Triffid Squash

Hi there Scotsburn

I planted three Yellow Squash and I have some concerns about the correct identification of these plants.

First, the vine is 10 metres long. Almost every single flower is male. The very few female flowers have developed a fruit that is green and perfectly round. Most of these fruits soon turn yellow and fail to thrive.

I am sceptical that these fruits will ever flatten out and develop scalloped edges.

Is it possible the plants were mislabelled? The label states:

SQUASH  Yellow Ruffles

If they are not yellow squash, what are they?

Elaine

Photo by  Robert Couse-Baker 

Wow!  Where do I start?  My first reaction is always to check that we have labeled correctly.  It’s very embarrassing when we get labeling wrong.  You know “I planted soft pink Petunias for my daughters wedding and they’ve all turned out blue. AND THE WEDDING’S NEXT WEEK!” so we work very hard to ensure this doesn’t happen.  Still there are a surprising number of ways in which we can get this wrong including wrong seed being supplied or sown, a mix up during transplanting and we never quite know what happens once our plants are sitting in a retail nursery.

Anyway in this instance I think we’re safe, whatever these plants are they don’t sound like anything else that we grow.

I’m not surprised that the plants are growing like Triffids.  Squash is closely related to Pumpkin, more so than Cucumber or Zucchini.  But what’s going on with all these male flowers?  I’ve no idea, if you do please leave me a blog comment.

As I worked through the steps to find out why the fruit is failing to thrive I found this really good web page to describing the symptom and solutions, then lo and behold I discovered that I had written on almost the same subject around this time last year.  Last year the problem was small, round zucchini which I related to blossom end rot in Tomatoes.

I’m pretty confident the issue is the same, a lack of water or inconsistency in the availability of water at critical growth stages upset the availability of Calcium for fruit development.  Calcium is a really important nutrient, right up there with Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium.  Calcium is usually supplied to soil when we add lime but I think that in this situation the Calcium is available, it’s just that the plants can’t access it.  Anyway I’ve provided a couple of links so you can decide for yourself.

What about the round fruit?  That was the real surprise: same symptom as the zucchini last year.  It turns out that the seed we used toward the end of this current season came from the same source as the earlier batch of zucchini.  Does the Calcium imbalance cause round fruit? Or have we been caught out using old seed?  If you have any ideas, please let me know.

By the way, Valentine’s Day in a couple of weeks.  Your Valentine might like a living gift, head down to your nearest garden centre for inspiration.  I’ll provide a few ideas next week.

Hot Water!

Two very hot days through this past week have me focusing on water, yet again. Most of the nursery crew are taking the Christmas-New year break off so we have been relatively short staffed which means we have to multi skill to some extent. I have found the exercise of running the office and supervising watering a little fraught. Mostly because in extreme conditions potted plants dry out so quickly. Everything seems settled and well watered so I head back to another job only to turn around and find another batch of sad, parched plants.

We have a pretty thorough irrigation system installed but sprinklers have their limitations and these are generally exposed in the hottest conditions. The chief issue is we have so many different types of plants in different containers at various stages of maturity. Providing enough water for fruiting ornamental Capsicum using sprinklers will flood younger plants clean out of their pots. So hot days means extended periods hanging on to the end of a hose... and some fool has banned using i-pods around the nursery (OK that was me, but I do like plugging the pod in on the weekend for an hour or two of therapy).

Anyway, holding the hose highlights the plants best adapted to really hot conditions. Pick of the crop?

Gerbera. Gerbs are just about the only thing left in our glass house at the moment, the heat and light intensity is so strong... and they love it. Keep this in mind when you take a Gerbera home, it's a living bunch of flowers, not an indoor plant. Gerberas are herbaceous perennials so stick 'em outside somewhere they will receive minimal support and they will flower again the following year. They will perform better in subsequent seasons if they are re-potted or at least fertilized in the Spring.

Another favorite at the moment, because I don't have to worry about them is Purslane Rio. We have them, one plant each in 270mm hanging baskets. They easily fill and spill over the baskets and they are covered with flowers that just keep coming. This is a great plant to neglect in pots or hot garden spots.

Oh, the Ornamental Capsicum stand up to poor treatment too. Poor things hang limp until watered then stand right back up again. They are not thirsty plants, just rather big for their pots.