Photographs of the Garden.... June to October 2013

Heirloom seedlings I started in April in the top flat

We had to remove weeds and weeds and literally metres of roots from the staghorn sumac from the soil before we started any kind of planting

Bamboo cane supports for peas

Small area I marked out for onions and carrots - this ended up being smothered by the tomatoes, galeuse d'eysines pumpkin and butternut squash

Staghorn suckers - these sprouted along every single root in the garden, the trees had been cut just before we moved in, and as it turns out, the trees respond to a "trauma" by sprouting vigorously along all root lines.... 

Minnesota Midget - this had really small yellow flowers, but didn't get nearly enough sun as they ended up hidden behind the tomatoes and courgette, so unfortunately, we didn't get any melons

The tomatoes take off

Crookneck Summer Squash

Courgette - we got about three nice sized courgettes from this plant, which was perfect, we had so many summer squash to use up!

Cheyenne bush pumpkin

Cleo investigates, while I try to measure the growth of the galeuse d'esyines pumpkin

Hidden under the wide leaves - growing crookneck summer squash. I'd no idea these would do so well and ended up giving a lot of them away to friends and work colleagues, and still had plenty left over for ourselves...

.

Pumpkin and squash patch - the galeuse d'eysines is taking over the patio in the back left of the photo

More Crookneck Summer squash

The bright yellow flowers on the squash and pumpkins attracted lots of bees, it was lovely to be able to hear the buzzing from the backdoor and we plan on planting a lot more bee friendly plants and flowers in 2014

Some of the harvest, heirloom tomatoes and crookneck summer squash

Galeuse d'eysines - this weighed about 7lb when it was finished growing

Mix of Gardeners Delight - cherry vine tomato, Millefleur - yellow vine tomato and Jen's Tangerine - cherry vine tomato 

Little butternut squash, which I discovered after I pulled the plant from the tangle of tomatoes, strawberries and nasturtiums

Almost ripe - Cheyenne bush pumpkin

Bush pumpkin and galeuse d'eysines curing in the glass house

I got all of my heirloom seeds from The Real Seed Catalogue

Harvest time!

Galeuse d'eysines

We harvested the Galeuse d'eysines pumpkin and the Cheyenne bush pumpkin late last week....

I was so proud! I haven't weighed them yet but they're safely stored, curing in the greenhouse for the next week and a half, then I'm going to have to find a cool place in the flat to keep them.

I'm hoping to carve them both at Halloween, and maybe make a pumpkin pie... and pumpkin bread... maybe pumpkin muffins...we're going to have a lot of pumpkin to use up!

Cheyenne Bush Pumpkin

Cheyenne bush pumpkin... late, but I'm
going to give it a chance!

Small galeuse d'eysines - still on the vine

Me and my very first Galeuse d'eysines

Notes from the Garden.....Galeuse d'eysines pumpkin...part 2

Over the past month, the pumpkin really took off and I finally realised what it was....a Galeuse d'eysines's pumpkin..... and it should eventually look like this

Close up of Big Daddy....isn't he beautiful?

Notes from the Garden.....Galeuse d'eysines pumpkin...part 1

And it's off!

For the first few months of growth, I was convinced this was a butternut squash...um... I got my seedlings mixed up..... I had used a colour chart for the little pots I propagated the seeds in (previous post) but somehow mixed two of the pots up. This is my first time properly growing from seed and I decided to experiment with some heirloom seeds I found on http://www.realseeds.co.uk/, which I really liked the look of!

We could see how much the vine had grown each day - I tracked it using the patio tiles and it literally grew inches each day

The pumpkin vine is to the left (half hiding the tomatoes), summer crookneck squash are center and the Cheyenne bush pumpkin are the brighter green plants on the far right

Then it started spreading further out over the patio...the bees loved the bright yellow flowers, we could hear them buzzing from the back door and I spent ages trying to capture a good "action" shot of a bee pollinating one of the sunshine yellow flowers

First photo of "Big Daddy"

At this stage of growth, I still thought it was a butternut squash....I kind of thought where the squash was growing (just over the edge of the patio) may have stopped it growing into the usual bell shape....