#honeynut squash vine

[pumpkin-patch]

A storm overnight dropped temps and the garden is loving it! A Pipsqueak, a Renegade (on that vine that snapped) and a Honeynut Squash all opened this morning. Even saw my first (male) cucumber bloom.

[obsessivevoidkitten]

*cracks knuckles* I literally did crack my knuckles right before I started to type this. I can literally ramble about my garden and gardening in general, you have just opened up a giant post. The thing I am most excited about this year is strawberries, very excited they are a new addition this year and I pre-ordered some red and some white ones. They spread via runners so within a year or so I will have a nice huge patch of them. Strawberries are both the cheapest and easiest berry to grow, though not technically a berry. Another new addition is peanuts! I wanted something with a long storage capability as well as something high in protein, while also not being too difficult to grow, peanuts fit the bill. I am also going to try sweet potatoes in a larger quantity this year, last year I just had one to plant that had been donated by the food pantry and I just could not produce much with it and it was also crowded with normal potatoes. I am still growing potatoes this year, I saved some potatoes from my fall harvest and they are going to be good to plant towards the later half of March. I am excited to replant my purple viking variety but I also got my hands on the all mighty kennebec. Perfect ratio of starch to make a good soup potato or a good fryer, also high yields!! I also plant to grow carrots, cosmic purple and lunar white. Radishes are going to make a return but I am adding a yellow variety instead of just de 18 jours radish. Everyone who knows me knows I will be attempting corn again, we had such a good result last year and it gave us a lot of food, I would like to triple production to donate excess to the senior center. I am growing moonshine, glass gem, and of course the ever amazing and personally endorsed damaun ks super sweet corn. I had so much success with tomatoes that I am branching into new varieties. Yellow, purple, orange, everything but red really. Going to go with some micro dwarf varieties like orange hat and patio choice yellow, the regular sized plant cherries I will be growing include yellow pear and bosque blue bumblebee, regular size slicers will be sart roloise, and kentucky beefsteak. Last year I grew many many many extra tomatoes and donated them by the bucketful to the senior center, family, and neighbors. And I was only growing a couple varieties last year. Pumpkins will be planted again, moranga, Rouge Vif D' Etampes, and of course the flat white boer pumpkin. I grew a crap ton of the white boers last year and they were a wonderful food source and the extras I gifted to people for decorations. I would like to try burdock root if possible. I have plans to grow a bibb lettuce mix, little gem lettuce, and merlot. For cabbage I am just trying one variety, a faster growing one good for early in the year so I can start gardening sooner, red acre cabbage. I failed with beets last year but now armed with more experience I hope to tackle the mammoth red mangel beet, it can literally grow to sizes larger than a toddler. If I can grow these I will be able to feed many many people beyond just me and the elderly lady I care for. Seriously though, google them, they are H U G E. I also want to grow some much smaller albino beets. For squash, other than pumpkins, I am growing yellow crookneck, candy roaster, honeynut, lemon squash, and golden zucchini. Hopefully I can fend off SQUASH VINE BORER. I would have had a lot more success with squash last year had it not been for SQUASH VINE BORER. In my gardening, I have many powerful enemies. The squash bugs that resemble stink bugs, and have the same stink power, the swarming Japanese Beetle, cucumber beetles, tomato.... horn... worms... the ceaseless devourer, but only one is my arch-nemesis and that one is SQUASH. VINE. BORER. And, my absolute favorite veggie, the sturdy and vigorous veggie that never lets me down, the cucumber. Varieties this year include poona kheera, dragon's egg, and pick-a-bushel. With this wonderful variety I shall grow many pounds of cucumbers, especially the high yielding pick-a-bushel. I hope to donate many of these. Now, for flowers, we don't have too many, but we do have a few. They are essential in attracting and supporting local pollinator populations but also in feeding birds. I am growing a few different types of sunflowers, the birds and pollinators go nuts for them. Chocolate cherry, russian mammoth, short stuff, and double sunking. If you are a novice gardener I cannot recommend sunflowers enough they can take some serious neglect and bad weather, droughts, storms, heat. They are so great, the senior center took some cut blooms for decoration and I still had enough for the birds and enough to save many seeds. I am also growing marigolds again and nasturtiums, which are also edible. I also was gifted some celosia seeds to try. For green beans I am growing two bush varieties, cantare and jade II green beans, they have excellent rust resistance which was a big issue for me last year. For onions I am only really going to try one variety and that is borettana, it grows fast and somewhat small, good for a beginner. Sadly I cannot actually grow any root vegetables in my clay soil, so all the potatoes/tubers/peanuts/carrots/radishes/beets cannot actually be cultivated here. The clay soil is hard and compacted and I dont have compost and soil to soften it up. I wanted to grow them in tubs, and I have a friend helping me get some to grow in, but I still have to raise over 100 dollars to get enough soil and mulch to fill them all. I also still have to get the cabbage, onion, some of the corn, some of the sunflower, and some of the tomato seeds. I do have two tubs filled so I can at least plant several potatoes. I am going to grow as much as possible and exhaust myself in the garden because I have a lot of people that get food from me and I cannot let them down. Anyway I hope that answers your question, may have over answered, lol. I hope you have a nice day too.

