look at this lot grow!!
This, below, is a female pumpkin flower bud. One of two currently forming on the vine. I'm hoping for more. I have three vines.
According to the seed packet each vine can produce 3 or 4 x 3kg pumpkins. The variety is called Buttercup. (I thought it was Butternut, should have read the packet properly)
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I emailed our local garden guru to find out why my vine was only producing male flowers. Guru said for female flowers to form the runners must be tip pruned.
Aha! There's something I didn't know.
So I went straight outside and cut the tips off each vine.
All the male flowers appear to have died off, so to pollinate the females I'll have to use the pollen I saved in a jar. I hope it's still viable.
Stripey tomatoes!
These are on one of the bushes I bought from the Community Garden. This variety is labelled money maker. To me the tomatoes look very much like the Tigerella ones I grew a few years ago.
This sturdy looking truss is the Yellow Peach variety, also from the Community Garden. At this stage they look like the vine ripened trusses of red tomatoes available in all supermarket and fruit shops. If they turn yellow, I'll be happy. If not, well, I'll still be happy.
A fuzzy baby. This picture is upside down, but really, who cares?
Freshly showered.
The biggest one.
The big baby again.
There are quite a few even smaller ones, just fuzzy bumps below the flower yet, and again, lots of yellowed and dead ones.
According to the seed packet each vine can produce 3 or 4 x 3kg pumpkins. The variety is called Buttercup. (I thought it was Butternut, should have read the packet properly)
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I emailed our local garden guru to find out why my vine was only producing male flowers. Guru said for female flowers to form the runners must be tip pruned.
Aha! There's something I didn't know.
So I went straight outside and cut the tips off each vine.
All the male flowers appear to have died off, so to pollinate the females I'll have to use the pollen I saved in a jar. I hope it's still viable.
Stripey tomatoes!
These are on one of the bushes I bought from the Community Garden. This variety is labelled money maker. To me the tomatoes look very much like the Tigerella ones I grew a few years ago.
This sturdy looking truss is the Yellow Peach variety, also from the Community Garden. At this stage they look like the vine ripened trusses of red tomatoes available in all supermarket and fruit shops. If they turn yellow, I'll be happy. If not, well, I'll still be happy.
The next four pictures are my baby rockmelons.
I spent a lot of time twirling a tiny paintbrush in each flower I could find, in hopes of some of them becoming pollinated.
And it worked!
It's much harder to differentiate between male and female flowers when they're so small, so I didn't bother checking which was which after the first time, I just "painted" every flower.
I think a couple of them got pumpkin pollen, but I'm not concerned.
That might have happened anyway, if the bees had been doing the job.
(I had the brushes in the same jar.)
A fuzzy baby. This picture is upside down, but really, who cares?
Freshly showered.
The biggest one.
The big baby again.
There are quite a few even smaller ones, just fuzzy bumps below the flower yet, and again, lots of yellowed and dead ones. But the maturing ones are making up for the disappointments, and really, how many rockmelons can I eat?
Well, lots, and I was hoping to grow enough to share with my kids. Maybe next time.
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Maybe I missed it, but did you get an id on the possible fruit fly?
ReplyDeletethese look delicious, and I don't even LIKE rockmelon!
ReplyDeleteI'm sitting here with a huge grin on my face thinking, "If anyone overheard me just now, I was saying 'awwwww' at some photos of baby rockmelons!"
ReplyDeleteSo, so beautiful. Thank you
ReplyDeleteLooks like their are enough tomatoes to make tomato chutney :-).
ReplyDeleteAndrew; no I didn't get any id on the bug, just confirmation that it wasn't a fruit fly.
ReplyDeleteToni; these are mini melons. I grew one accidentally years ago, no idea how since I toosed out seeds of a regular melon and the compost pile grew just one tennis ball sized fruit. I was extremely juicy and sweet, that's why I bought these mini melons seeds. Also, homegrown is always fresher than shop bought so tastes nicer.
Kath; Should I send tissues before I post baby veg photos?
The Elaphant's Child; thank you.
Windsmoke; not quite enough, but plenty for salads and sandwiches. My mum used to make chutney and green tomato pickles. I didn't like them then and I'm betting I still wouldn't like them now.
thank you for sharing the pumkin tip! We had pumpkin vine and all male flowers too.
ReplyDeleteSo that's why all the pumpkins flowered after hubby mowed the "excess" vine!
ReplyDeleteLove how healthy your plants look. :-)
drb; I wish I'd known much earlier. I've tried to grow pumpkins many times before. Without success.
ReplyDeleteDevi; a happy accident for your vines. I made sure not to include too many caterpillar chewed leaves this time.