Can’t Grow Weeds??
Even if you haven’t had much luck with plants, I can change that. The benefit to you is fresh veggies and a new sense of accomplishment while saving a couple of bucks on your grocery bill. Not a bad upside. Plants need only three things to grow, that’s it! They need good dirt, water, and bug killing. The last one you can do at home in your spare time. I’ll share my garden adventure with you in these hands on articles.
Watch my short vids, read my short ‘how I did it’ stories.
The videos will be short. They are a pain to edit and I have a low tolerance for that too. The articles will be fairly short and entertaining. From time to time I will bring in guest gardeners to add their hints too. And on to the first one!
Squashed Under Foot!
Squash is considered one of the easiest veggies to grow. Some people say zucchini will grow on the sidewalk if it gets watered enough. Talk about Huberous! I sure can grow squash. I can also fail with squash and I’ll prove it to you, read on!!
Yellow squash is a veggie garden standard
I always grow some yellow squash. Kathy loves it. I tolerate it. I prefer the necks. Squash is in the same family as other garden standards like cucumbers and watermelon. They are big plants and require lots of room. I have never grown any kind of squash in a pot. It was not my best idea either. I figured it’s such a simple crop, why not? I now have a list of reasons why not.
But first, there’s more to the story
The story had a bright side and a not-so-bright one. There’s always more to the story than the first inciting incident. First, my yellow squash almost immediately crashed and burned. I found out I had two strikes against me. These are not excuses, they are facts. My yard has a lot of shade, in fact, too much shade for some crops. Nothing I can do about it. We have spent 25 years encouraging live oaks to be all they can be. They shade the house, keeping our electric bill down. They also keep veggies from being all they can be.
And second,
And second, there was another lesson I learned through pain. Many plants are phototropic. It’s a bad idea to plant them with the days growing shorter, like planting squash in October. Weak plants are prone to attracting all sorts of ailments. My yellow squash attracted mildew and fungus. No amount of organic spray could overcome the tide of fungus. That attracted Florida bugs! I just couldn’t win. Crash and burn! End of the story.
I’m too dumb to know when to quit
I found another squash I was determined to try. I don’t know when to quit! This time I waited until after Christmas, though. Dumb or not, for better or worse, on I went. I found an heirloom type of zucchini squash called Cocozelle. First off, heirloom seeds will breed true. They are not hybrid Agri biz-modified plants. The Cocozelle looks both similar and different from the typical zucchini you buy at the store. It is shaped like the other zucchini but has different color patterns than other z plants.
My report on it to follow! Keep an eye peeled.
