Vegetable Gardening Page 15
‘Waltham Butternut': This heirloom variety produces light-tan-colored, 5-pound fruits that have smooth-textured orange flesh. It takes 105 days to mature.
Great Pumpkins: Counting the Uses for This Versatile Squash
Pumpkins are the quintessential fall crop in many areas, and most peoples' favorite winter squash. (Yes, pumpkins are squashes, too. Most pumpkin varieties are in the Cucurbita pepo species, directly related to the acorn- and spaghetti-type winter squash that I describe earlier in this chapter.) Pumpkins are used in pies, soups, and casseroles or carved into ghoulish shapes on Halloween. Even their seeds are edible!
Because people are so interested in pumpkins, modern breeders have created many different varieties. Some varieties are great for carving into jack-o'-lanterns, some are bred for cooking, and still others are known for their tasty seeds. When my daughter Elena was young she loved to roast batches of ‘Triple Treat', naked-hulled (thin-hulled) pumpkin seeds because they pop like popcorn. You can bake any pumpkin seeds, but in my opinion, the hulless types are best for flavor and crunchiness. (In case you're wondering, the hull is the coat of the seed.) Other types of pumpkins, like ‘Atlantic Giant', are bred to win awards; they can grow to such huge sizes that they could practically break a truck's suspension.
Pumpkins are grown similar to winter squash and require plenty of space to vine. Here are a few of the most popular pumpkin varieties:
‘Atlantic Giant': This is the pumpkin that sets world records. Technically, it's called a Cucurbita maxima (similar to Hubbard squash). It requires lots of water, heat, and fertilizer to reach the mammoth 1,600-pound, world-record size. This variety looks like a flat tire when it matures. Even though your pumpkin may not weigh 1,600 pounds, a few hundred pounds is still a lot of pumpkin. ‘Atlantic Giant' is open-pollinated and takes 115 days to mature. This is one large vine.
‘Baby Bear': This is the smallest pumpkin variety, so naturally kids are attracted to it. ‘Baby Bear' is an AAS-winning, 2-pound, open-pollinated, minipumpkin that's great for cooking. Its semi-naked (thin-hulled) seeds taste great roasted. This variety matures in 105 days.
‘Connecticut Field': This classic 20-pound, open-pollinated, flat-bottomed, jack-o'-lantern pumpkin is great for carving and baking. It matures on large vines in 115 days.
‘Lumina': This unusual, white-skinned, orange-fleshed, open-pollinated, 20-pound pumpkin can be made into a ghostly looking jack-o'-lantern. It takes 95 days to mature.
‘Rouge Vif d'Etampes': This attractive, red-skinned, French heirloom pumpkin variety, which is also known as ‘Cinderella', is in the Cucurbita maxima species. The 10-pound fruits are short and squat (like a wheel of cheese) and are good in pies. The variety takes 115 days to mature. Another similarly shaped variety is ‘Long Island Cheese', which has tan-colored skin.
‘Small Sugar': Known as the pumpkin for pies, this 4- to 6-pound, open-pollinated variety features smooth-textured flesh and a small seed cavity. It takes 95 days to mature.
‘Triple Treat': This open-pollinated pumpkin is grown especially for its thin-hulled, naked seeds, which are great roasted. You also can carve this 8-pound pumpkin and use its flesh in a pie or bake it. This variety takes 110 days to mature.
The seeds of this all-purpose pumpkin are slower and more finicky about germinating than other pumpkin varieties. So wait until the soil is 65 degrees to plant; you may even want to start it indoors for 3 to 4 weeks before planting outside.
To find out how to grow giant pumpkins and for details about yearly competitions, visit The Pumpkin Patch at www.backyardgardener.com/pumkin.html or Big Pumpkins.com at www.bigpumpkins.com.
Growing Those Vines
Warmth, water, and proper pollination are the keys to growing cucumber-family crops. In the following sections, I explain how to plant, feed, water, pollinate, and harvest your viners; I also provide tips on how to keep pests and diseases under control.
