Ralph’s squash... and tomatoes, and a bunch of other produce

With a four-letter s-word dreaded by all (but especially gardeners!) in the forecast for tomorrow or the next day, perhaps it's time to wrap up a few harvest moodlings. I went out to pick today because I'm afraid covering my cucumbers and tomatoes won't work too well if 10-15 cm of white stuff arrive by Thursday morning and flatten my blankets. Lee and I harvested the last of the peas and beans on the weekend, and it sounds like it's time to bring more produce indoors...

But first, I want to show you Ralph's squash plant... It did pretty well in spite of the fact that I wasn't around to tie it up at the right time, and I probably should have removed half its branches and blossoms if I wanted a six-foot squash like the one for which Ralph is famous. 

But a six-foot squash is more summer zucchini eating than our family wants to do. The large gold squash  (below) will give me seed for next year, but the small ones are tender and probably better for eating, which is what we prefer! The seeds are in the large bulbs at the ends, and if any of my readers would like to try growing their own, I'm guessing I'll have seed to spare! Just say the word and it's yours!

I planted two of Ralph's roma tomatoes... and got at least 30 extra large, almost seedless fruit that will be great for tomato paste. And three of his banana tomato plants gave me at least three gallons of long skinnies, which  means I'll be making spaghetti sauce for a day or two. And there are lots of other tomatoes for eating, salsa and bruschetta...

Ralph's romas

Ralph's banana tomatoes

Our peppers did well enough that I picked a small peck...

We got decent crops of cukes, cabbages, and corn on the cob. I think I'll leave the root vegetables to fend for themselves in the coming storm. There's more than enough to do with what's come in just today!

Thank you, God, for an abundant harvest, and thanks, Mom, for the extra buckets!

Ralph's squash -- an update

Remember back in May when my 93-year-old neighbour, Ralph, gave me a squash plant? Well, I thought you might like to see how it's grown.

Because I was on vacation for the past 3 weeks, I wasn't sure what I'd find when I got back. But as I expected, Ralph's plant grew like crazy, and was a mass of tangles that my kids weren't sure how to handle. So the day before yesterday, I untangled it and tied one arm of it to our birdhouse support. The longer arm is wrapped with jute and tied up to the weather vane on top of our greenhouse. There are three or four dangling squashes that will hopefully continue to grow... but with high humidity and severe storm watches in the forecast, I'm wondering if I should maybe come up with another system to hold up the vines. I can imagine the winds possibly ripping them down. Ralph winds his vines around a pole attached to the roof of his greenhouse, but we don't have that sort of setup here.

On another note, the garden is really looking great. We've eaten a few tomatoes, the raspberries, snap and snow peas are really coming in, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the weather allows everything else to mature. I don't expect that I'll be able to grow six- or seven-foot squash like Ralph's, but I'd be happy if one manages to mature so I have seeds to share with other interested gardeners...

Happy gardening, my friends, from a happy gardener! Time to go pick more raspberries...

Ralph and the six-foot squash

Last week I paid a visit to my wonderful Italian neighbours whose plum and apple trees I help pick in the fall, Lidia and Ralph. I found them in excellent spirits, though 93-year-old Ralph had a fall and banged his head in his greenhouse the week before.

Lidia doesn't want Ralph gardening alone now, so the day after his fall, Ralph called up his 88-year-old friend, and the two of them planted tomatoes together. Lidia laughed and laughed about it, and said she woke up laughing in the middle of the night because the friend wore his best leather shoes for the job. I'm simply amazed by these people. I hope I'm still able to plant tomatoes at their age!

Lidia poured us all a shot of Bailey's Irish Cream while she was making her wonderful espresso coffee. She also served a delicious cake she had baked just that morning. Her cousin, Mario, was visiting. The three tried their best to keep the conversation going in English, but it often reverted to Italian, and I had moments where I imagined I was in Italy with beloved grandparents. That's the kind of people Ralph and Lidia are.

After our little snack, we went out to the garden and greenhouse where Ralph grows hundreds of tomato plants, peppers, and his most famous plant, a long, thin, zucchini type squash. A few years ago, he made the papers and local TV news with a seven-foot squash that hung from the roof of his greenhouse. He brought its seeds with him when he came to Canada in 1956. When I exclaimed over the idea of growing something so big, he made Mario and me follow him to the basement. On the counter behind his 1970s wet bar was a squash from last year that was at least six feet in length, saved for its seed!

When we went back outside, I planted two rows of onions for Ralph, and he gave me a squash plant to see if I would be able to grow it as well as he does. I've managed to grow Ralph's roma and banana tomatoes successfully in the past.

So now my happy little "Ralph Squash" has a garden box all its own for this summer, and I'm hoping to grow one that, though it may not get to six feet like Ralph's, will at least give me some seed for years to come to always remind me of Ralph and Lidia. One squash is probably more than enough!