Cucurbits - coming along nicely...

plural noun: cucurbits

a plant of the gourd family (Cucurbitaceae), which includes melon, pumpkin, squash and cucumber.

I love growing curcurbits. Given the right conditions - plenty of food and water - they're so, sooo easy*. Here are my squash seedlings, from way back in early May. 

 

They look pretty good there, but as usual I'd started them too early**, so by early June they'd grown leggy, started to yellow, and had thoroughly out-grown the windowsill, never mind their pots. Frost risk over by then though, so up to the allotment they went.

They didn't look so great at that point, but within a couple of weeks they'd seriously picked up and you can see that the courgette at the bottom of the picture had already started producing.

In fact, I had decided to NOT grow courgettes this year, but ended up taking this one in a seedling swap; "...what's the harm I thought, it's only one plant I thought, even though it's only me who likes courgettes I thought, and it's not like I haven't got the space is it...". Well, anyone who has ever grown courgettes will be laughing their socks off.

Take your eye off a healthy courgette plant for a couple of days and suddenly those cute, baby courgettes are verging on becoming dirty great marrows, aaand of course the more you pick them, the more grow to replace them. It is very gratifying though, despite the inevitable glut, to bring something so exuberantly and generously alive into fruition. This one is (probably) Striato D'Napoli and luckily it makes for very nice eating - well, so far it does, I haven't reached peak courgette consumption yet, but there is still a lot of summer time growing and eating to go... 

Anyway, here's a wider shot of the squash patch right now, for comparison to that sad and sickly looking start. Bonkers right?

It feels like it didn't take too much to make these plants happy; prepped the newly cleared soil with a little concentrated manure and chicken pellets, and have made a point of targeted watering a couple of times a week via those unsightly but very effective recycled milk containers. They have romped away with true triffid-like vigour!

I'm mostly growing the handsome (smooth, duck-egg blue skin) and delicious (rich deep-orange flesh) Crown Prince. These are famously good keepers. Just in case you didn't know: squash come in two varieties: summer squash are for eating now, winter squash for storing through the cold dark months when not much else is growing/producing. I especially love the idea of growing a thing that comes, as it were, pre-packed by mother nature, ready for long term storage straight off the plant. 

This next one is a bit of surprise arrival. That seed swap I mentioned earlier? Well, I thought it was going to be a Marina di Chioggia - reputedly great flavour and interestingly knobbly skin...but turns out there's a wry lesson in labelling to had, though in this instance I'm delighted with the lucky dip of some sort of turban type that I haven't grown before. Isn't it gorgeous?  

Lastly, another member of cucurbit family. Cucumbers, grown outdoors as I don't have a greenhouse. Yet. Confession - growing these at home in the front garden - as I lost all my cukes last year I wanted to coddle them a bit this time - turns out slugs and snails are not much of a problem at the plot, so next year will probably be cucumber central. Honestly, my experience, limited as it may be, is that a homegrown cucumber is a revelation. Those I have managed to grow so far are noticeably sweeter than supermarket bought, and they're properly crunchy, definitely not so full of water that they'll make your packed lunch sarnies soggy. 

This one is Market More. Said to be a reliable outdoor gherkin type, but just as good for general salads or sandwiches, and really starting to ramp up on the production front. Cucumbers apparently do like it warm, even the outdoor types, so I'm hoping this is a particularly good year for them, as long as I can keep them well watered. 

That prickly skin does looks off putting, but I've discovered that it doesn't seem to make any real difference in a salad, and you can just gently knock them off with the non-blade edge of a knife. If I get enough there maymbe a bit of Bread and Butter Pickle making in the offing - a good enough reason to grow an excess of cucumbers if ever there was one.

Next year though...I have watermelons in mind...

* I say easy, but last year I lost ALL my squash plants (including cucumbers) to the army of slugs and snails that live in my garden and that I cannot bear to kill. I just can't. It WAS a terrible, dreary and overly damp summer though. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

** I suppose it's a kind of school boy, over-enthusiastic error...but I just get very excited in January about getting things started. This means I end up sowing things way too early, and then can't plant them out because it's too cold. Then they get leggy, and then they give up the ghost. Not next year. (I know, I know...doubtless will be saying exactly that every year...)