[whyispotatoheadalreadytaken]

Okay. So, garden update first because it brings me life.

The sun was super bright, and I'm super cramping, so I was in a hurry while taking pics, but my yellow squash is coming in so nicely!!!! I've got two on each plant.

And then my other squashes are doing wonderfully. The first is my sketty squash, and it be getting sooooo beeeegggg. The next two are my Honeynut squashies, which are taking off. Got two in the first pic and then 4 in the next (one is covered by a leaf) Two vines, same plant. Wild. Last is my butternut squash.

The butter nut is growing vines rapidly but not as much fruit as the other at the moment. But then I looked up and spotted another:

🤣🤣🤣🤣 just growing on the chicken wire cuz why not 🤷‍♀️

My tomatoes are thriving cuz that's what they do.

[ediblegardenspointloma]

Miscalculations

The winter garden will soon give way to the summer crops. Time for an honest evaluation of the state of things. Watering the garden today gave me time to think about what went awry. The word miscalculations came to mind. So here are a few of my winter garden miscalculations.

My cool season garden always includes calendulas. The petals brighten my salads and bouquets cheer me in the kitchen. After I harvested the cauliflower, I moved calendula volunteers from the front yard to the vegetable garden bed next to the snow peas. Seed has been gathered, the snow pea vines removed and the calendulas are still thriving. It could be the cool spring or more likely they were planted too late and too close to the trellis. They’re covering the area where pole beans should be planted in the next few weeks. Lettuce would have been a better succession crop.

The ‘Tango’ celery forest has just passed its winter prime. The cool spring kept the stalks in peak condition and but there is some bitterness when eaten raw now. There’s nothing I’d do differently, though if the celery had ended sooner I’d be planting honeynut squash now.

Here’s another miscalculation. These ‘Classic Magic’ bachelor buttons are about three feet tall and only now are beginning to bloom. I plant flowers with vegetables to attract pollinators and for cut flower bouquets. Behind the bachelor buttons the broccoli has been removed and I have tomatoes ready to plant in this bed. I didn’t expect them to grow so tall or mature so slowly. I’ll be removing them in a few days. Seedlings planted in the front yard are a similar height but get more sun and have bloomed for several weeks.

Currently I have three small patches of arugula. I miscalculated how quickly it grows under favorable conditions. The first planting is squeezed between the sweet peas and kale, yielding only flowers now though it was perfect at the start of the season between the emerging sweet pea vines and the transplanted kale. A succession crop in another bed is my large leaf give-away arugula. I planted this small patch of arugula too soon and I’m missing the baby leaf arugula stage.

The garden is never very tidy at the intersection of the winter and summer crops. This tangle features kale holding up the billowing sweet pea vines. Sandwich in some flowering arugula and mustard flowers permitted to exist near the kale to attract hover flies which are soldiers in the pest war on aphids. This late in the season I expect aphids to overtake all the brassicas but not this year.

Views like this of the same raised bed are distant memories. Records for the fall-winter garden 2020-2021 reflect my miscalculation. No major mistakes—just lessons learned.

But here’s a pleasant miscalculation in the front yard garden. I didn’t expect the scattered seed from last year’s blue-eyed grass to take hold with such abandon in this location where light and shadow interplay. When California native plants thrive other miscalculations fade in importance.

[roguepuppet]

Scenes from the veggie garden in early June. Tomatillo flowers, baby honeynut squash, zucchini flowers, tomatoes on the vine, green beans, cucumbers climbing their trellis. The light was awful on the peppers.... pepper pictures later in the day. (at Kokomo, Indiana) https://www.instagram.com/p/CeqvSzyOjfX/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[walks-the-ages]

If anyone knows of any US-seed-selling websites that offer a wide range of C. Moschata squash varieties, especially in different shapes and sizes for relatively cheap, let me know! 

