Squash arch 101, parenting courses and RAIN 🌱
Hello friends!
It raineth.
I love rain. I'm one of those people who breathes an audible sigh of relief when it starts to rain. I like rain even when it's been raining for rather a long time. It puts me in a sort of trance, ASMR style...If I'm warm and dry and listening to rain I'm probably in a state of bliss. Apart from making my hair go all frizzy (oh, okay, It's always frizzy) rain does tend to stop play in the garden. I go out in it if it's light; gardening in, or after rain is a delight because things smell gorgeous and fresh and the earth is generally much easier to manage (unless of course you garden on heavy clay. Weeds come out without too much fuss, and one is also generally, MERCIFULLY ALONE. I think time alone, like youth, is wasted on the young.
So here are my (literal) five minute forays this week:
Monday
It is a bank holiday. I am not a lover of bank holidays, coming, as they do, on a Monday when I am just about ready to combust with the stress of everyone BEING HERE. I've made my peace with sounding like an awful person; I just reframe the situation by telling myself that I'm an introvert (of sorts) who NEEDS solitude, that it's akin to a MEDICAL CONDITION and that it's BEYOND MY CONTROL (Dangerous Liaisons-style). So no, it's not a bank holiday, its DAY THREE of the weekend. We go to see the Kubric exhibition at the Design Museum and stare at Full Metal Jacket playing on a loop, and the Twins' costumes from The Shining, spooky as hell in a glass case. I am so mesmerised that I do not see the two babies smuggling themselves into a Clockwork Orange exhibit. I catch them just in time. Stormy, judgy looks from other adults. Eurgh. I get out into the garden and become joyful again, which reminds me what I do it for.
The children play in between the rain. I sweep, move some things around and call it gardening, because, well, it is. The lilac is a TOTAL JOY. When the sun comes out its scent wafts into the kitchen. Heaven.
Tuesday
So much rain. I drive to Wandsworth for the first in six two-hour sessions which I hope will teach me to be a better parent. The session covers descriptive praise, where you get VERY specific about the facts of what your kids are doing. So instead of saying "Good boy", you might say: "You've concentrated really hard making that drawing. The colours are really vibrant and you've been so creative with the shapes!" Yes friends, it sounds a bit fake and is EXHAUSTING but it really DOES help because it gives them guidance on what constitutes brilliance. "That's brilliant!" contains zero information on how to repeat their success. See what I mean? I'm a convert. But again, it's exhausting.
I spend many moments rescuing tadpoles from getting washed out of the pool. Some don't make it. I try not to be sad. The runner bean seedlings are outside enjoying the shower but they are still without support so I bring them in to prevent them receiving a battering. I had plans to tackle the main garden this week, weeding it daily and planting all the salvia I've been hardening off, but the rain is just too hard, so I retreat indoors and enjoy watering the houseplants and feeding them too. I feed my houseplants with a weak seaweed solution once a week (when needed). I am plotting chopping the top off my fiddle leaf fig to make it branch out. Shall I do it friends? Shall I?
Wednesday
Still raining.
I feed the yew hedge that I planted in the autumn last year. I use great big watering cans full of liquid seaweed and my small daughter 'helps' me. I give the trachelospermum a feed as well. This plant needs particular attention as it is under the eaves of the porch, and gets no rain at all. I'm aware that I need to be a good parent to it, watering it regularly until it finds its feet. The pale green shoots on it are my reward. I'm still pondering a white wisteria for the other side of the house. Shall I? If I'm going to do it, then NOW is the time to buy one. If you're thinking of buying a wisteria ALWAYS wait until flowering and buy on IN FLOWER - this ensures it has been properly grafted. If you don't do this, you might wait a decade for flowers, and life, friends, it simply too short for that. I am unexpectedly moved by the arrival of his royal Harrison-ness. That photo of all of them, gazing at him. New life is just beautiful.
Thursday
Still raining.
The command hooks I ordered, to stick on my glass ceiling and support my cobaea, have arrived and I get busy putting them up. I stretch fishing line from one hook to the next, zig-zag style, tip-toeing from bar-stool, to dining table, back to bar stool in order to get everything in place. It's not the ideal solution, as the line is only a cm away from the glass, which means I'll have to tuck the plant in as it grows, but it's totally invisible, so I'm pleased. I'm now considering growing a jasmine inside too. I never meant for this room to be a 'conservatory' but it looks like it's heading that way. Shall I do it friends? Shall I?
Friday
Still raining.
I tie in the clematis that fell down on Monday, which I have been studiously ignoring. This one act puts me in such a great mood that I immediately go inside and sow more squashes. No idea where all these squashes are going to go, but I don't care... I haven't grown squashes for about five years and I have no idea why. They are one of the easiest, most exciting plants to grow, not only for wow-factor, but also for eating. Here is my low-down.
Some word-play for anyone who is confused.
All pumpkins are squash, but not all squash are pumpkins.
Squashes are all species of the genus Cucurbita, and are generally divided into two groups:
Summer squash (courgettes and marrows are summer squash) are harvested in summer
Winter squash (butternut squash and pumpkins) are harvested at the end of summer, hence the harder skin and the flesh that needs cooking.
Gourds are very decorative squash, generally deemed inedible but definitely worth growing for their ornamental value.
All pumpkins and squash are also very useful for suppressing weeds if you have a bare space to fill.
First, find some seeds; This year I am growing Tromboncino and Uchiki Kuri - tromboncino is a climbing variety with weird and wonderful long fruits that you can eat raw, at courgette stage, or allow to harden, and Uchiki Kuri is a lovely orange-skinned squash with delicious flavour.
Sow seeds singly into small pots (7-10cm diameter) (or make your own from newspaper) full of damp, peat-free multi purpose compost. Poke the seed in on its side, using a lolly stick to make a hole in the compost first.
Put the pots in a lidded tray somewhere warm, like your kitchen, until you see them start to sprout, at which time you need to remove the lid and grow them on, ready to plant out at the end of May/beginning of June. You can raise seeds indoors like this until mid-June if you like, but it would be optimal it get them going right now in order to have full, gorgeous plants.
Or, you can wait a little, and sow them direct, outside.
If you're sowing (or planting out) in the ground, prepare about a square metre of it per plant (refer to individual seed packets for spacing) by removing weeds and digging in some well rotted manure. Poke two seeds into the centre of the patch, pushing them in a couple of inches deep, and protect with a make-shift, open-top cloche cut out from an old plastic bottle. Water well every day and as soon as you see action, cull the weaker seedling and watch the lucky one go.
You can also grow them in large containers using exactly the same method as above, but I'm a bit meaner with space in a pot, as I'll be paying close attention to feeding regularly and I'm not in it for prize fruit. I'll be putting two, perhaps three tromboncino into a 70cm diameter pot.
If using a container, make it as large as possible, and fill with multi-purpose compost. Watering is crucial, and start feeding once a fortnight as soon as fruits appear. You can either let your vine gallop along the ground, or up a tipi or over an arch.
Happy squashing!
x Laetitia
PS you might have missed my series on garden tools - these are the ones I find most useful:
My top three must-have garden tools
Three more garden tools I can't live without
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