25 August 2009

Garden 2009: part 3

Update #3 on my garden.

This post is mostly for me to help remember the phases of my garden, but if you think you don't have a green thumb and want to read how I think I do but I really don't, read on.

First the bad news:



  • At first glance, this looks like a healthy crop of green beans, right?
  • Wrong. This is the first and only green bean I can find on this whole stinkin' crop. I have no idea what I did wrong. Until yesterday, I couldn't even find one. I mean, maybe it will just be a really late crop, but I'm not holding out any hope for that. It looks like we will each have 1/4 of a green bean for dinner and call it good.
  • This is what you see when you look inside what, from the outside, looks like a pretty healthy yellow crookneck squash plant. Yep. Not one single squash. There have been about 4 or 5 small ones that all shriveled away before they had a chance to thrive. We're still waiting to eat one of those. Again, I have no idea what I did wrong.
  • This is the saddest story of all. There was a vine that came up on its own from the compost that we tilled into the dirt this year. I figured it was a pumpkin, but discovered this squash on it the other day. I had no idea what it was, so I picked it to eat and when I showed Jeff he said, "Isn't that a butternut?". Yep. I'm pretty sure he's right. I've planted butternut squash for about 3 years running now and have never had any success with even a single squash on those plants. Now one comes up all on its own, makes a squash and I pick it before it even has a chance to thrive. I thought it was some sort of summer squash. I'm still sad about it, being that butternut is my FAVORITE of all the squash varieties. I'm holding out hope that the plant will produce another, but kind of don't think it will.
Okay, now a little bit of good news:


  • Italian parsley is thriving and delicious
  • We've had many, many delicious cucumbers. They are small and chubby, but lived up to their variety name: sweet slice.
  • No picture, but we've also had enough zucchini for a few great dishes but not so many we're sick of it and can't give it away fast enough like some other people.

5 comments:

Mel D said...

I know several of these past years my dad had to hand pollinate the squash to get any. =)
He doesn't grow green beans though but it could be for the same reason there?

Mel D said...

ok, I learned green beans self pollinate...

Jon and Julie said...

Our garden has had similar results. We have several tomotoes that may never turn green, our zucchini plant died outright, I have a squash plant that I should hand pollinate, but haven't (I kind of doubt that it'll matter), but maybe we'll get some broccoli. I'm looking into fall/winter vegetables; we couldn't do much worse!

Ilene said...

I killed my zucchinni plant. Not really on purpose (it was overrunning my box) but I am secretly relieved.

jefferies said...

I think it was the heat this year. A lot of our garden shriveled up and didn't produce anything too (except the tomatoes).