Planting and feeding
Because vining vegetables love the heat, you don't need to rush the season and plant early. Wait until your soil temperature is at least 60 degrees at seeding depth before planting these vegetables. Here are some guidelines for starting viners, based on your climate zone (see the appendix for more about these zones):
Zones 3 and 4: If you live in zones 3 or 4 and have a very short growing season, you may want to start cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, and squash indoors 3 to 4 weeks before your last frost date. Or consider buying transplants at a garden center. To get a jump on the season in cool areas such as zones 3 and 4 (though zones 5 and 6 can also benefit), lay black or dark green plastic mulch on your soil 1 or 2 weeks before planting to heat up the soil (see Chapter 15 for details).
Any other zone: If you live in other climate zones, sowing seeds directly in your garden should work fine. In warm areas such as southern Florida and Texas, you can even start a fall crop of cucumbers or summer squash. Pull out the first group of plants when the summer heat, insects, and diseases become too intense; then plant a fall crop in August to mature 3 or 4 months later.
Plant seeds about 1 inch deep in the soil, and space them far enough apart so they have room to ramble. For vining varieties of cucumbers, melons, squash, and pumpkins, plant hills at least 6 to 10 feet apart. For bush varieties, plant seeds about 2 to 4 feet apart. Follow the spacing guidelines for individual vegetables in the appendix.
Planting in hills is really a misnomer. It means planting four or six seeds in a 1-foot-diameter circle. After germination, you thin these seedlings to two plants per hill.
You also can plant cucumber-family crops in rows, but the hill method is better with the vining types because it enables you to thin the weakest plants and not throw off the spacing between the remaining plants. However, if you're using black plastic mulch (which is necessary in cool areas), your best option is to plant in rows (see Chapter 13 for details).
If you don't have a lot of room in your garden (viners require 4 to 6 feet), but you really want to grow pumpkins, melons, and vining varieties of cucumbers and squash, try these space-saving techniques:
Pinch off the tips of the vines after the fruits have set to keep them from extending too far (see Figure 8-2).
Physically pick up the vines and direct them back toward the plant.
Plant along the edge of your garden so that the vines run into your lawn. That way you don't have to mow as much lawn either.
Grow cucumbers and melons on an A-frame trellis (see Chapter 15 for trellising options), which helps plants grow straighter and stay cleaner. You may need to support melons with a nylon or fabric sling, shown in Figure 8-3, after they form.
Figure 8-2: Pinch off the ends of vines to keep them in bounds and mature your fruits faster.
The cucumber-family responds better than any other vegetable family to extra doses of manure and compost. Cucumber-family crops love organic matter, so add a generous 3- to 4-inch-thick layer of compost to each planting bed. Sometimes pumpkin plants vine out of old compost or manure piles, which is evidence of how much this vegetable family loves manure. If you don't have a source for manure or compost, work in a handful of balanced organic fertilizer, such as 5-5-5, around each plant. To help increase the fruit count and size, add a side-dressing of the same fertilizer after the plants begin vining. Chapter 15 discusses side-dressing and fertilizer in more detail.
Figure 8-3: Supporting melon fruits with a sling helps make trellising the vines easier and makes for simpler harvesting.
Water, water, water!
Cucumber-family crops are like camels; they're almost 95 percent water at maturity. Without a consistent supply of water, your melons won't taste sweet, your winter squash and pumpkins won't grow large, and your cucumbers will taste bitter. To get the best-sized and best-tasting vining crops, give your plants a consistent supply of water. The general rule is to water so that the soil is wet 6 inches deep. If you're growing your crops with black plastic mulch, consider placing a soaker hose or drip irrigation hose underneath th
e plastic to ensure that the water gets to the plants. (See Chapter 15 for more watering ideas.) After the soil has warmed, mulch around the plants with a 3- to 4-inch-thick layer of hay or straw to help conserve moisture and keep weeds away. (You don't need to mulch with hay if you're using black plastic, however.)
If you want the sweetest melons, water consistently until a week or so before maturity and then reduce your frequency of watering; the melon fruits will have less water and taste sweeter.
