Our garden has a very interesting thing happening in it.  We currently have a bunch of squash, melons and radishes popping up all over the place.  As I pull Squash out by the handfuls I decided it was really really funny to be weeding out squash.  I haven’t planting radishes this year so it was very surprising to pull one out of the ground.

Just a few weeks ago we gave away the last of the winter squash from last year, and it’s already time to start planting again. 2008 was a great year, but I think we can do even better in 2009. Before winter set in, we borrowed a tiller from Charmaine’s parents and went over most the garden areas several times. It really made a big difference. The dirt is looking great, but I think we’ll want to till it again before we start planting this spring… and it’s already time to start planting the cold weather crops, so we better get moving.

We left some plants to die over winter, but to our surprise, they kept right on growing. It will be interesting to see how the Leeks and Green Onions taste after growing all winter. I will get some pictures up as soon as we find our camera.

About the same time we gave away the last of the squash, we saw seeds start showing up at the store. One day the seeds were on sale and we went a little crazy. Here’s what we have so far:

Pumpkins:
Jack Be Little (dwarf pumpkins)
Big Max (up to 100 pounds)
Spooktacular (small size for kids)
Sugar (perfect for pumpkin pie)
Orange Smoothie (Hybrid)
Connecticut Field (20 pound average)

Winter Squash:
Butternut (Waltham)
Banana (Pink Jumbo)
Vegetable Spaghetti
Acorn (Table King – Bush)
Golden Hubbard

Summer Squash:
Zucchini (Ambassador Hybrid)
Zucchini (Gold Rush)
Golden Summer Crookneck
Scallop Bush Mix (Pattypan)

Root Vegetables:
Green Onion (Evergreen White Bunching)
Parsnip (Hollow Crown)
Parsnip (Andover)
Carrot (Danvers Half Long)
Carrot (Nantes Coreless)
Carrot (Rainbow – Red, Purple, White, Yellow, and Orange)
Carrot (Big Top)
Beet (Early Wonder)

Herbs:
Cilantro (Coriander)
Florence Fennel (Finocchio)
Garlic Chives
Basil (Italian Large Leaf)
Sage

Peas:
Peas (Sugar Snap – Pole)
Peas (Super Sugar Snap – Pole)
Peas (Oregon Sugar Pod II – Bush)
Peas (Little Marvel – Bush)

Beans:
Beans (Slenderette Bush)
Beans (Blue Lake Pole)
Beans (Rattlesnake – Pole)

Corn:
Corn (Earlivee – Hybrid)
Corn (Kandy Korn – Hybrid)
Corn (Golden Cross Bantam T-51 – Hybrid)

Cucumber:
Cucumber (Armenian)
Cucumber (Lemon)

Melons:
Watermelon (Sugar Baby)
Cantaloupe (Charentais)

Tomatoes:
Tomato (Cherokee Purple Heirloom)
Tomato (Heirloom Rainbow Blend)

Other stuff:
Tomatillo (Toma Verde)
Pepper (California Wonder)
Kale (Nero Toscana)
Cabbage (Red Acre)
Sunflower (Mammoth Grey Stripe)

Seeds we’re still thinking about getting:
Radish
Pumpkin (Giant)
Tomato (Yellow Pear)
Tomato (Roma)
Onion
Potatoes
Eggplant
Cucumber (English)
Lettuce (Romaine)

We came home from participating in the Burley Lions Spudman Triathlon to a huge windstorm. When we got up this morning, most of the corn was down. The wind had snapped several of the stalks and pushed most of the rest to the ground. I went out and pulled some of them back up, but I don’t think they’ll make it. At this point we’ll be lucky to get any corn this year. What a shame.

Next year we’ll plant all the corn together, so the outer rows can protect the inner rows. I’m not sure how much protection that will give it, but it should help with the pollination process.

Charmaine is in San Diego this week, and she took the camera with her, so I have no pictures. In fact, I won’t be able to take the week 11 photos on Thursday either. Oh well. I’m not all that upset about not having a picture of this destruction.

While finishing some work on the pole bean enclosure, something caught my eye. It brought back bad memories of a fight I once had while growing acorn squash in Riverton. Squash Bugs. I know what it means to have squash bugs, and it isn’t pretty. So I stopped what I was doing and inspect the top and bottom of every leaf. It became painfully obvious just how many squash plants we have this year. I carried a pair of scissors with me as I inspected. Each time I found a pile of eggs, I cut off the leaf and brought it to my patio, where I ground the leaf and the eggs into the concrete.

The eggs seemed to be limited to leaves near fruit. And I thought it was sort of curious that I only found eggs on the winter squash varieties, and none on the yellow squash, zucchini, or cucumbers. There is much more fruit on the summer squash plants, but no eggs. I don’t know if that was just a coincidence, but I thought it was sort of interesting.

I’m sure this wasn’t their one and only salvo. I’ll be waiting for round two.

One of the reasons that I love to plant radishes is that it’s the first thing that you get to harvest. It doesn’t matter that I don’t eat very many of them.

Happy Harvesting