Our County Park Plot

Hello again! This past week or 10 days the weather has been great for gardening here in Lancaster. All of our "home garden" plants are thriving....but sometimes it's hard to tell where the cucumber starts and the zucchini ends.  We don't have to pay as much attention to the Lancaster County Park garden plot due to the limited type of veggies we put in there. We do visit at least three to four times a week to water as needed, weed the areas that aren't covered with the weed mat and check for insect problems.  There have been a few surprises, though!

Hmmmm...We thought, from last year's experience, that the butternut squash plants would overrun the plot. Well, surprise!  The butternut has nothing on this ornamental gourd plant! The butternut doesn't even come close! The picture above was taken before July had even started....hmmmm. A picture of one of the fruits on this plant is shown below.

The "home grown" compost that we screened was quickly put to work last week. All of the plants in both home and county park gardens received a generous helping of our "backyard black gold". I have no doubt that all of the plants will respond well and respond quickly to this addition.

And then there were some squash bugs to deal with. They are appearing only on one plant - the acorn squash - in the county park plot. These critters look a lot like the stink bugs that we all seem to be encountering. I sprayed about a half dozen this week with homemade insect soap. That kills them. The other issue with squash bugs is the eggs they hide on the underside of the squash plant leaves. The insect soap works on them, too, especially with a little squashing with index finger and thumb. The ones shown below, were, inexplicably on the top of a leaf. Their true color is orange or bronze. If you have squash, be on the lookout for them. If the adult adult population hits critical mass, they can destroy a plant in a day or two. The eggs are above the piece of newspaper.

The delicata squash (below) is producing a good number of fruits. We've never had these before, so it's a bit of an adventure learning how they grow and what they need.

The acorn squash are growing to table size very quickly....more quickly than I thought they would.

The butternut is coming along nicely as you can see below. But I am seeing some yellowing leaves.  Too much water?  That's hard for me to believe, so I'll have to watch the plant more carefully.

One of the gourd plants is producing very large numbers of fruits. I brought this one home despite the fact that it's not "ripe" yet.  How much bigger would it get? We have plenty more of them that will instruct us on the answer to that question.

The pumpkin has reached nearly full size very quickly. There are a few other small ones developing now.

That's it for this installment! I'll hope to see you again in a few weeks as summer continues to progress and the gardens come to full maturity.