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Post by woodeye on Aug 25, 2022 7:44:55 GMT -6
A 20 gallon grow bag that has one plant each of Tromboncino & Early Bulam Korean squash. A 7 gallon grow bag with Sooyow Nishiki cucumbers. All were planted 06/30/22, all came up on 07/04/22.
Early Bulam (nickname is Avocado squash) Will pick this one soon. Bumblebees busy this morning, I'm fairly certain the smaller one got pollinated.
Tromboncino. Hope it gets busy and produces soon.
Sooyow Nishiki cucumbers are starting to get with it.
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Post by hmoosek on Aug 25, 2022 10:24:47 GMT -6
Looking good! Speaking of trellises, I’ve seen a number of you tubers making them from cedar fence pickets. Fan type, box type. It seems easy enough.
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Post by woodeye on Aug 25, 2022 11:58:24 GMT -6
That sounds like a good idea for a trellis, moose. I found this old gate that already had a cattle panel wired onto it, I just hauled it with the tractor and stood it up against the clothesline pole and wired it up solid. I think it's about 10 feet tall. I doubt I have any more ready-made trellises out there, will have to build some for next year. I can put a couple of grow bags on the other side of the trellis too, that way I won't get so much wear and tear on my deer. They won't have to walk all the way around the trellis to eat my crops...
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Post by hmoosek on Aug 25, 2022 15:22:19 GMT -6
Here’s one of the videos on garden Trellises. There’s a bunch on you tube though. He builds a fan trellis and a box trellis in this one.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Aug 25, 2022 19:49:17 GMT -6
Those plants are looking great, woodeye . Your trellis should certainly hold them. I love growing things on cattle panels, but I have mine arched over beds. I can’t imagine how heavy the gate and panel together must have been to put up, but your squash won’t pull it down. I’ve never eaten any of those varieties (or even heard of the cucumber or Korean squash before). I’ve thought about Tromboncino, but right now I’m trying to use Seminole Pumpkin to fill a similar role. I’m growing a Japanese slicing cucumber, Jibai Shimoshirazu, and just harvested three nice fruits off it today to have in a cucumber salad for dinner tonight. It hasn’t been very prolific at all this summer, but the cooler temperatures we’ve had recently seem to be helping it put on more female flowers. (It’s had tons of male flowers all summer but few females.). I have only two vines and one got hit hard by aphids recently. I’m hoping the other will keep going and give me more production. hmoosek , are you planning on making trellises for the future? The ones in the video looked nice, but I’d worry about the fan one being too small for a vigorous plant. The spacing on the box one seemed odd to me. I think I’d rather have the bottom horizontal piece start higher up and have smaller spaces in between the crossbars. I’m still impressed, though, by what he built.
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Post by hmoosek on Aug 25, 2022 20:00:50 GMT -6
Those plants are looking great, woodeye . Your trellis should certainly hold them. I love growing things on cattle panels, but I have mine arched over beds. I can’t imagine how heavy the gate and panel together must have been to put up, but your squash won’t pull it down. I’ve never eaten any of those varieties (or even heard of the cucumber or Korean squash before). I’ve thought about Trombocino, but right now I’m trying to use Seminole Pumpkin to fill a similar role. I’m growing a Japanese slicing cucumber, Jibai Shimoshirazu, and just harvested three nice fruits off it today to have in a cucumber salad for dinner tonight. It hasn’t been very prolific at all this summer, but the cooler temperatures we’ve had recently seem to be helping it put on more female flowers. (It’s had tons of male flowers all summer but few females.). I have only two vines and one got hit hard by aphids recently. I’m hoping the other will keep going and give me more production. hmoosek , are you planning on making trellises for the future? The ones in the video looked nice, but I’d worry about the fan one being too small for a vigorous plant. The spacing on the box one seemed odd to me. I think I’d rather have the bottom horizontal piece start higher up and have smaller spaces in between the crossbars. I’m still impressed, though, by what he built. I need some, but I probably will go about it a bit differently due to the tools involved.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Aug 25, 2022 20:02:48 GMT -6
Years ago my husband and I built Mel Bartholomew’s trellis design out of electrical conduit. (I have no idea what that stuff would cost today, so it may no longer be a feasible idea). We had nylon trellis netting on them in Virgnia, and that held up for a while. It was already old when me moved to Texas, and we were given some wire fencing for free, and we used that to replace the trellis netting. It’s not a work of art, but once it’s covered with plants, it’s beautiful and sturdy and holds up really well in the Texas weather. We have four, and I like that they can be moved around, unlike my cattle panel arches (which I also love) which are secured in place.
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Post by woodeye on Aug 25, 2022 20:47:58 GMT -6
Those are real nice cucumbers, chrysanthemum. I like it that they are smooth skinned. My cucumbers are sort of dangerous looking spikey things. But they taste good anyway.
I have seed for Seminole pumpkins next year. I'm anxious to see how they do here. I have Tatume seed also, and I know it does well here. With the Seminole, Tatume, Early Bulam, Caserta, and maybe Tromboncino, I'll surely have all the summer squash my friends, family, and myself want.
