Spent a few hours on Sunday cleaning up some of the exhausted summer crops, clearing out the beds to sow crimson clover.
Squash and zucchini plants are going south, with powdery mildew moving in pretty quick. Time to yank them and pick what's left.
**Edit 10/15/09. I have since learned that in the NW, winter squash should be left on the vine until a hard frost takes out the plant. Our growing season is someimes not long or hot enough to fully mature some winter squashes, so they need to be left in the ground as long as possible to ripen up - right up to the first frost.
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A few overgrown zucchini (growing only 2 plants next year) and about 10 Delicata squash. I grew the bush Delicata's this year to save some space, but I think I'll try the full size plants next year in the field plot, along with some others, like spaghetti and acorn squash.
Last potatoes. They did great this year - a little but of scab and pest damage didn't have too much effect. Mostly I was amazed how 1 little seed potato smaller than a golf ball can turn into 8 or 10 full sized potatoes.
Wireworms! Oddly they were only in one plant out of the four I pulled. I read up on them and found they generally are more of a problem in later picked potatoes. I didn't have much problem with them in the earlier picked potatoes, so leaving them in the ground for too long after they are mature seems a little risky.
They chew their way inside and then the molds and rot move in, destroying the potato from the inside out. On many potatoes they will only do superficial damage and the bad parts can be easily cut out. Use the damaged ones first, as they won't keep well.
Still got a nice bag full! Still only enough to last us a few months, and we ate a lot of potatoes during the summer, so next year I will be growing twice as many plants so we'll have enough to last us through winter.
Squash and zucchini plants are going south, with powdery mildew moving in pretty quick. Time to yank them and pick what's left. **Edit 10/15/09. I have since learned that in the NW, winter squash should be left on the vine until a hard frost takes out the plant. Our growing season is someimes not long or hot enough to fully mature some winter squashes, so they need to be left in the ground as long as possible to ripen up - right up to the first frost. **
A few overgrown zucchini (growing only 2 plants next year) and about 10 Delicata squash. I grew the bush Delicata's this year to save some space, but I think I'll try the full size plants next year in the field plot, along with some others, like spaghetti and acorn squash.
Last potatoes. They did great this year - a little but of scab and pest damage didn't have too much effect. Mostly I was amazed how 1 little seed potato smaller than a golf ball can turn into 8 or 10 full sized potatoes.
Wireworms! Oddly they were only in one plant out of the four I pulled. I read up on them and found they generally are more of a problem in later picked potatoes. I didn't have much problem with them in the earlier picked potatoes, so leaving them in the ground for too long after they are mature seems a little risky.
They chew their way inside and then the molds and rot move in, destroying the potato from the inside out. On many potatoes they will only do superficial damage and the bad parts can be easily cut out. Use the damaged ones first, as they won't keep well.
Still got a nice bag full! Still only enough to last us a few months, and we ate a lot of potatoes during the summer, so next year I will be growing twice as many plants so we'll have enough to last us through winter.
5 comments:
Your mom bought and fixed one of those delicata squash tonight - based on raves from the produce guy at Tacoma Boys. He was right! They ARE the best squash I've ever had. Next year....
Yeah I am not a huge squash fan, but Em loves delicata's. Strangely I am planning on growing even more next year...
You didn't tell me about the potato worms. NASTY!
Also, you may want to edit your post saying you learned not to pick delicata until the plant is deed.
AND, not that Gevan will read this again, but Tyler ate delicata soup last night. I made it hella good!
Ha! I noticed the checkbox to notify me when somebody adds to this comment string.
So did Michelle tell you about potato moles? Serious problem.
Send or post your "hella good" delicata soup recipe. I told Michelle she should make squash soup and she told me to make it myself...
I'll post it on my blog today or tomorrow. It is pretty easy. Cutting the squash is the hardest part.
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