I want to try to breed a landrace variety that grows well and early in our area, especially with how quickly the Squash Vine-Borers destroy everything in June! We’ve also had a lot of powdery mildew issues the last few weeks, so any resistance against those that I can get would be amazing on top of Moschata’s natural defense against SVBs. 

I have a wide variety of “standard” butternuts, including Waltham, Butterfly F1, Burpee’s butterbush, as well as soon-to-be-eaten varieties from the produce sections at Walmart and Aldi respectively, with unknown, unspecified varieties, but I WAS able to get two non-standard shaped ones from Aldi that I can’t wait to eat and seed save :)

I’ve also have, for the ‘non-standard butternuts’: Piena Di Napoli, Long Island Cheese, Musquee de Provence, Musquee de Maroc, Shishigatani, Seminole, Calabaza, Chirimen, Pennsylvania Dutch.

Last but not least, I have some Tromboncino seeds that are used as both summer and winter squash, and I also have korean summer squash in the form of Teot Bat Put, Early Bulam, and Meot Jaeng I Ae.

future Varieties I plan on adding to my collection include pretty much everything Baker Creek carries, especially Canada Crookneck and Tahaitan Melon for their long neck sizes, but also Dickinson and Kentucky Field Pumpkins so there’s a variety of shapes; if everything goes as it did last year, Honeynut Squash should start showing up in the produce section of Aldi soon, so I can get my hands on these C. Maxima x C. Moschata hybrids as well. 

Speaking of Hybrids, I’ve got at least 1 confirmed pollinated C. Pepo x C. Moschata hybrid growing in my garden currently (crown of thorns x butternut/tromboncino) and 1 potentially-pollinated C. Maxima x C. Moschata hybrid i’m still waiting to see if it was a success or not (Jumbo Pink Banana x Butternut).

This got a little long and rambly, but if you know of any unusual C. Moschata squash varieties that aren’t on this list, and you know where to buy the seeds online, let me know! I’m also interested in any other cool squash varieties from the different species, (DID YOU KNOW THERE’S A SUMMER SQUASH VARIETY NAMED SHREK!?) but I’m mostly focusing on Moschata varites right now that I know/can be relatively certain will survive the bugs next year. 

[tejasfarm]

Friday flowers! This is the first sunflower to grow that I managed to save from the woodchucks by fencing off the area. Our squashes are starting to become autumnal. The Honeynut Squash is adorable, they are a smaller version of the butternut but with the same amount of flavor (so, more intense per bite). People have asked about vine borers (or the lack of, so far), apparently they aren't really into butternut squash plants, which is a lot of what we have, using saved seeds from last year. So, I dunno. Got a random flower amongst the corn and squash, it's pretty, dunno where it came from. Some gorgeous bean flowers are growing, I planted some Kentucky pole beans over there, so that might explain some of it. Lastly, the borage, which is beautiful & I just made some soap from it, along with some cucumber. Can't wait to test that!! Now, I need to go pick and can a LOT of corn. Have a good weekend, y'all. Stay safe, wear a mask, and support others (small business, people, charity, whatever). 💜🖤 🧡🤎 ❤️💟💓 💙🤍 💚💛 #tejasfarm #tejasmeansfriend https://www.instagram.com/p/CDmAEfrACsY/?igshid=144eoknysbh19

[mastcomm]

This New Hudson Yards Restaurant Is Better Than It Should Be

Morbid curiosity along with a bit of masochism drew me back to Hudson Yards. Many of the restaurants that have been built there have seemed cursed on one level or another, but the latest one sounded uniquely inauspicious, starting with its timing. It opened in November — the 13th of November.

The Tavern by WS, as it’s called, faces west on 11th Avenue, offering a last nostalgic glimpse of the West Side railyards before they vanish beneath the second phase of Hudson Yards. (Yes, there’s going to be a second phase.) This winter, the restaurant’s front door has seemed like the most ferociously wind-battered part of the whole site, no small distinction. It’s such a forsaken spot that even the helpful greeters who roam the barren tundra between the buildings giving directions to despondent tourists stare blankly when you say you’re looking for the Tavern by WS.

