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One of the arrangements from Mom's memorial sits on our mantle along with the deer skull on top of slices of cedar trunk. The effect now two weeks later, with the other arrangement of dried flowers and grasses, is that of a Dutch "vanitas" still life.
Figs are doing wonderfully, and i am trying to be brave and let them get rather ripe on the tree. Last year i think my fear of attracting wasps kept me from letting them ripen quite so much. But picking green means less sweetness and perhaps less volume. I haven't dried any yet, but i may this weekend. I am luxuriating with them as fresh fruit right now. I'm delighted how we have had fairly continuous fruit since June and the blackberries. Blueberries are still ripening on the latest producing shurb - -i'm also very pleased with my picking out a staged ripening. I look forward to those plants reaching a fair size so i don't have to stoop quite as much to pick.
Between the deaths in April and June, our shady aspect, and the brief drought it really seems summer plants took their time to get going. The cherry tomato i bought took off last weekend and now is sprawling, covered with green fruit. I hope i get a chance to have enough to dry some. The peppers are just beginning to bloom. The okra got slowed down by the squash, not getting enough height before the squash shaded the row. The squash flourished, but didn't get enough water. A mosaic virus has hit them, and while i know i am supposed to pull them all up, the rampante squash i didn't mean to plant produced three squash while i was out of town. I'm eating those as fresh summer squash, as i've four large winter squash ripening off the Tahitian butternut.
So squash:
There's crookneck yellow summer squash, C. pepo var. torticollia, which i think are the best best squash. They're finicky, sensitive, but heavenly. Yellow straightneck, C. pepo var. recticollis does taste different from crookneck and reminds me more of zucchini C. pepo var. cylindrica which i just can't get excited about. They are more robust than crookneck, but .... Then there's "Cube of butter" which is the best tasting straightneck yellow squash ever. It's hard to know how well it performs given this summer's pressures. Maybe i'll get some more fruit off it, and it will have out performed the crookneck. It's a hard choice, as there are heirloom (1700 and before contact) seeds available at 50+ seeds, and the "Cube of butter" packet had 5 seeds.
What has really worked well for me are the butternut C. moschata plants. First, i had to get over my dislike of orange vegetables, but learning to cook sweet potatoes and winter squash without tons of brown sugar and instead using onion has helped me significantly. C. moschata is a huge sprawling plant, and it too falls to powdery mildew, so the trellis made from the king box spring was my hope to fight that.
Seminole is the first C. moschata i grew, a pre-Columbian selection, and the ripe fruits kept for a year. The Tromboncino selection last year was inspired as its immature fruits are also a pleasant summer vegetable (not as watery as zucchini, with a sweetness), and i punted on yellow squash. It was REMARKABLE in its willingness to climb trees, so i thought maybe the Tahitian selection would be less sprawling. Nope, they sprawl too. I haven't had a chance to try the Tahitian squash young. If it sets any more fruit i will try them.
The sweet potatoes have not been eaten by rabbits nor swamped by stilt grass, so i have some hopes of a harvest.
Figs are doing wonderfully, and i am trying to be brave and let them get rather ripe on the tree. Last year i think my fear of attracting wasps kept me from letting them ripen quite so much. But picking green means less sweetness and perhaps less volume. I haven't dried any yet, but i may this weekend. I am luxuriating with them as fresh fruit right now. I'm delighted how we have had fairly continuous fruit since June and the blackberries. Blueberries are still ripening on the latest producing shurb - -i'm also very pleased with my picking out a staged ripening. I look forward to those plants reaching a fair size so i don't have to stoop quite as much to pick.
Between the deaths in April and June, our shady aspect, and the brief drought it really seems summer plants took their time to get going. The cherry tomato i bought took off last weekend and now is sprawling, covered with green fruit. I hope i get a chance to have enough to dry some. The peppers are just beginning to bloom. The okra got slowed down by the squash, not getting enough height before the squash shaded the row. The squash flourished, but didn't get enough water. A mosaic virus has hit them, and while i know i am supposed to pull them all up, the rampante squash i didn't mean to plant produced three squash while i was out of town. I'm eating those as fresh summer squash, as i've four large winter squash ripening off the Tahitian butternut.
So squash:
There's crookneck yellow summer squash, C. pepo var. torticollia, which i think are the best best squash. They're finicky, sensitive, but heavenly. Yellow straightneck, C. pepo var. recticollis does taste different from crookneck and reminds me more of zucchini C. pepo var. cylindrica which i just can't get excited about. They are more robust than crookneck, but .... Then there's "Cube of butter" which is the best tasting straightneck yellow squash ever. It's hard to know how well it performs given this summer's pressures. Maybe i'll get some more fruit off it, and it will have out performed the crookneck. It's a hard choice, as there are heirloom (1700 and before contact) seeds available at 50+ seeds, and the "Cube of butter" packet had 5 seeds.
What has really worked well for me are the butternut C. moschata plants. First, i had to get over my dislike of orange vegetables, but learning to cook sweet potatoes and winter squash without tons of brown sugar and instead using onion has helped me significantly. C. moschata is a huge sprawling plant, and it too falls to powdery mildew, so the trellis made from the king box spring was my hope to fight that.
Seminole is the first C. moschata i grew, a pre-Columbian selection, and the ripe fruits kept for a year. The Tromboncino selection last year was inspired as its immature fruits are also a pleasant summer vegetable (not as watery as zucchini, with a sweetness), and i punted on yellow squash. It was REMARKABLE in its willingness to climb trees, so i thought maybe the Tahitian selection would be less sprawling. Nope, they sprawl too. I haven't had a chance to try the Tahitian squash young. If it sets any more fruit i will try them.
The sweet potatoes have not been eaten by rabbits nor swamped by stilt grass, so i have some hopes of a harvest.
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I'm especially looking forward to finding the "cube of butter" squash, I've never been a fan of the yellow ones, finding them pretty bland
we do a lot of zucchini here though