let's see your veggie garden {pics}

[OldDinosaurWesH]

All three are different branches of the curcurbitacea family. The gourd family. There are four main branches, the Gourds, the Pumpkins/Squashes, the Cucumbers, and the Watermelon/Cantaloupes. All are distinguished by vines, and large fleshy seed pods. Trying to make crosses across the branches of the family tree are difficult and seldom produce anything, especially a viable offspring.

Wes H.

 

[deluxestogie]

Zucchini, a summer squash, are C. pepo. "Pumpkins", an unfortunately imprecise term for a bunch of different winter squash, can be from one of several species (C. pepo, C. moschata, C maxima.) A quick sample of pumpkin species is on the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange site: http://www.southernexposure.com/vegetables-pumpkins-c-3_46.html

None of that matters, unless you want to cross them. So, when a 1200 pound pumpkin says, "Don't cross me!", you'd better listen.

Most pepo don't know it, but CattyPan O' Lantern and most Jack 0' Lantern pumpkins are the same species: C. pepo.

Bob

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

Yes, the pumpkins that you actually eat are different than the type that you carve. I've never been interested enough to look into their respective heritage to see if they were actually different species. All I know for sure is that inter-specific hybridization is an iffy and mostly fruitless proposition. Pun intended. Part of the definition of species is the ability to reproduce itself.

I noticed in the places selling Jack-O-Lanterns this year that someone had crossed a gourd with a pumpkin producing a warty and funny looking fruit that resembled a pumpkin. I was wondering if these were the mules of the pumpkin world. An interesting looking fruit, but is it truly a new species?

Wes H.

P.S. I also have been told that the giant pumpkins are edible, but not fit to eat. Apparently by breeding strictly for size, they have bred all the desirability as a food stuff out of this particular line. Human hubris knows no bounds.

 

[Gavroche]

My gourd... i like only this...

 

[deluxestogie]

Gavroche,
With a drill and a very sharp jewler's saw, you could turn that into a Calabash O' Lantern. [Pipe may not function afterwards!]

Bob

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

Well, pretty sure Bob is right. I got seed from the initial cross, and one of the three F1s so far. There's a possibility that particular one might have received pollen from my neighbors squashes which aren't C.pepo. Or, even though they're the same species, they might be very distantly related. Or that plant had an unusual maturity schedule and would have seeded if the summer was longer.

Edit: oh, and there's nothing wrong with eating jackolanterns

 

[deluxestogie]

...there's nothing wrong with eating jackolanterns

I've made pumpkin pies from Jack O' Lantern type pumpkins. Very tasty. The difference is that the flesh is very stringy. It has to be either blenderized to a fine puree, or pressed through a sieve that will remove the strings. So, the difference may be better stated in terms of the labor required to utilize the "non-pie" pumpkins. I used them for pies, just to see what I would end up with. I'll never go that route again, until the apocalypse.

Bob

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

Sounds like a lot of work to me. There is a regional pie company that distributes fresh pies in our area that makes a pretty decent pumpkin pie that retails (on sale) for $4.99. Hard to beat that.

Happy Turkey day for all!

Wes H.

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

I have always chosen seed for taste rather than size. They're still pepo though. I don't know if growing those would be equivalent to mass produced big hollow jack o'lanterns.

We have a few way of using it. For pies, I cut it in half, and put a half cut side down in a roasting pan with an inch of water. It sort of suctions to the bottom of the roaster. Then my wife roasts it and scoops the meat out with an ice cream scoop, into a colander, drains, then squeezes.

I cube it and pressure can it for later use. It'll store indefinitely. Just a little draining and squeezing, and it's ready for pies.

Or I peel it, then shred it with a processor. Salt, squeeze. Mix with anything from replacing fat in sausage to mixing in meatloaf to make it juicy to making lasagne more nutritious.

All this juice that gets squeezed becomes a part of a soup stock or moisture for a stir fry or something. or the whole thing ends up as soup.

 

[deluxestogie]

When to Start Peas

Peas are the earliest spring vegetable. You should begin them 4 to 6 weeks before your last frost date. So, if you will be starting tobacco indoors (6 to 8 weeks before your last frost date), then your peas should be started about 2 weeks after the tobacco.

Dwarf peas grow to about 3 feet; standard peas grow to about 6 feet. For either, they will need some kind of trellis.

Here is a video that demonstrates an easy method of starting peas, while avoiding having the local critters simply eat the seeds after you've planted them.