The great thing about this group of vining crops is that after they start growing and running to their hearts delight, they shade the ground, preventing weeds from germinating and keeping the soil moist. They're their own best friends!
Ensuring proper pollination
Proper pollination is a key to growing successful cucumber-family crops, which can pose particular problems. Because most cucumber-family vegetables have separate male and female flowers on the same plant, they need Mother Nature's help to pollinate the female flowers and produce fruit.
Most of the problems that I hear from gardeners — like zucchini rotting before it starts growing, too few fruits on squash plants, and misshapen cucumber fruits — are due to poor insect pollination. Bees are the solution as well as the problem: Honeybees, bumblebees, and many other wild bees carry out pollination, but they're finicky. For example, bees don't fly when the weather is cloudy or too cool. Also, native bee populations are declining because of a variety of environmental and pest problems. Fewer bees mean fewer chances that your flowers will be pollinated. And each cucumber-family crop flower opens for only 1 day.
So what's a gardener to do? Either try to attract bees to your garden by growing a variety of bee-attractive flowers and herbs or else pollinate the flowers yourself! And no, you don't have to buzz around and dress up in a bee costume to fool the plants. Here's a simple way to pollinate crops if you're having trouble getting fruit:
1. Identify the male and female flowers on your plant (see Figure 8-4).
Don't be discouraged if you don't see female flowers at first. Male flowers form about a week ahead of the females. The female flowers will come along; just be patient.
2. Before noon on the morning that the male flower first opens, pick the male flower and then remove the petals to reveal the sexual parts of the flower (the stamen), which contain the yellow pollen.
You use this male flower to pollinate a female flower from the same variety of plant. For example, don't try to use a cucumber flower to pollinate a pumpkin plant.
Figure 8-4: Male flowers are long and thin, whereas female flowers are short and have a minifruit behind their flowers.
3. Choose a female flower that has also just opened and swish the stamen around inside that flower. Repeat this process with other female flowers, using the same male flower for two to three pollinations.
Voilà; you've done it. Congratulations, have a cigar!
If your squash and pumpkins are growing close together, and bees cross-pollinate them, will you get a squakin? Not this year at least. Cross-pollination happens when the pollen from one variety or type of plant goes to a different variety or type of plant. Only the same species of Cucurbits can cross-pollinate each other. For example, a cucumber can't cross-pollinate a pumpkin. However, squash (such as an acorn and zucchini type) and pumpkins in the same species can cross-pollinate each other. (You can tell the species by looking at the second word in the plant's botanical name.) However, this cross-pollination won't affect your crop for this year. Your acorn squash will still look and taste like an acorn squash, even if it was pollinated by a pumpkin flower. However, if you save the squash seed and plant it the following year, you may get an interesting creation. But that's why gardening is fun!
Controlling pests and diseases
Dampening the success of a good vine crop is tough. Once established, vining crops don't have any more pest problems than other vegetables. Modern, disease-resistant varieties help ward off fungi, bacteria, and viruses. However, you still need to watch out for powdery and downy mildew, wilt, and viruses that affect all vegetables (see Chapter 17). Also, stay out of the vine crop patch when the leaves are wet because you can easily spread disease as you move. Finally, remember that common insect pests, such as aphids and cutworms, attack young plants.
Here are a few diseases and pests that particularly love vining crops:
Anthracnose: This fungus attacks many vegetables, but it especially loves cucumbers, muskmelons, and watermelons. During warm, humid conditions, the leaves develop yellow or black circular spots, and fruits develop sunken spots with dark borders. To slow this disease, space plants a few feet further apart than normal so the leaves can dry quickly in the morning. Also, destroy infected leaves and fruits. You also can avoid this disease by rotating crops yearly.
Bacterial wilt: This devastating bacterial disease is found mainly on cucumbers and muskmelons. Sure signs of the disease are well-watered plants that wilt during the day but recover at night. Eventually, the plants will wilt and die. If you cut open a wilting vine, the sap will be sticky and white. To control this disease, plant resistant varieties and control the cucumber beetle, which is the pest that spreads bacterial wilt in your garden.
