Tuesday 1 September 2009

Late summer in the garden

My miracle acorn squash looked so lovely



I had to pick it the other day. And botched the job! I broke its little handle off, which is a bad, bad thing to do - it won't keep if you do that. So I have another squash on my menu (and two more on the vine, phew!). It's a miracle squash because it grew from a seed from a particularly delicious one I had in my seasonal veg box last winter, from FoodRoots. I heard after I planted it that I wasn't supposed to do that because squashes are a bit promiscuous and will cross with anything; but then I read that it's ok for your current crop, but the next round of seeds won't grow true. And that the two I'd planted (acorn - Cucurbita pepo - and hubbard - Cucurbita maxima) were different varieties and should be safe from wilder crossings as long as nobody else in the area was growing them. Or something like that.

Nice flowers anyway, and the bees like them.



The popular wisdom is that you should only sow squash seeds that have been properly bred and saved. One reason is to prevent disease, and all my squashes (including the one legitimate number I got elsewhere) are mottled with evil powdery mildew.



My eggplants are taking their sweet time and I fear will not bear fruit of sufficient size by the time the frosts come. Still, three cheers for pretty flowers and this game attempt against the odds and limitations of light:



And as for my garden - testing ground for plagues and pestilence - all manner of wickedness in the stunted corn...



Ugly onions (could it be wireworm?)



And those poor chard plants. No sooner do we vanquish leafminers but we get these wicked things, some kind of aphid I suppose:

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