The Year of the Squash

The past few years I haven't had squat in the way of winter squash.  The first year's garden didn't have enough space in the plan for too many squash plants.  Squash like to sprawl so they need alot of room to move around.  So I opted for summer squash over winter squash because they can be very productive with only a couple plants.  And they certainly were very productive.

 

Last year I had inter planted squash with corn using the three sisters concept.  I'm not quite sure if my timing was off or if I used bad seeds, but very few squash came up.  The ones that did come up were so inundated with weeds that they were very stunted in the beginning.  Then the corn I choose was a variety that can grow 11 feet tall so it grows pretty fast and it ended up shading out most of the plants that were left.  I don't think I harvested a single winter squash that year.

 

This year is looking much brighter for the squash family.  I have devoted 4 whole beds to nothing but squash and melons.  So far the squash have come up phenomenally.  I had a chance to weed them very well at a critical time in their growth and they have really done well ever since.

 

This is the bed before a good weeding.

 

This is only a few days after weeding.

 

As good as this years plants are looking I'm willing to bet we get tons of squash this year.  This will be great for the chickens since they will get all the seeds they can eat plus any cooked squash that we can't finish.