Tromboncino Squash Have I Loved

Stored tromboncino squash.  The one at the top left has a little frost damage.

I've never grown any squash in Maryland that didn't have problems with borers, squash bugs, or both.  They are just a fact of life for an organic grower in Maryland.  Squash bugs are nasty little beetles that suck the juices out of your squash leaves and stems.  They're extremely shy (though fairly large), so usually the first time they attack your garden you don't see them until it's far too late.  Borers, on the other hand , burrow into the base of your squash plant just above the soil line, and then crawl up the stem, eating everything in their path so that the rest of the plant usually dies of thrist.  Between the two of them I only got about two weeks' worth of summer squash in 2011, despite hours of hand-picking squash bugs.  That's what first prompted me to try tromboncinos - the catalog said they were a squash-bug-resistant zucchini substitute!  ("Hmmm..." I wondered skeptically.  "Do they just not taste good?") 

They were so lovely and vibrant and productive that first year that I actually thought they hadn't been attacked by borers, until I went to pull up the plant at the end of the year and the stem crumbled in my hand.  See, tromboncino has this lovely habit of putting down good, strong secondary stems about every 8ft.  The borers infest the main stem and they simply get their water from somewhere else.  As for the squash bugs - I guess maybe the tromboncinos don't taste good because I don't see nearly as many squash bugs on them.

As a zucchini substitute, it turns out to be somewhat lacking, IMO.  The flesh is more melon-like than zucchini, and it overcooks easily to turn into green mush on my grill. 

However, tromboncino has other uses.  It purees really well for use in quick breads, and will produce by the basketful in the heat of summer under constant attack.  I planted a 4x20 ft bed mixing these with parsley and probably harvested more than 50 green tromboncinos.  What's more, if you don't pick them in time they are even tastier ripe, and store well as a winter squash.  The ones pictured above are the last of my stored squash from last summer; the little one in the middle is starting to dry out, which prompted me to cook the rest and freeze the meat.  (For comparison, my pumpkins started to go in December under similar conditions.)  Even the seeds were delicious - somewhat brighter than pumpkin seeds, with slightly less meat. 

If you have the space for a boisterous squash in your garden, this one is a great choice.

Watching the Potatoes

My friend Renee Michelle once told me some advice she said came from her mother: that you can't get your floor clean unless you get right down there and scrub it.  Curious, I knelt down on my floor one day with a sponge and a mop, Cinderella-style, and tried it.  Yugh!  I'd thought my mop was doing a wonderful job, but upon closer inspection the floor was actually really dirty!

Potato plants -see the barely noticeable yellowing on that bottom middle leaf?

Little potato flower buds

Garden plants are kind of like that, too; if you don't kneel down and look at it real close, everything might seem fine.  By the time you notice the problem from standing height, it is because the plant is suffering, and it is probably too late to do much.  Having learned this lesson the hard way many times, I try to make it a policy to look closely at all my plants on a regular basis.  (It also helps that I bring a very short person with me every time.)  Right now I'm watching the potatoes very closely because I think it was about this time last year that I failed to notice early signs of potato beetles eating them and possibly infecting them with...something.  (See Potato Problem.)  I have squashed two adult beetles so far, and spotted just a bit of damage.  I also found a moderately large egg mass.

Fortunately, I think this year's plants have a jump start on the bugs.  I noticed last week that several of the plants are starting to form flower buds, which they didn't have a chance to do last year.  I'm crossing my fingers for a serious spud harvest this year!

Good Things in the Garden



Some really good things have been happening in the garden lately, so I thought I'd share.

1. R picked the first ripe strawberry from the bed in front of our house this afternoon.  It's fun to see how much he likes picking them, and exciting that he seems to actually remember it from last year.
2. 

   

   Happy grapevine (background) surrounded by floppy asparagus

   The new grapevine is growing!

3. 

   Broccoli plant, meet foot.

   The broccoli plants are huge!  And we picked the first head today, several times bigger than last year's disappointing pickings.
4. 

   

   Romaine lettuce head

   

   Valerie lettuce, and weeds

   The lettuce deluge continues.  But in new news, the romaine appears to be making heads after all.  After consulting my guinea pig - I mean taste-tester! - I have decided that commercial growers must discard those thick outer leaves I was picking before.  Which explains how they get the lettuce heads so darn clean!
5. 