Then again, it might be the name. To repeat, it’s called the Tavern by WS. If my instinct didn’t already tell me to beware of restaurants with bylines, past experience would. But an initials-only byline is even more suspect.

Who is this W.S., and why would he, she or they hide behind first letters? Is it Willie Sutton, the succinct bank robber? Will Shortz, the world’s only academically accredited puzzle master? Walter Slezak, the Austrian-born character actor? Watermelon Slim, the pseudonymous harmonica player? Wallace Shawn? Wayne Shorter? Whit Stillman? Wanda Sykes?

I won’t get your hopes up any further, because the real WS isn’t a person at all. The initials turn out to stand for Wine Spectator, a magazine whose publisher, Marvin R. Shanken, owns the restaurant together with Steven M. Ross, the developer responsible for Hudson Yards, and Kenneth A. Himmel, another developer, who built the mall across the tundra where David Chang and José Andrés have their restaurants.

Wine Spectator is probably best known for assigning scores to wines on a 100-point scale. Numbers in the 90s can be seen in screaming boldface print on “shelf talkers,” those hanging sales pitches that dangle in liquor-store aisles like socks on a clothesline. The notion that a drink produced by sunshine, rain, dirt, vines and yeast can be judged by how close it comes to perfection, signified by a 100 score, never made much sense. Now that many drinkers are turning to quirky, imperfect wines, the Wine Spectator’s numerals seem like artifacts from an earlier time.

Perhaps this is why the Tavern by WS looks as if its designer, Rockwell Group, finished all its drawings for the dining room around 1999, lost them, rediscovered them last year and decided they were still good to go.

The interior’s most prominent features are the wine walls. There’s one by the host’s desk, two behind the bar and more on a mezzanine that seems to have no other purpose. And catwalks, too, because what use is a wine wall without a catwalk? All that’s missing to complete the Vegas-in-the-Clinton-era theme are women in bodysuits zipping up and down on cables to collect a Screaming Eagle here, a Harlan Estate there.

For a magazine whose current issue has such cover lines as “Bordeaux 2017: What to Buy” and “2017: Another Great Vintage” (that one is about Oregon pinot noir), these walls seem almost inevitable. Any magazine like Wine Spectator is going to promote wine as a status symbol; this just turns the idea into architecture.

The Tavern by WS is very nearly another case of an aging brand getting funky on the dance floor to prove that the old man’s still got it. But somewhere in an unseen kitchen behind those walls, a brigade of cooks is working like crazy to keep that from happening.

They’re led by Eli Kaimeh, who worked for Thomas Keller for 13 years, ultimately as chef de cuisine at Per Se. He was there in 2015, when I reviewed the restaurant, and the cooking seemed to have lost its conviction. At this new restaurant, though, he has a clear sense of what he wants to do and how to do it. The menu is a laundry list of routine American restaurant dishes like grilled salmon, but they’re almost all made over in ways that improve them without becoming excessively fiddly, a fate that is never far away in Mr. Keller’s restaurants. Mr. Kaimeh has helped turn the Tavern by WS into a good restaurant, despite its owners’ efforts to make it look like the opposite.

The minestrone has tiny pasta tubes, two types of shell bean, two types of string beans and miniature fried croutons that stay crisp as they float on the surface of very pure and sweet tomato soup. Excellent olive oil has been spilled on top. This minestrone has been cleaned up in too many ways to count, but it still tastes like honest vegetable soup.

The Caesar salad looks like a cross-section of an iceberg-lettuce head, which it essentially is, except that every leaf inside it has been somehow painted with a gratifyingly sharp Caesar dressing. The top is golden with toasted chips of Parmesan bread crumbs and grated Parmesan; crisscrossed over this are two anchovies, battered and deep-fried, fish-and-chips style. I have tried telling myself I won’t eat the anchovies first, but I always do.

The single slab of Nueske’s bacon would be worth ordering even if it didn’t come with a subtly upgraded spinach salad. (The walnuts are freshly toasted and the shallots are fried.) Lobster ravioli may be a little overcomplicated, but who will complain when the complications include lobster inside the ravioli, outside the ravioli and in the brandy-spiked sauce Américaine?