If you divide your total pea crop into 3 parts, start a new batch of peas every two weeks. This will provide a steadier and more prolonged harvest. Once the summer temperatures arrive, the peas will begin to fade.

Bob

 

[Chris A]

Great tip. Thanks for posting.

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

What kind of peas do you grow Bob?

Wes H.

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

I started peas early for the first time last year and it was well worth it.

 

[MarcL]

I love me some fresh peas.

 

[Thedbs999]

Iam growing peas this year. Most likely a dwarf type. Since peas are such a early crop, Iam hoping to get peas harvested and corn planted and fall harvested in the same raised bed.

Dan

 

[deluxestogie]

I've grown snow peas, sugarpod peas and ordinary garden peas. Some years I grow a mix. Some years, the local store puts out surplus bags of seed peas at the end of the summer, and that's what I grow.

Seed peas, stored in a cool, dry place, will give good germination for at least 5 years.

Bob

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

Snow peas are pretty tasty & sugarpod peas, harvested when the peas are fairly immature, make a good addition to stir fry in a wok. Of course I used to be able to get all the sweet peas I wanted straight off the Viner. We used to harvest about 20,000 acres of them every year. Pea canning / freezing used to be a major industry around here. Those days are long gone. People don't buy canned or frozen peas like they used to (except me).

Wes H.

 

[deluxestogie]

People don't buy canned or frozen...

Here's a wild collection of charts and graphs on that subject: https://www.pbhfoundation.org/pdfs/about/res/pbh_res/State_of_the_Plate_2015_WEB_Bookmarked.pdf

I didn't read a word of the text, but the graphic data is fascinating. It absolutely proves that somebody collected a lot of data.

Bob

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

Bob:

I gave it a quick look through. Not too much in there about peas themselves. But it did show a continuous decline in canned / frozen vegetables. Which is not totally unexpected given the ever increasing availability of fresh vegetables in the marketplace. We live in a fast paced world where transportation is less and less of and impediment. Who needs a slow boat when you have fleets of 747's waiting to haul your fresh products to markets all over the globe.

If you can get fresh roses from Kenya in two days, why not asparagus from Peru? Think how cheap and abundant tobacco would be if there weren't all the governmental interference out there? (Read taxes.)

Thanks for the info.

Wes H.

 

[deluxestogie]

Vegetable Seed Starts

Big Beef Tomato (F1) [AS, F2, L, N, TMV, V]
For unexplained reasons, when I start pepper, eggplant and okra seed indoors, my rate of successful transplants is low. When I start tomatoes indoors, the plants always seem runted when it's time to transplant. So, for the most part, I purchase pepper, eggplant and tomato starts locally (usually pot-luck varieties).

Every year, my tomatoes endure one blight or another. I'm certain that some of these maladies come with the starter plants from the commercial nursery. Regardless of who is to blame, I tend to get a short season of nice tomatoes. This year, I've decided to try a tomato variety that is resistant to more diseases than any other tomato that I've identified: high resistance to alternaria stem canker, fusarium wilt races 1, 2, gray leaf spot, nematodes, tobacco mosaic virus, and verticillium wilt. That's a lot. But, alas, there are about two dozen reasonably common tomato diseases.

Today, I started 8 Big Beef tomatoes from seed that I purchased during 2017. I started one 4-cell tray, with 2 seeds for each cell. If they do anything, then I'll separate them and transplant them to 3-1/2" pots--bigger if I need to. I want some big, beefy transplants from these. They have 3 to 4 months to show me they care.


Sweet Candy Onion [https://store.underwoodgardens.com/Sweet-Candy-Onion-Bulbs-Allium-cepa/productinfo/V1511/ ]
In the late fall of 2016, I planted a half-bed of Sweet Candy Onion, a day-neutral onion, carefully following the instructions from Underwood Gardens (aka Terroir Seeds), and mulched the sets with dry pine needles nearly a foot deep. By springtime, only two of those expensive onions could be located. I don't know if critters ate them, or they just gave up the ghost, and rotted. The two survivors bolted as soon as warm weather began. I allowed them to make seed, and saved it. I decided to try them from seed this year.

Today I started 16 Sweet Candy Onion seeds. Since all onions are biennials, these can not bolt and go to seed this year. The number of onion seeds I started was determined by the size of the container I was willing to dedicate to this once-failed endeavor.

The remainder of my veggie garden will have to come from the corner market, as transplants, or will be directly seeded, if winter ever ends. The rest of the space on my wire shelves in the back porch will go to tobacco.

Bob