Squash And Pumpkins Anyone?

Last year we had a bumper crop of pumpkins and butternut squash in the wilderness garden.  I still have quite a lot all processed and in the freezer to enjoy.  Ed planted butternut  squash and pie pumpkins in the back again this year.  We never thinned the plants or paid a lot of attention to them.  We could see that the plants were lush and saw some fruit along the edges and hanging from the fence. Today when Ed went to the back, the leaves of the squash plants and some of the pumpkin plants were dead.  We were amazed by the number of squash and pumpkins sitting there.

Many of the pumpkins were orange and the squash looked healthy, so Ed picked them and loaded them in his wagon.

I counted 13 pumpkins.  I don't even know how many squash there were.  Ed put three of each in the basement and left  the rest down by the road.  If you drive by here, please help yourself.

The really spooky part is that this huge pumpkin vine that grew on a compost pile is still going strong.  There are even more larger pumpkins lurking beneath its leaves.  Self planted from the seed of a pumpkin left behind last fall, this plant lagged behind the seeds that we planted.  It has now outgrown all that we planted with a span that exceeds forty feet.  The core of the plant has powdery mildew but the outer leaves are still clear.  We believe that powdery mildew ended the plants inside of the fence.  If we miss the predicted frost tonight, one more meal featuring squash blossoms could happen tomorrow.

These pumpkins are much bigger than the others and right now they are still growing.  This vine still has blossoms.  Who knows how many more pumpkins there will be?  Ed will need a bigger tool to  harvest these.  With a garden sometimes it's not about what you need, it's about what you get!

Severe Weather

A line of severe thunderstorms threatened us yesterday.  Only one cell passed over Stone Wall Garden.  Its wind blew wildly from the southeast and the rain was torrential.  Our electric power winked out only briefly and the house held against the powerful onslaught.  Our plants displayed mixed responses to the storm.

The sunflowers are now heavy with seed.  They took a beating from the storm.  The one pictured above had its stem snap well above ground level.  Carrying off the broken plant was a bit of a task.  I never expected a few flowers to weigh so much.
 

 Our Autumn Joy sedums always flop when in full bloom.  Each year I plan to make wire cages before growth starts.  If the plant grew up and out of the cage, then the branches would have some support.  Good intentions were of no help so our plants are open in the center.  Perhaps next year will be different.  

Several small fallen branches littered the driveway under the huge cherry tree.  One of them displayed fungal growth that we have never seen before.  The purple circles are an uncommon color.  We have absolutely no idea of the name of this unusual growth.  The same can be said of the bright light green sheets nearby.  This growth occurred high up in the tree.  Had the storm not broken the branches, we would never have seen these beauties.

Our apple trees were planted eleven years ago.  We do not know how to properly prune fruit trees and we use no pesticides.  There have never been more than a few pathetic ripe apples here.  This year the frost was kind to the apple trees and the rainfall was abundant.  All four trees are carrying a heavy load of apples now.  We expected that the storm would break branches and shake most of the fruit to the ground.  The direction of the storm and the shadow of the high meadow combined to create a quiet place where these trees grow.  All of the apples and all of the branches are still in place.

We lost a few flowers to the storm but nothing terrible came to us from it.  New to us fungal growth on dead tree branches was the result of the storm here.  Our luck continues to hold.