Although he spent a decade cooking tasting-menu portions, Mr. Kaimeh has a knack for making main courses that are big without being boring. Sea bass gets an herb crust and a really lively vinaigrette of chopped green and black olives. The skin on spatchcocked chicken is good and crunchy, and the sauce suprême tastes a bit like skin itself, or at least like the golden drippings on a Sunday roast. A lamb shoulder is braised until it simultaneously holds its shape and falls to pieces; it has enough flavor to make up for the somewhat blah heap of cavatelli, which might also be helped by another big spoonful of gremolata.

Some stunts backfire. The cucumber jelly shards crumbled over salmon rillettes have a slight back-of-the-fridge taste, and one of the few vegetarian dishes is also one of the few things worth steering clear of: a whole honeynut squash that seems to have had brown butter pumped into it.

Stephen Collucci, the pastry chef, treats American desserts affectionately but not indulgently. If a better crust can be supplied, it will be, as with the very thin and crunchy Graham cracker layer under the coconut cream pie, or the tender shortbread holding the excellent lemon meringue tart in one piece. I don’t know what to make of the crunchy, underbaked apples in apple pie, but I know that I’d skip it next time in favor of whatever doughnut has captured Mr. Collucci’s imagination at the moment.

His department also makes the gluten-free bread, which you might want to ask for even if you eat gluten. You will get long golden ingots of rosemary cornbread, or something very like it, and they will be wonderful.

Michaël Engelmann, who is in charge of alcohol, put together a robust wine list, closing in on 400 choices. Wisely, he doesn’t treat the document as the Wine Spectator’s greatest hits. It’s got a few much-hyped names, but the large number of bottles for under $100 is really something, and nowhere on the list will you see a point score.

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[pumpkin-patch]

So you're telling me this puny Honeynut Squash half the size of the other varieties is the first one putting out tendrils. You really never know.

[pumpkin-patch]

The Honeynuts are blooming which means I've gotten to meet my first ever c moschata flower. I'd call it halfway between that of a c pepo and c maxima... a little bit ruffly, no scent.

Females are starting to look more promising too, I don't think it'll be long now

[pumpkin-patch]

My next favorite c moschata observation (unless this is just a honeynut squash thing) is that the calyces are ridiculous. Sir. Sir what are you gonna do with all that.

Local woman wonders what itty bitty baby Honeynut Squash buds are gonna look like not realizing she's been looking at them for a week already and That's It. so you're just gonna inflate like a balloon animal or

[pumpkin-patch]

It seems that the new varieties I'm trying out are not heat tolerant, and I'm at a standstill waiting for overnight temps to drop. At least we're out of the 90s now but I'm eager to see it drop below 80 so I can get some pumpkins set in time for October. Bummer how many blooms have gone to waste (I lost count).

Thankfully the Honeynut squashes are more cooperative so I have a few of those little guys set.

[ediblegardenspointloma]

In My San Diego Garden and Kitchen

October is the month to plant the cool season vegetable garden so there are few harvests now. It is the time of anticipation as the winter crops take their place in the raised beds. The bell peppers remain as the last of the fruit changes to red and a small patch of arugula yields enough for salads.

The baby butternut Climbing Honeynut Squash completed the two week curing time as per Harvest to Table and is stored in the garage. The yield of pounds was acceptable for a trellis only three feet wide and stashed behind the corn. Some of the vines left the party early and their fruit was undersized.

The rhubarb benefited from cooler weather and some rain. Seemed an occasion for a apple-rhubarb-berry crisp.

Fruit is the focus of this month as another round of strawberry guavas arrives and we wait for the second crop of ‘Dorsett Golden’ apples. .

The strawberry guavas in the fall crop are usually smaller—grape size which increases the labor. For this crop we shake the tree and guavas drop to the garden trays below. We gather and sort daily. We’ve given away the best ones to a cadre of friends who crave them. The remainder I make into a concentrated strawberry guava puree that is rich in flavor and requires no sweetener. The puree is used atop plain yogurt or fruit, in smoothies and frozen for later. Use the blog search feature for other posts on strawberry guavas.

The thyme and basil thrive with the warm autumn days. I keep the basil trimmed and give away “bouquets.” With low humidity Santa Ana conditions recently, I harvested a large handful of thyme to dry for my daughter-in-law in Seattle. The coastal humidity returned so I’ll finish with a dash of heat from the oven.

Anemone ‘Honorine Jobert’ reliably shows up in October when other perennials have faded from the scene. Design inspiration is from @nataliedesigns with her seasonal use of garden anemones.

You may enjoy seeing what other garden bloggers harvested last week at Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.

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