The Jungle

I thought I had planned for this, but I am seeing now that my planning was flawed.  Not fatally, but to an annoying level.

The backyard garden is festooned with hundreds of feet of squash vines, and the ground is strewn with swelling fruits.  Here and there bean towers and trellises rise from the thick leaves, and in places the squash vines also go up the trellises.  Most of the beans back there are for growing to dry, for use in soups, but brilliant me, I placed an 8 foot long piece of wire mesh fencing 20 feet from any access point to the garden and planted it with Rattlesnake Pole Beans, which, after sampling, I have to admit are an incredible tasting fresh bean.  Getting to them is another matter.  Behind that trellis is the Mandan Squash which are meant to be picked daily.  <sigh> That is not going to happen.

This is a photo of that trellis.  Some of the Mandan Squash vines which are planted behind it, have grown through or climbed it.  On the right side of the trellis is the lone Birdhouse Gourd vine climbing it as well.  The beans vines are heavy with beans.  On the backside of the trellis (which I saw this morning, but did not have the camera with me) are a myriad of squashes suspended among the greenery.  This photo is taken from the West side of the garden facing east.

Bare spots in the C. Mochata are appearing, as clusters of male flower stalks drop their petals, revealing fruits below.  The ground is so covered with vines in this area that walking without damaging plants is simply not possible.  This photo also taken from the West side of the garden, looking down.

This photo is taken from the south-center side of the garden, from a gate blocked by vines, looking West.  There is a veritable wall of beans on the southern fence here, with some corn that is covered with climbing beans, and the ground covered with a sheeting of squash leaves.Here is the view from the West side of the garden, looking Northeast.  There is some small area not covered with vines that previously held the garlic.  Weeds have come up there where the squash have not covered the ground.  The vines visible here are the Arikara/Knife River landrace C. Maxima squash.

This is the Western side of the South fence to the garden.  It angles slightly to North so it does get some morning sun on the Northern side of it.  Bean vines cover it, and C. Mochata squash have grown through the wires.  I feed them back along it so that they do not sprawl over the outer paths.

Underneath all of this greenery is a lot of squash.  No idea now just how many. Every time I move leaves out of the way to see if there is a safe place to step without crushing a vine I find more fruits swelling.

I have photographed this C. Mochata a few times, as it is growing outside of the garden on a vine that I have coaxed along the fence since it emerged.  It makes taking pictures of it easy as I do not have to carefully tiptoe my way through things to get to it.

This is the same vine, just on the inside of the fence.  There are a lot of fruits on this vine, with one or more at every leaf node.  The length of the vine is about 6 feet long, with 10 fruits on it.

Just a fruit I found trying to find a place to step.  More a traditional butternut shape.  There are still a ton of male flowers emerging on this vine which has already set a nearly mature fruit.

This one shows a slightly longer neck, but not as pronounced as on some.  It is thicker as well.

Here is one of the Arikara/Knife River landrace.  These vines have not set as many fruits, but the vines are huge, many of them stretching well in excess of 20 feet already, with no sign of slowing down.  There is evidence of squash vine borer damage, but they must be adequately rooting along the lengths of the vines as the leaves are not yellowing and dying, and the fruits are swelling quickly.

My thoughts as this moment are that I am going to need to get in there again with a large bucket to get a good picking done of the Rattlesnake pole beans, and then just let the plants set beans again that I will leave to dry.  Not sure if I will be up to that tonight or not.  Today I am going to go to the office for the afternoon and we will see how my body does with the commute in the car and then sitting at a desk for some hours.  I also need to set a doctor appointment to just check out how I am recovering from the accident.  I feel pretty good, but still ache damn near everywhere, and going from a sitting to a standing position takes some effort.  Not sure I am up to processing food tonight.

 

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