Wednesday 27 July 2011

It's a Bit of a Squash in These Tights

Billy would like to point out that these tights do not come from his wardrobe

Well, actually, it's a whole squash. This may not be the most aesthetic way of gardening but it sure is a good way to prevent the swelling squash from breaking the vines and falling to their death.






 And these squash need some help. Up until about three weeks ago, every single squash on our spaghetti squash plants grew up to the size of a thumb, promptly rotted, and fell off. You can imagine how devastating this has been for us (hence no blogs for a while - too depressing).





Much internet research has taken place and we think that we may have found the solution: When the female squash flower closes up again and begins to go brown, a bit like this:



... we manually remove the flowers. What seems to have been happening is that the flower has been rotting, and the rot subsequently spreading to the squash.

Now that our squash are finally beginning to actually grow, they need constant surveillance. As you may recall Muffin is currently doing her community service and we felt guarding the squash bed a suitable punishment to fit her crimes.

1 comment:

  1. It was a joy to see the Harbill garden "live" the other day. I'm so impressed! Ironically it should be ME saying it's a bit of a squash in this garden. I'm running out of space and my saffron crocuses have arrived. No idea where to put them!

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