Gete-okosomin Squash --more pics !

 I just can't wait to have my first taste of this Squash variety - the Gete -okosomin  ,which has been carefully grown , it is said for as long as 5,000 years and kept pure by the Miami women in their vegetable gardens . I would love to know the names of these clever ladies  and say a big thankyou for their good work !
                                             It is said to be really delicious !

                             The name Gete -okosomin means the Big Old Squash .

 I'm being careful to keep it pure too . After hand pollinating them , here the petals are tied with a length of Bindweed .

                                          ......and here tied with a cable tie !

It doesn't matter what you use , the flower petals eventually wither and fall off leaving behind the now pollinated or set fruit  .

 I ,m just worried about slugs now and will be putting down more crushed eggshells .

                            One little baby Gete-okosomin..beginning to swell !

Last year I grew the Giant Banana Squash successfully so I know I can do this !
I know I,m a bit behind everyone else growing squashes , with the little accident we had earlier in the year , but hopefully , we should get more hot sunshine towards the end of August and into September to bring them on and I did put a lot of good stuff into this new Pumpkin bed ...Pumpkins and Squashes are hungry beasts !
 They also need a lot of space ! In this bed there are a few Sweetcorn , Two Cherokee Purple Tomatoes and one Gete-okosomin Squash and it is spiraling around the bed like crazy and now even trying to climb out !
 The weather has been a little overcast in the morning and sunny and hot this afternoon .
Lots of people coming over to our beautiful beaches in Mullion..lots of happy children building sand castles !

Gete-okosomin update .

                 " The Birds and the Bees !"..lol ! ..only doing it without the bees !

                                                 Here we go again  !
I,m getting the idea of how to pollinate the flowers by hand now , with a view to getting pure seeds and there are more flowers coming along now , both male and female .
Tie up the petals the evening before the flower is expected to open .

 Tie them up with soft twine , cable tie , piece of wool thread or stick them together with masking tape . Here I used a nice long strong piece of Bindweed ..might as well put it to good use !

 A close up view of the male stamen which is covered with pollen.Isn't it beautiful ? !

Now I have more male flowers coming , I can pick one , pull off the petals from around the stamen and use it to wipe the pollen directly onto the female stigma .

           Last time I took pollen from a male flower with a cotton bud stick .

 You can do this , but this time I was able to use the actual male stamen .
Next , I had to get up very early ,before the bees....untie the flower...dust the stigma with the pollen on the male stamen.....tie up the flower once again .
 Very important ..I forgot to say it last time ..tie the flower petals up again !
 The flower will wither and drop off leaving the now set fruit to swell and grow .
I'm writing all this , so I can remember what I did , for when I come to do this again next year .  I hope it might also be of some help to you too .
 

Maybe tomorrow .....

                                    Yep ! ..it's another Gete -okosomin update !
           We,ve had a few rain showers and it has made such a difference . Well maybe not the sweetcorn , but the kale , Cherokee Purple tomatoes , Gete -okosomin Squash and a few nicotiana plants are all really doing well .
We had a problem in that the squash was only producing female flowers ..and then a few male flowers appeared..but seemed very reluctant to open their petals .

                       Female Gete-okosomin Squash flower bud with immature fruit .
               
This evening I ventured out into a warm , foggy Mullion evening , typical for this time of the year , and found that we have two female buds and one male about ready to open . I think maybe tomorrow morning .

                                       Male Gete-okosomin Squash flower bud .

There is another female flower which I tied with soft twine to prevent the bees getting in to it .

 Here is the female flower tied with soft  twine ...hopefully I will be able to pollinate these two female flowers tomorrow .....and breathe a big sigh of relief !
Anyway, other news , keep an eye  out for the Sparrow Hawk flying around our way in Mullion , at the moment . At least ..I think it is a Sparrow Hawk..please let me know if you think it is something else , I,m not an expert and would love to know for sure .
 I began taking photos from the kitchen window after my husband called me "Quickly come and see this !"
I took a couple of  photos indoors , then , quietly ...managed to sneak out side and get surprisingly close to it .