Cucumber beetle: This 1/4-inch-long, yellow- and black-striped (or spotted) adult beetle feeds on all cucumber-family crops. The adults feed on the leaves, and the young larvae feed on the roots. Cucumber beetles are the chief culprits for spreading bacterial wilt and virus diseases; they're especially devastating to young plants.
To control cucumber beetles, cover young plants with a floating row cover (a cheesecloth-like material that keeps insects out but lets in air, light, and water; see Chapter 21 for details) as soon as they emerge. After the plants flower, remove the row cover so bees can pollinate the flowers. You also can apply a botanical spray such as pyrethrin on the adult beetles.
Squash bug: These 1/2-inch-long, brown or gray bugs love to attack squash and pumpkins, especially late in the growing season. The adults and smaller-sized young feed on leaves and stems, sucking out the plant juices. These insects move in packs, and their feeding can quickly stunt your plants. Squash bugs usually start laying eggs when the plants begin to vine. To control these pests, crush the masses of reddish-brown eggs on the underside of leaves. Also, rotate crops and clean up plant debris in fall where the squash bugs overwinter (live through the winter).
Squash vine borer: This pest mostly affects squash and pumpkin plants. In early summer, the adult moths lay their eggs on stems near the plants' bases. After the eggs hatch, white caterpillars with brown heads tunnel into the plants' stems to feed. They can cause well-watered vines to wilt during the day and eventually die. Look for entry holes and the sawdustlike droppings at the base of your plants to see if vine borers are present. Consider growing butternut squash, which is less susceptible to vine borers.
To control these pests, try one of the following methods:
• Slit your plant's stem lengthwise from the entry hole toward the tip of the vine with a sharp razor, and physically remove the caterpillar. Then cover the stem with soil; it will reroot itself.
• Cover the plants with a floating row cover until they begin to flower, which keeps the moths from laying their eggs.
• Inject Bt (Bacillus thurengiensis; a naturally occurring bacterium that attacks only caterpillar-family insects) into the stem with a syringe to kill any young caterpillars.
Harvesting your vining crop
One of the keys to a good cucumber-family crop is harvesting the fruits at the right time. Here are some guidelines for you to follow:
Cucumbers: The fruits are best when harvested small — slicers when they're 6 inches long and picklers when they're 4 inches long. If they grow too large and begin to turn yellow, the seeds inside the cucumber are maturing, and the plant will stop producing flowers and fruits. Pick off and compost any large fruits that you missed so you can keep the young ones coming.
Summer squash: Harvest summer squash a
s small as possible, even if the flower is still attached. Doing so helps you avoid the glut of zucchinis that always happens by midsummer.
Winter squash and pumpkins: Harvest winter squash and pumpkins after they change to the expected color of their variety and their skin is thick enough that your thumbnail can't puncture them. If you want to store winter squash and pumpkins through the fall and winter, don't let them get nipped by frost, or they'll rot. Leave 2 inches of the stem attached for best storing.
Deciding when to harvest muskmelons can be tricky. After their skin color turns from green to tan and the netting (the ribbing on the skin that's slightly raised) becomes more pronounced, gently lift the melons up. If they're ripe, the fruits will slip, or easily detach, from the vine. If you aren't sure, harvesting early rather than late is better because most melons continue to ripen off the vine.
Watermelon harvesting is even more complicated because it's often not obvious when the fruits are ready to harvest. Follow these tips:
Watch for changing colors: Two signs that it may be time to harvest watermelons are when the skin color turns from shiny to dull and when the color of the spot where the watermelon rests on the ground turns from white to yellow.
Thump the watermelons: I love watching the old-time gardeners thump watermelons with their fingers to figure out when they're ripe. Whether this test is consistently accurate is another story. Here's what to look for: Unripe watermelons have a sharp sound, and ripe ones have a muffled sound. The rest is experience!
Look for brown tendrils: The surest way to tell whether your watermelons are ripe is to look at their tendrils. Tendrils are the little curlicues coming off the stems that attach to whatever weeds and plants are around. When the tendril closest to the ripening watermelon turns brown, it's harvest time!