I remember making one of those arches out of cattle panel years ago, they do work well that way. Next year I'll probably just try to get by using pieces of cattle panels that I already have, but perhaps buy a couple of panels the following year. Oh, I used the Kubota tractor with front loader to hang the trellis for the plants in the pictures above. It was too heavy for me to move around much.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Aug 26, 2022 9:14:00 GMT -6
Your cucumbers do look a bit intimidating, Woodeye, but taste is what matters. I haven’t had a good cucumber year productivity-wise, but that fruits I had had from the Jibai Shimoshirazu haven’t been bitter, and that’s saying something when it’s been record-breaking heat and drought. I just had to look up Tatume squash. I haven’t grown it, but I think I’ve heard of it before under the name “calabacita.” I think they may be sold in stores around here under that name. I found an article that discussed them as a good crop for Texas. I was surprised because they’re a “pepo” species, but the very end of the article said they stand up under borers. I might have to think about giving them a try. (That’s the danger of the forum; it puts too many vegetable ideas in one’s head.) aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/newsletters/hortupdate/2010/jun/tatume.htmlI’m glad you had some equipment to help with hanging that trellis. That gate looks really heavy. When we built our first garden, we used one 16-foot cattle panel, two 20-foot utility panels, and one 10-foot gate, all of which we had on our property when we moved in but not really serving much purpose. We had to move them all to the area where we first built our garden. The utility panels were particularly heavy and had to go a couple hundred feet uphill. My husband and I needed to stop and rest several times while we carried those. The next spring we took them all down because we moved the garden to a shadier spot with easier ability to water. It was definitely easier to go a shorter distance downhill. The next year we found some wire fencing on sale and were able to put up a more standard fence. We had purchased some cattle panels the year before to make an arched trellis, so we were able to repurpose the one cattle panel into part of a new arch. The utility panels went to the back of twenty-foot long beds to make a long trellis. I took some pictures this morning. Here’s the repurposed cattle panel making half of this arch where I have my Red Noodle Yardlong beans. These are cattle panels we purchased last year after we were given the garden beds. That’s my Seminole Pumpkin vine. This is one of the utility panels. The previous owners used them to block off an area of the property where there were tons and tons of rocks, probably to keep their miniature horses out. We just told our kids to stay out, and we took the panels off the t-posts and used them. This one has Crimson Sweet Watermelon growing up them (though no fruit yet, except one possibly that was perhaps just pollinated). The Woods Mountain Crazy Beans are in the front of the bed. These are my cucumber vines. I think the aphid-infestation is getting worse, not better, and may be spreading. I may just need to pull and trim to knock back the numbers.
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Post by woodeye on Aug 26, 2022 10:56:34 GMT -6
Thanks for the photos & the link, chrysanthemum, your garden looks great. I like the arched panels better than my straight up version because it would be easier to pick the fruits and manage the plant's direction of growth. My cucumbers have already gotten too high to control from the ground, so they're just going wherever they want up there.
As for the tatume, I've always heard that they are most popular in Texas. Bon said that she tried growing them and the bugs killed them, but I've never had anything bother them. The vine grows fast and they put on a lot of squash. I picked them when they were about the size of a softball, maybe a little bigger. I never let any mature on the vine. The last time I grew them, the vine headed out into a pasture that hadn't been mowed, so it was tricky to find some of the squash. I won't let one do that again, I'll drive some stakes to force it to stay inbounds. I haven't tried growing them up a trellis, but I don't see why a person couldn't.
x2 Being on a garden forum gives me too many ideas for new crops to grow.
I went out to the backyard this morning and harvested what will end up being on my supper menu tonight...
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Post by woodeye on Aug 26, 2022 19:10:51 GMT -6
The Korean squash and Sooyow Nishiki cucumbers are a terrific combo. I put a little bit of oil in a corning ware dish, then sliced them this evening, added some kosher salt and granulated garlic, and some smoked sausage. Covered with plastic wrap and poked some holes in it, then microwaved for 9 minutes on high. I see another reason that the Korean squash has avocado squash as a nickname, it actually looks very similar to an avocado inside too. It was wonderful...
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Post by woodeye on Aug 31, 2022 6:57:58 GMT -6
First time I've grown Tromboncino, so I didn't know what to expect. I don't know when this one is ever going to make a flower. I guess this is normal?
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Post by june on Aug 31, 2022 8:42:48 GMT -6
I grew these tromboncino squash last year. I gave up on conventional yellow squash because I couldn't beat the vine borers. I tried the tromboncino's because I heard they did not attract vine borers....not so. These were the only 2 squash I got before borers killed all my vines. Just a little bigger than this is about the size to cut them for cooking. They tasted like squash.
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Post by june on Aug 31, 2022 8:53:28 GMT -6
I'm stubborn and determined not to be outdone by squash borers, this year I tried Chinese Snake gourds. Vine borers did not bother them AT ALL...and they do taste just like squash. Only problem is I REALLY don't like snakes and the very name gives me the hibi-jibbies...much less have them hanging from the ceiling! I'm going to have to find a way to get past that.
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Post by june on Aug 31, 2022 9:06:07 GMT -6
Here's some I cooked recently...just chopped them up and sauteed with onions and butter. Tasted pretty good (I'm not much of a squash fancier). My husband liked them.
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