    My heart pounding  all the while..it turned and looked at me and flew away !

Poor pigeon ..he was still alive ! He flew into the bushes and I just left him there to hopefully recover from his terrifying ordeal . I needed a cup of tea after that too !

 More rain coming our way tonight , will make the job of weeding easier tomorrow .

Gete -okosomin first flower !

Delighted to see my Gete -okosomin plant has a flower coming !
  Its a female flower though and unfortunately there are no male flowers to pollinate it with yet .

Female flower has an immature fruit behind it .
Male flower is just a flower on a long thin stalk .

 If you only have male flowers , these can be picked and saved in a jar of water in the fridge for a few days , until you have a female flower to pollinate .

 Sadly this female flower and fruit will just drop off if left unpollinated ....sigh  ...so I,m hoping for lots more flowers to come .

The watering basket in the middle of the Pumpkin bed is such a great idea , because the water goes straight down to the roots of the plants and the surface remains dry , which discourages the slugs and snails , who prefer a nice wet surface to slither along on .
 It is so hot again !  I need it to rain ....my arms are getting longer and aching from carrying watering can about !

                                      Birdie is very busy feeding her two babies .

                                 She lets me get quite close with my camera too !

Gete -Okosomin finally planted out !

The weather was warm , humid and mizzly rain late yesterday evening and so at around 10.30 pm I decided the time was right to get that precious Gete Okosomin Squash plant into the ground .  I aplogise for the dark pictures  but it was rapidly getting dark while I was doing all this .

 I wasn't sure if after only three weeks it would  have a good enough root system ,but as it turned out , those beautiful delicate roots had filled the pot all around .

                     Getting dark..got to work quick ! .....but also very carefully .
 A bag of grit and that bowl full of crushed eggshells to scatter around the plant to keep slugs off .

                     I gave it a little drink of rain water to settle the earth around it .

 ..and then had to quickly think about wind protection..it was getting breezy .
So I rigged up this old comost sack between grids and stuck in a few fir branches  .

              Fir branches pushed in to protect those delicate leaves from the wind .

                        Crushed eggshells and horticultural grit to deter slugs .
I noticed that it had two trendrills begining to reach out , so I pushed in a couple of sticks for them to grab onto .
  So I have done everything I can for now , I would like a little more gentle rain to get it really settled in . I am about three weeks behind with the plant having been broken and all this trying to save it ...but I think I am still o.k for time to get flowers set etc.
                                                  Romp away little fella !

Gete okosomin --- Very hot days !

                                Do you ever get the feeling you're being watched ?

                                    He's waiting for me to plant out my Cosmos !
I haven't been able to plant them out as now the weather is just so unbearably hot and the ground too hard and dry . I'll plant them out during the next rain shower..for now , I have pinched the tops off to make them grow bushier and they are on the garden chair out of reach of cheeky Peter Rabbit !

Gete-okosomin Squash update ..The "cutting" was in the Solar shed , during the day the leaves drooped terribly in the heat even though I opened the window . It would then pick up over night . It looked to me that although the big leaves were drooping  , there was some new growth coming .

The weather has been getting hotter and  hotter here in Mullion ( lots of people getting sunburnt on the local beaches) So I brought it out of the Solar shed and put it on the picnic table .

                                    It really did not like the hot mid-day sun .

                                                So I found a shadier spot for it .
The stump with the three cotyldon leaves as withered away , it is still in the ground and I'll leave it for a bit longer in case it sends up a shoot from below , but I doubt it .
 But I think I might have saved the cutting ..so feeling a bit happier today  .

Gete Okosomin sad news

 Devastated ! While I was putting the last post on , my husband went into the Solar shed and began watering the tomatoes....and knocked the stem of the Gete okosomin squash plant ...right down to the bottom  , snapped  .... there are only two leaves still attached , that third one fell off too .
 So fighting back tears ..I have tried to rescue it as best I can .

