Planted Cukes

I put cucumber and squash seedlings out a month ago or so, and they all promptly died (except one plant). I think I cooked some of the plants under empty five-gallon plastic water bottles that I put over the plants to protect them.

Today, I put some cucumber seeds out in mounds, just the way the planting instructions said. I've never succeeded with mounds before, as they tend to dry out and it's hard to keep the cucumber mounds moist so that the seeds sprout. I used compost for the mounds, which should hold more water, so we'll see how they do. I put plastic crates over the mounds to keep the chickens from diving in immediately, as a good pile of fresh compost is as good as it gets to a chicken.

I also potted seeds indoors in homemade potting soil (peat moss, vermiculite, and some fertilizer) as a fall back if the outdoor plants don't take. The outdoor cucumbers are Botanical Interests Homemade Pickles ("arguably the best cucumber available for pickles", which we'll try making this summer if all goes well). Indoors, I planted Spacemaster ("a very compact, bushy plant that won't take over your entire garden") and Summer Squash Cocozelle, touted as "a striped Italian beauty" that is "the race car of the vegetable garden". Stand back! I'll transplant them in a few weeks after they've sprouted and grown some leaves.

The hardest part of potting the seeds was sneaking out on the back deck so the chickens wouldn't hear me. The chickens come running and make a nuisance of themselves if they hear someone on the deck. They caught on during my last trip out and charged up the steps. They then stood outside the door, preened, and stared in as we ate dinner.

- Bruce