   

   R really likes to help with picking

   

   Happy spinach, with interplanted peppers

   The spinach is looking great - better than I've ever grown, thanks to the lovely long spring we've had.  R and I picked a bunch on Tuesday and used it to make yummy pizzas.  This was the first time we've tried any of it outside of salads, and it was really tasty!  It has a very spinachy appearance, and I was expecting it to be too bitter or overtly spinachy, but it is lovely.  We definitely want to grow this kind again next year.  (If I know what it is; I think it's Melody.)
6. 

   

   One large celeriac - the rest are 2 inches tall

   The celeriac that sprouted last fall is quite large and is starting to make little flower buds.  Celeriac is a biennial, like carrots; it grows a bunch of foliage during the first year of its life, storing the energy produced by the leaves in a large root.  During the second year it uses that energy to produce flowers and seeds, so the best time to pick it is at the end of the first year.  (Don't ask me why I thought this was a fall crop, I honestly don't know!)  At any rate, I think I'm going to pull this one before the flowers go much further.  I don't know how much root it could possibly have grown over the winter, but I guess we'll find out!

7. 

   R helped find and photograph this ladybug

   I'm seeing so many ladybugs at the community garden this year!  R is fascinated by my claim that I like them because they eat other bugs.  He points them out to me every time we go and asks me if they eat other bugs.  When I say yes he replies, "I don't know why, dough," which is his way of asking for more information.  What can I say?  I don't know why, either!
8. 
   Another gardener at the community garden, M, planted a row of strawberries about this time last year.  It was too late to get any berries out of them then, but boy are they doing well this year!  I am definitely thinking about investing the time and space to plant some of my own.
9. I saw the first pea blossom on one of the plants at the community garden this morning. Mmmm...

Cilantro!!!

Last week I decided it was time to pull out last year's cilantro plants and put in the new plants I started earlier this spring.  This was quite an undertaking, since the cilantro had completely overrun half of the herb bed, and had self-seeded from 2009 plantings in a large pot and a concrete planter next to my door.  We just had a lot of cilantro.

A big pile of cilantro to clean and sort and store

I decided to leave one plant by the birdbath and see if I can collect some coriander later this year.  It is monstrously big.



A giant cilantro plant dwarfing the birdbath.

When I was done I had two ice cube trays full of chopped cilantro (which I froze with a little water), one large tray to dry (dried cilantro?) and two stuffed baggies that I just decided to give away.  No one needs this much cilantro!




Cilantro cubes in a freezer bag, and drying cilantro on my cooling rack

While I was cleaning the leaves I found a neat little surprise: ladybug eggs!  They're orange, oval, and usually arrayed in neat little geometric patterns that remind me of crystals.  Whenever I see these I try not to disturb them, but if I see them it usually means I already have.  I took them back outside and tucked them into a shrub that has an insect problem; hopefully they'll make it.


Ladybug eggs on a cilantro leaf

Good Bugs That Eat Bad Bugs

A couple weeks ago I noticed that a few of my romaine lettuces were looking a little yellow. On closer inspection I could see that they were under attack by aphids. The aphids have been worse than usual this year, I think because we haven't had much rain to wash them off of the plants. When I got home I mixed up a bottle of my recently purchased neem oil to spray on them at my next visit. Neem oil is an organic insecticide/fungicide/bad-stuff-icide that has been highly recommended by other gardeners I trust, but this was my first time using it due to the fact that I'm cheap and it's not.

Then, as I was bent over trying to squirt the darned stuff under the low-lying romaine leaves, I saw an even better reason to stop spraying: ladybug larvae. At the time I couldn't even remember their name, but I knew them as friends. Good bugs, as Mercer Mayer would tell us - because they eat aphids. I found two on the lettuce and one on my asparagus (also under aphid attack), enjoying a nice little picnic.

Supposedly neem is not toxic to ladybug beetles themselves, but I'm not so sure about the larvae. Here's hoping I didn't kill them, because I sure doubt I managed to spray all the aphids. (Note: The image above was blatantly stolen from Chikblog.)