End of Season Review - Squash

As many of you know, I’m squash challenged - I’ve been at it for 4 years now with minimal success.  Like radishes, it’s the quintessential “easy” vegetable that I just can’t seem to get right.  I solved my radish problems this past year, but squash is still a work in progress.

From tiny plants that don’t grow, to the squash vine borer, to powdery mildew, to lack of pollination ... the issues go on and on.  If you're interested in all the gory details, I wrote a two-part post on my squash troubles back in 2014.

Romanesco

The squash story this year centered around one thing – straw bales.  I was quite excited to give this method a try as it seemed to be a great way of growing a space hog like squash...not that I would know anything about that.  My squash had always been too polite to take up much room ;)

Early in the season, the performance of the plants growing in the bales was pretty dismal.


Squash in straw bales in mid-July
 

It all came down to one error on my part – I didn’t condition the bales.  I had (erroneously) assumed that leaving the bales out over the previous winter would automatically condition them – or at least that’s what I read on some website which, of course, I can’t find now.  I should have known that this sounded much too easy.

The end result was that every plant I grew in the bales, be it flower or squash, languished for a good couple of months.  You can clearly see the difference in the alyssum grown in the bales vs a bed in mid-July:

Alyssum in straw bale
 

Alyssum in a bed
 

The alyssum in the bed was not only significantly larger but also abundantly flowering and the foliage was a rich, dark green.

Once I realized my error, I increased the frequency of fertilization as well as the amounts (I used both fish emulsion and granular organic fertilizer), but it seemed to make little difference.  At this point, I was pretty much resigned to the straw bale failure.

But then, I noticed a definite change in the plants.  All of a sudden, they started to put on some good growth and we began to harvest a few squash.

Straw Bales in mid-September
 

Unfortunately, it was rather late in the season by this point, but the spurt of growth gave me a glimpse of their potential had I conditioned them properly.

I didn't grow all of the squash in straw bales.  The one true success this past season was the butternut squash, which I planted in the corn bed on the hilltop.  I can’t tell you how excited I was when I saw those tiny fruits on the vines.

Baby Butternut Squash
 

From 2 plants, I ended up harvesting 5 winter squash – a huge number for me.

The first Waltham Butternut harvest

 

To say I was pleased is an understatement.





The other two winter squash varieties - Gold Nugget & Sweet Mama - were grown in the straw bales.  Unfortunately, I only ended up with one squash from those plants:

Sweet Mama

And then there was the Tromboncino.  Considering it was my favourite summer squash variety in 2014, I still can’t believe that I completely forgot about it last spring.  I didn’t realize my gaff until the end of June at which point I sowed some seeds, even thought I was 2 months late and the chance of getting any sort of harvest was significantly reduced.  I ended up harvesting one lowly squash – which was certainly better than nothing.

The sole Tromboncino squash harvested this year

I also did a late sowing of Romanesco - this time intentionally - after I pulled up the shelling peas in mid-July.  I had noticed that many people did 2nd sowings of squash to replace spring sown plants that would often succumb to squash vine borers or powdery mildew in late summer.  Surprisingly, I actually ended up harvested some squash from this planting.  I didn’t keep track of where each zucchini came from, but I know that I harvested at least 3 or 4 from those plants.





One of the big benefits from the late seeding was that I didn’t have to worry very much about the squash vine borer as the moths are done laying their eggs by mid-July.  What also stands out is the harvest period.  I grew Sure Thing last year & started harvesting in mid-July, almost two months earlier than this year.


Overall Impressions and Plan for Next Year

Even though the straw bales didn’t work out as well as I hoped and I forgot about sowing the Tromboncino, I would say that the success of the butternut squash and the promising performance of the bales later in the season made up for it.

As the bales I used last season didn’t decompose that much, I’ll be trying to use them again this coming year.  In addition, I’ll purchase a few more bales and this time, I’ll be conditioning them properly, although I still have to figure out how to do that.  The amount of organic fertilizer called for in the original book seems excessive (3 cups per bale per day for the first 6 days!) - that would cost me a small fortune.

One of the benefits of using straw bales, of course, is that I’m not limited by bed space which means one thing – I can try more varieties.  So I’ll be growing all of the same ones I did this past year PLUS a few new ones.  With any luck, 2016 will be my turning point year in the squash department :)