Baby Veggies

Trying to keep track of developing fruits can be difficult, especially with the squashes where a giant fruit can develop seemingly over night.

Here's a 'Waltham' butternut squash. It's already the size of my thumb, and it hasn't even flowered yet.

'Cinderella' Pumpkin

I was really surprised by how large these 'Costata Romanesco' zucchinis got prior to even flowering! 

 I've yet to let any of these 'Yellow Crookneck' squashes get much larger than this. They're so cute at this size.

This is a teeny tiny mexican sour gherkin. The plants are just covered in them!

This 'Corsican' gourd flowered really early this year, so this particular fruit should get fairly sizable by the end of the summer.

I'm assuming this is a 'Tepehuan Canteen' gourd. I've never grown it before, so I'm not entirely sure what they look like.

These tomatoey looking things are actually potato fruits. You can plant potatoes from their true seeds, but most people use what are called "seed potatoes", which are actually small tubers.

I'm pretty sure this is 'Cream of Saskatchewan' watermelon. I'm also growing 'Blacktail Mountain', which has much darker skin

Finally A Watermelon!

So it turns out I'm no good at growing melons, but I did have a small (very small) triumph this year with one little guy...

Isn't he cute? This is a Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon. I read about this variety in Farm City by Novella Carpenter. If I remember correctly, she had difficulties with melons as well.

As the name implies, this watermelon has creamy yellow flesh. The flavor is quite good although I may have waited too long to pick it (it was getting a little mealy in places). 

Disappointing Watermelon

I picked up a watermelon from the Amish vendors at the farmer's market last weekend. I was really excited because this was going to be my first taste of watermelon this summer. I cut it open and this is what I got:

Ugh!

Well, at least somebody got some satisfaction out of it.

I'm actually kind of worried because the Amish people must have sold like 30 or 40 watermelons that day. Maybe mine was a fluke? Hopefully they won't be getting a swarm of unhappy customers next weekend.

P.S. I do actually have a few small watermelons in my garden. I haven't harvested them yet (partially because they're still small, and partially because I don't know how to tell if they are ripe). Any suggestions on knowing when to harvest?

Starting Squashy Crops

I put my first seedlings in the ground this weekend (mizuna and cilantro)! I also direct sowed snow peas, daikon radish, lettuce, spinach, and onion sets.

On top of that, I also started all my squashy-crops (pumpkin, watermelon, melon, zucchini, scallopini, cucumber, and ornamental gourd) and some fava beans and cat grass.

Mizuna

Cilantro

A variety of cucumbers, and squashes sown into peat pellets for easy transplanting.