Somehow my garden is having a cucurbit year. I don’t think I planned it this way. It just happened.
I like growing and eating squash, melons, pumpkins and an occasional cucumber. My goats love the squash and pumpkins too. The chickens prefer melons.
Beginning Squash Plans
Summer squash is a popular item. So I planned a bed for my favorite zephyrs. Three hills with three plants per hill. I plan ahead for losses due to squash bugs and borers.
These are supposed to be semibush. Not this year. This year robust vines five and six feet long wander out across garden paths and other garden beds.
Winter butternut squash was slated to cover half of the shade house. It didn’t listen. These vines took up their half and we are having an ongoing battle over the shade house interior plus the lima bean section and a couple of garden paths.
The usual monster squash, a goat favorite, went into a large 30 foot square bed by itself. Vines now fill this bed, climb up the six foot fences around the bed and try to invade the yard. Leaves tower four feet over the ground.
Unplanned Cucurbits
My long beans didn’t come up for some reason this year. In a lapse of sense I put in three pie pumpkin seeds. These are happily taking over the front corner of the garden.
Another winter squash, Yuxi, went in when the winter melon seeds didn’t germinate. These monster vines are flowing up along one garden fence and trying to invade the tomatoes next door.
Although planned, the royal watermelon has in past years been very small. Compared to the nearby monster squash, it is still small. But the vines are running amok across a front section by the water barrels.
Cucurbit Year Invasion
At least a third of my garden is now buried under cucurbit vines. This wouldn’t be so much of a problem if the leaves weren’t so big.
Although I have only an inkling of how many monster squash are hiding under those leaves, judging from the butternut crop, this cucurbit year in the garden means we will be eating a lot of squash this winter as well as this summer.
