re: 2026 Spring Garden Thread

holy shite

let me say first I am not a fan of yellow crookneck squash (or green zucchini for that matter). I find it tasteless, boring, insipid. This is not that.



Lemon squash is much closer in taste and texture to a mirliton…complex flavor and a great bite and chew. And like mirliton they are the perfect size and shape to stuff. Big fan

I did find a rotten leaf stem earlier today so I may be on borrowed time. There’s a couple dozen a few days from being ready so we will see

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sunflower ignition

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Man, mine are about 8 feet tall right now but still haven’t bloomed yet. Patiently waiting.

Also, the blueberries are finally ripening. Started picking some yesterday.

Dug up the rest of my potatoes this morning. Cukes and squash are rolling and tomatoes are finally starting to blush.

I pan fried some, added some cheese and sunflower seeds. So good. I agree about the Mirliton- thought the same thing.


My first two plants slowed down considerably after pulling about 8 off of them. Some rotten stems on one as well.

The two I planted a few weeks later are just now producing. We shall see.

My goal this year is to zero in on the best plants for my garden. Would love to have these guys on the list but time will tell.

I flagged the flower stalks that have multiple blooms and I’ll try to let those seeds dry on the vine, assuming the squirrels don’t discover them…my strategy is to keep a half dozen feeders full of seeds to distract them. This strategy has never worked before by the way

Assuming all goes well we will use the rest for cut flowers and replant the saved seeds next year. All I did this year was dump a small bag of black oil sunflower seeds in the bed. They make a pretty flower and the stalks are thick and sturdy and they are super cheap

My cucumbers are gigantic.

The pickling ones have been normal size other than the wide one here I left on for 2 days too long, but the burpless ones I have just keep growing long. And they are still really tasty.

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And they are still really tasty.

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That's what SHE said.

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Mine are more like the furthest one to the left. Sigh.

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your cucumbers or something else?

that's my pickling cucumbers. They don't get much bigger than that. The fatter one was left on for 2 days too long.

We’ve got 10 blueberry bushes and we’ve been picking hundreds every 2-3 days. Lots more ripening daily.

How do you keep the birds/squirrels off?