I have planted out the base of the plant..it has a really good  root system . I,m praying it will put out new shoots . ..but even if it does , we have been set back by a whole month  really .

The stem was really long and had about six buds . I decided to treat it as a cutting and immediately   used a little rooting powder in several places along the stem . Took off the flowers to hopefully put it's energy into making roots...I was going to lay the stem on the earth to trail about and sometimes pumpkins , squashes and courgettes will put down roots along the stem ..please please please put down roots !!!! .......... so sad ..fed up ....tears...

The New Key hole vegetable bed / Three Sisters Bed / Pumpkin Bed

 So last evening  I worked hard to get the chicken wire  fixed up around my new veg bed .
Not sure what to call this ...I originally called it the new Pumpkin Bed , I am growing a Squash  .
 I have been very inspired by Key hole Vegetable beds as people in drought stricken areas of Africa are being encouraged to make . Mine hasn't really got a key hole entrance as such , although there is a place for me to step in..it is very similar . I didn't need to build a wall around it , my main concern is to keep rabbits out .
  It could be called a "Three Sisters Bed " I suppose...it having Sweetcorn , Beans and Squashes , but I have planted a few other things in there with them though .

                             I made the woven basket watering hole in the middle .
I didn't have time to do the woven hurdle around the outer edge ,maybe I'll do that another day . I,m keen to get planting now .

 Difficult to see but here it is planted up with Sweetcorn in a large block around the back , nicotiana /tobacco plants  and  5 tall sunflowers for the bees . Cherokee purple tomato plants 3 ...a few Scarlet Kale ...Amish Onions ..some red onion sets..Daubenton's perential kale ..parsley ...Lavender , nasturtiums ,cosmos .

                  Picture of the other side where the sweetcorn is ...they are very small .

                                      This is how it looked last Autumn .

                                                    I,m as happy as can be !
So now , all there is left to do is  , sow a few dwarf French beans and plant out the  amazing Gete okosomin Squash waiting in the Solar Shed .

Gete - okosomin germination !

 So , after a lovely sunny day again here in Mullion , pottering about in the garden , weeding and tidying .....I go up to my greenhouse to close the windows and light an 8 hour candle..to keep the temperature up just a tad over night .

 I cant afford to run any sort of heater ..but this works for me  and gets my cacti through the winter just fine .... if it is really cold I light two .
 But hang on a minute ! What's this ? One of the Gete-okosomin seeds has germinated ! That wasn't there this morning !  ( Mummabear does a little dance ! )

                           Gete okosomin sown 7th April 2017 moon waxing gibbous.
                           Gete okosomin germination 23rd April Moon waning crescent .

Troll and Pumpkin update

                                   I,ve been playing in the garden again today .

                            I gave the topiary Troll a trim and a new  " hair-do " .

 Next I decide to harvest my Jumbo Pink Banana Squash ..I,m afraid I forgot to sow my traditional big Pumpkin seeds ....but this Pink Banana Squash more than makes up for it.

Here it is growing on the vine , to begin with it clambered up on this pig-wire spiral fence I set up , but as the Squash grew It eventually became necessary  to give it the stool to sit on ..this worked really well , keeping the skin of the squash in good condition .
 

                   
                      Here I am with my beautiful Jumbo Pink Banana Squash .

 I wanted to try growing  the  Jumbo Pink Banana Squash ,as it is very similar to the Gete Okosomin Squash that I am hoping to get seeds of soon .....maybe next year  or the year after .   I think that these can actually  get much bigger than this ...but I,m very happy with this and we will probably  either make soup or roast this up in chunks along with our roast potatoes  for Sunday lunch . I,ll be saving the seeds too .

 The butternuts were a bit of a disappointment  this year ....many folk are saying the same thing about them ...usually I get up to 13/15 butternuts ....this year only 3..and I,m not sure if they are going to make it ..hmmm...maybe one . Which is such a shame , we love butternuts in our family !

                                                   Still ripening on the vine .

        Next seasons Pumpkin Patch ...hopefully  for one  very special Squash  !