Garden check-in

The green beans I sowed last weekend are up...

 and the crookneck squash are too...

 Pansies in their pots help fill in a flower bed before the perennials start blooming...

And my tiny "wild" strawberries produce the most delectable morsels!  I started these from seed about 4 years ago.  To my happy surprise they have survived!

September in the Garden

How did a month slip by me without posting? I kept thinking I'd find a minute, or get a really great idea for a post. I guess I finally found a minute :)

Thought a mini-tour of the garden might be nice, to show a bit of what is going on now.

Blooms are still abundant. This nasturtium got a real late start, with the first blooms finally appearing in August.
In addition to the various squash and okra blooms, I found some volunteer peas flowering. Evidently I lost a few of the seeds I tried to gather from the Dwarf Greys I grew in the spring. Only a couple of plants, but those sweet young pods will be a welcome addition to fall salads.The watermelon patch was a success! Look at this beauty! It measured 31 inches around and weighed in at 16 lbs. We had a little help from something - rabbit? possum? skunk? - not sure what - but a couple of the ripe melons had the most perfectly round holes eaten into them. Maybe fencing the Great Dane out of the melons was a bad idea...Wonder what I've got here...seriously, I'm not sure. I sowed some seeds for both winter squash and gourds, and I'm sure this must be a squash (tucked in amongst the weeds! I failed seriously in keeping the weeds at bay this year!). But what kind? I thought I had sown Blue Galeux here. And since I haven't grown it before, maybe this IS B.G. But if that's the case, it sure doesn't look like what I was expecting. ID from seasoned squash growers would be welcome!
And the final image is my pride and joy of the fall season. A Pennsylvania Dutch Crookneck Squash. I purchased what appeared to be a Butternut squash with an extremely long neck at the Farmer's Market a couple years ago. The man I bought it from referred to it as a "Neck Pumpkin" and claimed it would make the best pumpkin pie. He was absolutely right! It was amazing how much wonderful orange "meat" there was in it, so I saved seed. Didn't get them sown last year, but happily this year I did. I've got 10-12 of them and most of them are just HUGE! I think a couple will join my other fall harvest decorations (dried colored corn, corn stalks, mini-pumpkins, gourds, etc.), and the rest will go into the freezer for soups, pies, etc. for the winter.

Crooknecks and Edamame

I was late getting my crooknecks growing...not that I didn't try. The first plantings were munched down - I think by a rabbit. The 2nd seedlings curled up and died after only a few days. So I decided to try them in a different bed, and now we are finally getting somewhere. It worked out OK anyway...we've had a few of the lemon summer squash over the last couple of weeks...now both those plants have died...I'm not sure why. But in a day or 2 there should be crooknecks galore! In this photo you can see at least 5 and I'm pretty sure that plant actually has around 10 on it. And the other one has just as many. So I should get my summer squash fix after all!

And can you see all the beans? I'm going to be rolling in Edamame it seems! Last year I only sowed a few...think I ended up with only 6-8 plants and they were only 1/2 the size of the ones I grew this year. But it was just a test to see how well they might grow, and to see if we really even liked the edamame. Well, can you tell I loved it? This year I planted lots more - something like 50-60 plants are growing - and they are all huge compared to last year's plants. I used inoculant on them this time (didn't even know I should last year) and planted them in succession plantings. That way I can harvest them in waves instead of all at once. There are 6 different varieties, so it will be interesting to see what differences there might be.