One of the most enjoyable gardening projects that my wife Catherine and I collaborated on this
year was a winter squash mass planting in our new sundial garden. The inspiration for this garden
came from last year’s visit to the COMMON GROUND FAIR in Unity Maine. One of the most
enlightening installations at the fair was the winter squash garden and display courtesy of Johnny’s Selected Seeds. It was impressive to
see so much variety of size, shape and color in one place. We made a decision right there and
then to join in fun.
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| Squash garden as seen from vegetable garden – June 2014 |
The sun dial garden borders the vegetable garden and creates a transition between that space
and the patio. It is approximately 11′ x 11 ‘. We filled the bed with compost and planted two
each of the following:
Charisma pumpkin
Winter Sweet Kabocha winter squash
Carnval Hybrid Acorn squash
Sunshine Kabocha squash
Bush Delicata
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| Squash garden in July, 2014 |
In addition, we planted one hill “Metro” butternut squash in a different location. The mass planting in the sundial garden
was a huge visual success, Planting so many varieties
in such a modest space created a beautiful display of contrasting foliage similar to that in a
hosta garden. We got 45 fruit out of the sundial garden mass planting with an additional 14
fruit from our lone butternut squash hill. The foliage became so thick that it was nearly
impossible to keep pruned. As a result, some of the plants were overwhelmed by their neighbors.
despite this we had a reasonably good harvest. I look forward to eating the harvest.
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| Harvested squash curing in the sun |
All the best,
Greg Garnache
gcgarnache@gmail.com
I would love to hear from you.
