Green Beans and Sunflowers

Favorite Pastimes

I recently found this shot of a green been patch among my garden pictures. It's hard to find something more vibrantly green than young bean plants in the early summer.

Green Bean Plants

 

These tiny yellow flowers belong to another garden plant: a sunflower. The middle part of a sunflower's "flower" is actually composed of hundreds of tiny flowers, each of which produces a sunflower seed once it is pollinated.

Sunflower Flowers

Cushaw Squash

Favorite Pastimes

Cushaw Squash

Here is my last squash picture. This is called a Cushaw Squash and this is the first year I grew it. We picked some of them yesterday. They can get as big as twenty pounds. One of mine weighed eighteen pounds. They're also called a sweet potato squash and can be used as a substitute for pumpkin in pies. They are popular in Creole and Cajun cooking. I'm still trying to figure out how to cut up and cook my eighteen-pound Cushaw Squash.

Pumpkin

Favorite Pastimes

Pumpkin

I've been growing pumpkins for several years now. We had one in our pumpkin pie last Thanksgiving, and it looks like we'll be having this one this year too. Last year I got eleven Small Sugar Pie Pumpkins and two Big Max Pumpkins. This year I expect to have around ten Amish Pie Pumpkins. The two we picked this morning were between one and a half and two pounds. There's nothing like growing your own pumpkin for pumpkin pie.

Dud Organic Squash

Favorite Pastimes

Dud Organic Squash

This tiny squash seedling is growing under the huge leaves of the other plants. I planted organic squash here when I planted the other mounds, but it never sprouted. After replanting it several times, this tiny seedling finally emerged, too late in the season to produce any fruit. It made me wonder how "organic" this seed really was.

Squash Patch

Favorite Pastimes

Squash Patch

Here's the squash patch from across the back yard. A lot of the fun in gardening is watching it grow and change throughout the year. This beautiful carpet of squash leaves came from dirt mounds with spindly little seedlings. It's hard to believe the patch will soon be covered in snow!

Butternut Squash

Favorite Pastimes

Butternut Squash

What a thrill to dig down among the leaves and find the fully ripened squash. We have outwitted the squash bugs, cucumber beetles, downy mildew, and all the other enemies of the gardener. Now we are ready to store up the harvest for the winter.

Squash Leaves

Favorite Pastimes

Squash Leaves

This is always about the most exciting time of year in the squash patch. All the plants have grown big and their leaves cover up the bare dirt. But even more exciting is all the maturing fruit which is hidden from view. As the fruit begins to get ripe, the leaves will wilt up and die, revealing the bountiful harvest awaited all year.

49 Radishes

Favorite Pastimes

49 Radishes

Last year I was very excited about gardening, and I wanted to start as soon as possible in the spring. So I put lots of radish seeds into the cold, wet ground. To my delight, I soon had more radishes than I knew what to do with. As you can see, I especially liked arranging them to take their picture. It looks like one of them is smiling in this picture.

Squash Flower

Favorite Pastimes

Squash Flower

When someone mentions squash, I doubt if this beautiful bloom comes immediately to your mind. However, it is one of the loveliest vegetable flowers in the garden. It is also a great reward after all the hard work it took to get there. This particular bloom is on a spaghetti squash plant. This plant only made one squash and then it rotted, but I did enjoy the flower.

Baby Squash

Favorite Pastimes

Baby Squash

 How did this pretty green fruit get inside that little seed? In just over four weeks, a combination of sunshine, rain (lots of it!), good soil, mildew spray, and lots of hard work, have produced a practically perfect squash. The green buds at the top of this picture will produce orange flowers but will not turn into squash. Their purpose is to pollinate the fruit-bearing flowers.

Red Lettuce

Favorite Pastimes

Red Lettuce

I've always enjoyed watching things grow. Maybe it is because all of my great-grandfathers were farmers. Once I planted a lettuce seed in a little glass bottle on my desk. I let it grow for about six months and it shot more than three feet out of the jar. On the very tip was a yellow lettuce flower. I took this picture of my sister's red lettuce patch just a few weeks ago. She is growing it to feed her flock of chickens. She doesn't mind the weeds because the chickens will eat those too. I like the beautiful reddish color of the ribbed leaves and how it contrasts with the rich, tropical green.

Watermelon Delight

Favorite Pastimes

Watermelon Delight

What tastes more like summer than a succulent, rosy-red watermelon? I managed to grow this all-organic watermelon two summers ago. But it wasn't easy. Our first small ones became food for the rabbits. We planted a couple more and they actually flowered. Then they started getting crowded out by the pumpkins, and we had to move one plant into the yard. The fruits never got bigger than about five inches across, but that was the best watermelon I ever ate.

Summer Dreams

Favorite Pastimes

Summer Dreams

That seems like a funny title for this picture, doesn’t it? But all the gardeners among my dear readers probably understood it instantly.  This is last year’s squash and pumpkin crop. Isn’t it beautiful? It is my inspiration this year as I watch my tiny plants begin to grow. I spent quite a while arranging my squash for this picture. For those who love numbers, how many of each kind of squash, pumpkin and corn are there? (And I'll make it even harder – include all partially showing veggies as well!)

Squash Vine

Favorite Pastimes

Squash Vine

Squash seeds are sprouting in the garden and will soon be reaching for the sky on wooden trellises. I spent a lot of time building these wooden teepes for my squash plants and then coaxing the vines to climb them. I was so happy to see those little green tendrils that I felt a picture was called for. I wanted the sky behind it so that meant getting my camera down on the ground. I am pretty pleased with the shot I got.