It has been a pretty ordinary growing season in my neck of the woods. Below average rainfall with weird below average temperatures. Not much grew well, especially the pumpkins, zucchini, and squash.
I had these three vegetables growing in one of the two front yard garden beds and rotated it from the other bed they were in last year.
Zucchini – BlackJack
As always, the zucchini were prolific and these six got away from me. I don’t think I will plant zucchini in the front yard next year because I only visit it once a week and didn’t pick the smaller ones as often as I should. These will be cut up and frozen into chunks or shredded for stews and soups during the winter.
Australian Butter Pumpkin
I planted Australian Butter Pumpkin and Queensland Blue, but the Qld Blue didn’t produce a single pumpkin. I harvested four Aussie Butter Pumpkins of 6 plants. A pretty dismal effort. You can tell that they are ripe when they turn this orange colour and the stem looks wrinkled.
Random Squash
From a plant that Jessie (aka Rabid Little Hippy) gifted me, this random squash grew. I harvested 2 of these. The vine for this squash was the most prolific of all the pumpkin vines and basically went feral through that part of the yard.
Jessie, if you know what these are, please leave a comment letting me and the readers know the variety. It is a nice looking squash but I would like to know what I am eating before I cut it open!
Total Pumpkin harvest
So unlike the 17 pumpkins I harvested last year, this years crop was nothing to write home about. Mind you, all of these gifts from nature are welcome in our house. We will put them all to good use and eat them over the colder months.
I am looking forward to roast pumpkin with skin on, Pumpkin and Chorizo Risotto, Pumpkin Soup, to name a few. And not to mention all the Zucchini in Minestrone and pasta sauces as well.
Now that I mention it, I feel blessed to have reaped a tidy harvest. I have to remember to be grateful for what my garden provided. I still won’t have to buy any pumpkins over the winter. We will just make do.
How did your pumpkin crop pan out? Was it a bumper one, or on the smallish size like mine?
What lovely pink bananas you have! 😉 Yep, they’re pink banana pumpkins. I must have given you the only PB seedlings I had as I have seen none of the fruit in my garden. Tell me how they taste and save me some seeds please, or better yet, save me a tiny bite please so I know what I’m growing. 😉
I’ve done super well with pumpkins this year I think. I have 6 or so Lumina, some of which are HUGE, 3-4 or so Galeux d’Esines, 2 of which are absolutely massive, 10+ (at a guess) butternuts and a couple of potkins sent froma friend in Tassie. My buttercup pumpkins have been prolific with large and small fruits too, all of which will be fed to the goats as they are the most boring pumpkin I’ve ever eaten! 😉 Oh, and there’s another one that’s just flowering now with a sort of star shaped dark green fruit which I can’t seem to identify from the seeds I bought. I doubt I’ll get more than 1 of edible dimensions though unless there are others hidden amongst the impenetrable tangle of metre high leaves.
I’ve not yet picked mine but it will be an epic harvest weight wise, that’s for sure. Today I think. We came within a gnat’s whisker of a frost last night and that says to me it’s time to clear those beds and add some compost ready for winter crops. 🙂
Hi Gavin….sorry to hear about your pumpkins…mine were not that good this year either…had a bumper crop last year with about 22 pumpkins…..this year I grew from my own seeds and planted out the seedlings….only managed around 10 qld blue of various sizes from massive to mini…lots of baby pumpkins started then died off even though they had been fertilized by bees and me for good measure…not sure what happened.
Hi Gavin and KIm,
I was very lucky with a bumper pumpkin harvest this year. I planted four vines in my suburban sized backyard and have harvested close on twenty pumpkins. I live in the High Country of Victoria so it is always a race to have crops ripen before the frosts hit again. Last year I only harvested four pumpkins. This lot will see me through until next harvest, I reckon.
Hi Gav,
I’m only expecting about half a dozen pumpkins from 4 vines (there may be more hidden). It has been a funny year in Armidale too – zucchinis,tomatoes, peas and beans in abundance – beetroot and spinach failing to germinate. We also had the dreaded earwigs again, and they decimated my cherries and ate off all of the borlotti beans as soon as they had an inch or two of growth. Eventually they left us alone and I got a crop of borlottis to grow.
We’ve had the hottest Summer I can remember, but I still have not managed to grow eggplant – mine are still only a centimetre or two long!
Nevertheless, I’m always grateful for whatever I manage to grow and whatever friends may have to swap.
Madeleine
The pumpkins I planted didn’t do well but the self seeded ones did. Love pumpkin risotto BTW.
No pumpkins, but we were getting plenty of Squash but we missed most as we were away. Fortunately Sean (our son) made good good use of them while we were gone and even managed to sell a few along with some eggs to pay for this quarter’s chicken feed. Woo Hoo 🙂
The plants have succumbed to powdery mildew 🙁 but we still have a few stored in the kitchen which will keep us going for another few weeks. 🙂
Cheers
MOC
So glad you posted this Gavin. My butternut vine in Melbourne only produced 3 pumpkins, although there are a couple of flowers again now which might amount to something… I thouht it was me, but now am happy to blame the weather 🙂
Zucchinis did very well. I think they’re really one of the easiest to grow – good for beginners.
Cheers,
emily