Tag Archives: butternut squash

Coming to the end of the road

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It’s cold and miserable out there and the garden is in a right state even though it looked a lot better earlier this year. The butternut squash (above) that was making a late start has fallen by the wayside and now looks a right mess.

In the forthcoming weeks there may be a day where it may be dry enough to give the lawn a cut and even give the beds a tidy over. Remember the more work you do now means less work come the spring and the garden will look a lot easier on the eye over the winter. Trouble is when the garden looks a bit ropey you have less chance of putting on those gardening boots but we will try as the wild bit at the bottom (above) does look a bit wild and look at the pond (below). The word neglect comes to our guilty gardening minds.

Got any ideas of what you’ll be growing next year? We’re now on the lookout for any seed swaps, seed bargains or plants on the cheap. If you know of anything as in cheap seeds or events do let us know and we’ll blog them up.

Autumn, Jean-Michel Jarre and butternut squashes

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It ain’t half now turned a bit autumnal especially after the Autumn Equinox (on Saturday at 7.50am). At the end of the garden is a very small bed that has a right mixture of stuff in the tiny space include chillies and Cape gooseberry and peppers too. Also what we thought was some sort of melon may now be a butternut squash (pic below). Will it ripen before the frosts come?

And here’s a tune from Maurice Louca from Cairo a chap we discovered over the weekend while we were researching a forthcoming shortwave mix. From the excellently titled LP Benhayyi Al-Baghbaghan (Salute the Parrot) here’s the percussive monster called Maksim (Maxim) and it’s wonderful stuff. Listen to it a few times in a row and you’ll be noticing bits you never noticed the time before and be wanting to listen to it again. Mad mad stuff.

And while we’re talking about Cairo we’ve just remembered this tune from the excellent Zeb – The Spy From Cairo called Qanun in Dub.

Pumpkin’s progress

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rat_large_resizeIt all started with seeing the back end of a large rodent in one of our dalek compost bins back in April (post here). The contents of said bin was then emptied into a trench in the bed at the bottom of the garden (below).

compost trench

A pumpkin, butternut squash and a courgette plant were purchased from Shannon’s and stuck on the top of the trench as they love that sort of richness.

Everything has gone green

Then there was that big gardening faux-pas, all the potato peelings in the compost trench started to sprout and threatened said plants (post here). It was dealt with by some continuous hoeing, a few times a week!

Then we had some action on the pumpkin, it started small, then a bit bit bigger but still green.

yellow-pumpkin_2

yellow-pumpkin_1

Then the other week it started to change colour. As long as those pesky rodents don’t have it we might be onto having a giant pumpkin!

yellow-pumpkinThe butternut squash is on it’s way too! All’s well that ends well and all that!

yellow-squash

To squash or not to squash

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They must be firing chemicals into the atmosphere again (see post here for explanation) as it was lovely this morning, now the weather’s taken a turn for the worst.Butternut squashes away!Before it did rain I harvested the first of the (two so far) butternut squashes on one of the plants grown from seed. It might have the odd mark on it and a light slash down the side, but who cares!

It didn’t take much effort either, I sowed the seeds in May and popped a couple of them in each pot (of seed sowing compost) just in case only one germinated, as they were part of a job-lot of seed packets on e-bay where some had passed their “use by date” and pulled out the weaker of the two seedlings when they appeared. I waited until the first proper leaves appeared and put them in various parts of the garden after “hardening them off” first. Apart from weeding around the young seedlings and giving them a semi-regular feed of comfrey liquid (beware, it pongs a bit!) that was it. squash plant all over the placeThe plant that really took off was in one of the side beds which stalled for a couple of weeks then went absolutely mad, covering all the area and now trying to climb up the small plum tree and travel across the lawn. It’s an ideal plant if you’ve got a sunny corner or plot you want to cover for a season, just watch it though, as it will takeover!

The moral of this post is, butternut squash, it was easy, it was cheap (well cheap in fact!) GO AND DO IT (next year)!

A surrealist style summer

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Here's gone summerAKA Is this the summer or are we in a perpetual state of hoping for one?

I’ve haven’t long got back from a family break in Camber Sands. The night before I left for the seaside I gave the garden a good old dousing with a hose, thinking it wouldn’t get another drop until I got back. All through that evening and during the night it tipped it down, great eh?

Yesterday I popped into my local supermarket to “get some bits” and said to the chap behind the till, “where’s the sun gone, mate?” as it wasn’t the best of days weatherise.

I thought I’d just get a smile or a jokey reply but he came back with a long bonkers theory that the british government are firing chemicals into the atmosphere during the evening (so no-one will see) to make sure our summers only last a few weeks or even days. The conversation went like that for a few minutes much to the disgust of the long queue forming behind me (he was the only one serving!)

I nodded and picked up my shopping bags. Judging by the weather forecast for the next few days, perhaps he’s right! Solitary squashOne thing in the garden that seems to like the rain, is the mad butternut squash that has filled the square bed at the side of the garden (only one squash on it though) and now trying to climb up the plum tree. Madness!

Tiptoe through the tulips…

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Here’s a well simple gardening tip which is so obvious but one I am very guilty of forgetting on many occasions and that is labeling your seed trays or rows of seeds when sowed outdoors. All it takes is the time to get a felt tip pen and write on a plastic seed label, simple! So why do I now have a lovely butternut squash on what I thought was a cucumber plant?

Afrika Bambaataa loves a squash!