Harvesting spaghetti squash

Remember how prolific and abundant the spaghetti squash was in the garden this summer?

Well, we've had some frosts, so the time had come (the walrus said?) to harvest it. Low nighttime temperatures had killed the plants, so there was no sense leaving the veggies languishing in the garden with no further source of nourishment.

The trouble was two-fold. One, we have nowhere really effective to store that much squash. (A root cellar is still a distant dream.) And two, about three-quarters of the squash was still unripe, thanks to the late "second wind" so many plants got a few weeks ago.

But issues or not, I started picking.

As I picked, I separated the ripe from the unripe. The ripe went into a wheelbarrow. Headcount: 23 squash.

I piled the unripe squash on one of the garden beds.

Headcount: 73

This means we harvested a total of 96 squash. It's a nice problem to have, but this much squash is still a problem.

A couple of squash were so small that they weren't worth counting.

And one had split, so that one will go in the compost pile (and with my luck, the seeds will grow as volunteers next year.)

We packed the ripe squash into crates...

...and stacked them in the well house. This is as close to a "root cellar" as we have. We have a small heater inside that kicks on whenever the inside temp dips toward freezing, but otherwise the space stays quite cool.

We piled the unripe spaghetti squash into every remaining crate we could locate. When we ran out of those, the remainder went into burlap sacks.

Apparently heat (as in, room temperatures) will help unripe spaghetti squash to ripen, slowly. So we hauled the crates inside and stacked them next to the ripening tomatoes.

We're unlikely to be able to eat this much spaghetti squash before it goes bad, so as the unripe squash  ripens, we'll be handing it out to friends and neighbors. And next year, I'll dial back how much I plant.

Another autumn chore, done.

Garden update

Since we've deer-proofed our garden by installing 10-1/2-foot-high nuclear deer fencing, some readers have asked for an update on what's growing.

Unfortunately we completed the fencing too late to plant some of the things we wanted to plant (notably corn), and we also didn't get the full number of raised beds installed. Bottom line, only about three-quarters of the potential space is currently planted, and some of the planted beds aren't thriving. Nor is the drip irrigation system yet hooked up, though at least the underground infrastructure is in place.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's a wide shot of the garden as it currently looks:

In the foreground are five beds of garlic. Another two weeks or so, and they will be ready to harvest.

Interspersed in several of the garlic beds are volunteer potatoes (guess what I planted there last year?). I seldom remove volunteers. They're too much fun.

Not counting the volunteers, I planted eight beds of potatoes. Last year I had planted six beds, and the deer ate the leaves down to nubbins. Discouraged, I stopped watering – and yet still managed to harvest about sixty pounds of medium-sized potatoes (i.e., about ten pounds per bed, an abysmal return). This year, with the vegetation undisturbed and with regular watering, I'll be interested in seeing how much we harvest.

I planted two beds of onions...

...and one bed of green (bunching) onions. The bunching onions got a hard start because I didn't get around to weeding out the wheat (which grows from the straw mulch) until quite late, so most of the plants are still playing catch-up.

I have four beds of strawberries.

I'm picking a bowl of strawberries every few days. Two of the beds are Fort Laramie berries, and two are Ozark Beauty.

I had a bunch of tomato plants I grew from seed that had been sitting on the deck until the garden was fenced. As a result, they were stunted when I transplanted them. They're growing, but they're not very big. I photographed this bed before I weeded out the wheat grass.

They looked happier after I weeded.

The broccoli, which I also started from seed, has fared worst of all. As with the tomatoes, they were stunted from the start.

Then, to make things worse, the poor plants came down with a massive infestation of flea beetles, tiny jumping beetles that suck all the juices out of the leaves.

I'm starting to get the flea beetles under control, but it's too late to expect much (if anything) from the plants. In fact, I don't think they'll survive, which is a shame since broccoli is my favorite vegetable.

I have a volunteer sunflower growing in one of the potato beds. No doubt a seed from our winter bird feed was dropped here.

I've had volunteer sunflowers grow before, but always the deer got to them. This time it will be fun to watch it mature.

I also have a couple of volunteer tomatoes growing in yet another potato bed, the one in which I had grown (or tried to grow) tomatoes last year. As always, despite being cloched with deer netting, the deer got the tomatoes.

Last year I grew cherry, paste, and beefsteak tomatoes. I have no idea what kind these volunteers may be.

By far the most successful plants are the spaghetti squash.

I've never grown spaghetti squash before, and I made a grave error when planting. I planted twelve seeds in one bed, forgetting one critical factor: Spaghetti squash are related to zucchini, which of course is famously productive. Imagine planting twelve zucchini plants, and you'll start to understand the scope of the issue. I have huge numbers of spaghetti squashes coming in.

And with many flowers still blooming, I can expect more.

And then, comically, I even have a volunteer spaghetti squash growing in one of the potato beds.

(If you're wondering how I can get a volunteer squash from something I've never planted before, it's because in the fall, when I empty the compost tumbler, I bury the compost in the garden beds. A seed from a squash we had once eaten for lunch sprouted.)

As you can see, there is room for one more row of nine beds (two of which are in place but unplanted).

Clearly the game-changer in the garden is the installation of the deer fencing. Next year, we'll get the rest of the garden beds installed and the drip irrigation system hooked up. I'll be able to plant early and, hopefully, realize the full potential of this growing space.

The maximum this garden can hold is 35 beds (three rows of nine beds, one row of eight beds). However we've designed it that, should the need arise, we can expand and double the capacity to 70+ beds by extending the garden length-wise. We have enough drip irrigation supplies to accommodate that possibility as well.

Obviously getting a garden installed has been a multi-year project, and many other projects have taken precedence. Still, it's nice to have a proper garden at last.