Squash Harvest

I’ve harvested the first four squash today as they have grown to a fair size and the plant it trying to grow more:

Squash for Ripening

These four now need to ripen and harden over the next couple of weeks before they can be used. There are some more squash forming on the same plant and there is a second plant in another part of the garden that has two female flowers on it that I think I’ve pollinated.

Today has been a good day – this is progress being able to harvest something from the garden at long last!

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Finally! Tomatoes!

Well after a couple of years of doing battle with Fruit Fly, I finally get some tomatoes. This has to be the simplest growing of tomatoes going as these were volunteer plants from my compost. This is the first of many, many tomatoes!

Tomatoes

One of the reasons for finally getting some success is the exclusion bags from Green Harvest along with Eco-Naturalure. I am finally making progress in my battle against the Fruit Fly!

Better find some recipes to make something with all these as there are more ripening now.

Marigolds

I’m growing a number of marigolds as companion plants. The main reason for doing this is to keep the aphids off the roses. The marigolds are growing really well and flowering.

Marigold Flowers

There has been a marked reduction in the number of aphids on the roses. Previously, the new buds would frequently have a large number of the blighters on them but pruning the roses today I found very few at all.

Squash Progress

In a previous post I covered how I was losing the squash. Turned out I was mistaking the female flower as actually something growing properly.

Now that I know that I need to help the pollination of this plant, I’m well on my way to sampling some home produce. I currently have four growing really well:

Growing Squash

This has grown significantly in just a few days. I’ve put the secateurs there to try to give some concept of size.

Squashed plans for Butternut

The other day I referred to the volunteer plant that was growing and looked to be a butternut squash.

Sadly, the squash that I showed in the post the other day now looks like this:

Spoilt Squash

After The Rain

Well it has finally stopped raining! We’ve had some very heavy rain in the last week with a big storm on the Friday knocking out power in Gosford.

The rain has been good for most of the garden but has left me with some work to do in other areas e.g. mowing a very long lawn with about two weeks growth.

The photo below is some of the Comfrey flowers. This plant is being grown as a beneficial one – it attracts good insects, the leaves are good for compost/fertiliser tea and the roots go deep to bring up nutrients:

Comfrey Flowers

Assassin Bug

Found this on the Dwarf Nectrine tree today. It was lurking within the foliage waiting for something to eat which it is bound to find as that tree is surrounded by volunteer plant foliage:

Assassin Bug

This bug feeds on caterpillars, mirids, stink bugs, beetles and bees.

They stab their victims and inject a paralysing toxin that also pre-digests the prey’s internal organs. They then suck out the innards. Nice!

They are capable of piercing human skin so handle with care!