Garden Reflections - Cucurbits

Cucumbers

I grew five varieties of cucumbers this year. My fresh eating cucumbers didn't do very well due to getting over shadowed by the picklers. I'll need to make sure that I give them more space next year

Though I only picked a few slicers my picklers did fairly well and I harvested over 37 pounds of cucumbers. I was able to put up around a dozen quarts of canned dills and 6 quarts of fermented kosher dills. I didn't make any sweets since I still have a couple jars from last year

Melons

Silver Line melons from 2017

I didn't harvest a lot of melons this year. They were planted in the lower garden which is farther away from a water source than the upper garden is so they didn't get as much water as they needed

The 8 plus pounds of melons that I did pick were wonderfully sweet and flavorful, much better than anything found in the store. I plan on doing a better job of watering next year so we can hopefully enjoy more tasty fruit

Summer Squash 

I planted five varieties of summer squash this year. I missed the bed that I planted them in when I was amending the soil in the other beds. It was quite depleted from growing tomatoes the previous year so this years summer squash didn't produce very well 

I only picked a little over ten pounds of summer squash this year which we enjoyed grilled and in vegetable casserole and ratatouille. Next year I will make sure all my beds get a thick layer of compost and manure 

Winter Squash 

I planted six varieties of winter squash this year, but not the six that I thought I did. Apparently, my seeds were mixed up plus I had a couple of strange hybrids. I harvested over 62 pounds of winter squash this year 

I picked a total of nine of these long squashes. They looked like a cross of Jumbo Pink Banana and Delicata. Unfortunately, they were completely inedible. The flesh was grainy, watery and bitter and the skins were so hard I had to take a hatchet to the one I cut up. I've yet to cut into the small squat one in upper left of the photo 

Two of these squash were identifiable as ones that I planted. The four roundish pink to orange squash are Galeux D'eysines (two of them under ripe). The long tan squash are Tahitian Melon

The others, though identifiable, were not ones that I intended to plant. The round squash with green stripes is a Luxury Winter Pie pumpkin and the other one is a Sweet Lightning.

All of these are quite delicious varieties so my squash season wasn't a total dud.

I plan on being more careful about keeping my seeds separate so that I know what I'm growing. I also plan to start with fresh seed next year to make sure I don't get any more of those crazy, inedible crosses

All of the cucurbits produced over 118 pounds of fruit