Brambleberries in the Rain » Mystery Squash

A Pollinated Mystery Squash Thursday No. 6

Cynthia — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:01:38 +0000

My old compost pile has got to be one of the healthiest spots in the garden as these next few pictures will show. Everything posted here today was photographed just this morning.

Here is our Mystery Squash as we are wrapping up the second week of July. Getting quite big don’t you agree? I am pretty sure this big and beautiful plant is a pumpkin just waiting to show itself.

The old compost pile almost looks like I designed and planted it. It is looking so pretty these days. The above picture cut it off but at the back of the old pile is a volunteered sunflower and in the picture below you can see it is not too far away from blooming.

The first flower on the self-sown bachelor buttons bloomed yesterday. I was hoping for one of the pink ones that bloomed in the herb garden last year but this one is pretty too and covered in buds as the picture shows.

The borage is still pumping out flowers and buds and I just love this photo below. It is like sailing a sea of borage.

The volunteered cilantro has already bolted. Last year I did not catch the seeds from my cilantro fast enough and this year it has self-sown all over the place. I was pleasantly surprised by this too. My rabbits love it and have been enjoying it for the past few weeks.

Finally, I have saved the best for last. While photographing all of the above blooms I noticed a honeybee hovering around the Mystery Squash. Today the Mystery Squash has two male flowers in bloom as well as one female flower. I got an up close and personal view of this honeybee going into the male flowers and then coming out all covered in pollen before heading on over to the female flower. It was so interesting to watch too because while in the female flower the honeybee sort of just wandered around the base of the flower not even seeming to notice that the pollen all over its back was performing something magical.

I took so many shots of this moment and decided to combine them into this little clip for below.

These next two pictures show just how covered in pollen that little bee was.

Thanks to that little bee I will hopefully be able to show a tiny pumpkin forming next week!

Mystery Squash Thursday No. 5

Cynthia — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:08:28 +0000

It is hard to believe I am already at update number 5 on our little Mystery Squash. This growing season is flying by! Things have really heated up over here and we are right in the middle of a heat wave. I have spent yesterday and today getting the garden ready and making sure everything had a nice long drink of water. Some containers I even moved to shadier locations seeing that our deck can get very hot when temperatures rise.

The Mystery Squash has finally decided to bloomed since my last update. It is still surrounded by borage and I even pulled some up the other day to give it a bit more room.

The flower pictured above is a male flower but look what is getting ready to bloom here soon:

Maybe it is just me, but that looks awfully like a little teeny tiny baby pumpkin! Could it be that I was right all along and the Mystery Squash is a pumpkin? Time will tell I suppose. One thing is for sure- this unexpected garden guest is covered in flower buds right now. I might just hand pollinate the above female flower once it opens just to ensure we get to see what will develop.

I hope this update finds everyone’s gardens doing great. Now I am going to sit down and beat the heat with a nice tall glass of iced herbal tea!

Previous Mystery Squash posts:

Mystery Squash Thursday no. 4

Cynthia — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:20:30 +0000

Mystery Squash June 25, 2009

I was hoping for today’s update the flowers on our Mystery Squash would have bloomed but unfortunately they have not. They are however, getting quite big and numerous. I am sure it will be any day now and they will be blooming. Maybe by next week’s update?

We have had cool and gloomy weather this past week and my garden has been crawling along consequently. In fact it feels more like autumn today rather than the first week of summer! I find it horribly frustrating to say the least. It is summer and I want it to feel like summer.

This next picture for today’s update comes with a warning: do not click on it to view larger if you are afraid of spiders. This guy seems to love hiding out in and amongst the sunflower leaves and is finding the sunflower in the old compost pile quite a nice place to call home. I see him out there sitting on the sunflowers leaves everyday but when he spots me he hides down into the center of the plant. I don’t know what this type of spider is but he is pretty interesting looking.

Hopefully next week will yield some more summer-like weather and our Mystery Squash will put on a lot more growth. Until then happy gardening everyone!