't flowered yet, and a small mint plant that I tried to keep inside but wasn't getting enough light through the window. In the back are the three tomato plants.

I hand-pollinated another girl zucchini flower this morning just in case much to the chagrin of the ants who had already moved in.


My beans are in various stages of development. The little pods are just so adorable. Some of the others are getting pretty big, so I'm going to need to figure out when the best time to pick them is.

Black Inside Tomato

Some of my tomatoes have some black marks on them. It's inside but you can see it through the skin. I'm not sure what the problem is...

Ants

The ants absolutely love the zucchini flowers. They crawl all around inside them. These guys aren't budging even though the flower is closing up.

This is one of the two girl flowers I hand pollinated with a q-tip this morning. I got buzzed by a bee while I was doing it, but I figure it couldn't hurt just in case he didn't have it covered.

I've got another girl flower that looks like it will open tomorrow.

Who Needs a Man

The first girl zucchini flower that opened and closed before any of the guys doesn't seem bothered by the apparent lack of pollination. The zucchini has continued to grow. I don't know if it got pollinated by a bee that had visited someone else's garden or if it just doesn't know any better.