Radishrain

This is a continuation of this thread: http://vegetables.boards.net/thread/463/cushaw-white-jonathan-pumpkin-squash

I planted a Cushaw White squash, this year. It was my last seed of the variety (I tried to grow it in the past, and used most of the seeds that year, but it had too much shade and didn't produce). This year, it had plenty of sun (and I started it early, before transplanting it).

It grew four very large, white fruits, and one smaller white fruit. It grew very large vines quickly and vigorously, which only stopped growing after the plant had its fruits and a bunch of squash bugs. Squash bugs infested it, but they didn't kill the plant.

Today, I harvested the four large fruits, which were all ripe (the closest tendril of each had shriveled). The small fruit had softened and had squash bugs all over it. I got the bugs off and after discovering that it was soft, squashed it. It looked like a spaghetti squash inside.

I harvested wonderberries, today, and I found one with fused fruits! The fruit was comprised of three fruits stuck together into one fruit. I've been looking for unusual wonderberries for breeding purposes, such as to breed bigger wonderberries (that's one of the reasons I'm growing so many). I found a fused fruit earlier in the season, but I didn't save seeds (and it had one less fruit fused into it). Anyway, I'm pretty happy about this. The seeds are bagged and ready to zap. I plan to grow these next year. Each fused fruit here isn't particularly large, but alas, and they're still fused and might produce larger fused wonderberries next time.

Here are some pictures, one of each side of the fruit:




forum_record (For most wonderberry fruits naturally fused together, with that number being 3.)

I harvested 70 watermelons, today! they weren't large. Twenty-eight of them were Red-seeded Citron watermelons. The other 42 were various varieties (primarily winter types).

So, yesterday, I went with some friends to do service and harvest Red Delicious apples at the orchard for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The apples were abundant and large. They didn't fall off easily.

The week before, I went with a couple friends to another one of the Church's orchards and harvested Johnathan apples. They were smaller, less abundant, and they fell off the tree more easily. It's a shame Red Delicious isn't as popular as it used to be (except, I'm not advocating monoculcture), because it seems to be pretty nice, and an ideal apple for the area (this year, anyhow).

Nowadays stores seem to sell things like Gala, Fuji and maybe newer kinds. I like the older ones, but some of the newer ones taste awesome (though Fuji and Gala are not among my favorites). I like Granny Smith, McIntosh and such. I like Red Delicious quite a bit, though. I like it a lot more now that I see how well it grows in SW Idaho, though!

Red Delicious gets a bad rap for taste. In all honesty, I think it tastes great. It has a unique taste, however. If it's the only kind of apple you eat, you might want something else, eventually. Maybe that's why it fell out of favor (people ate it almost exclusively). Or, maybe the taste changed over time due to growing conditions / storage conditions or new breeds of apples termed Red Delicious.

So, today, I had some well-cooked beans (chili) that were quite firm. I prefer my beans super soft. So, I thought I'd do some research on how to make soft beans.

I found Bigfoot's comments on this article to be insightful (although in need of testing):
* https://cheftalk.com/threads/how-make-soft-beans.21484/#post-157070
* https://cheftalk.com/threads/how-make-soft-beans.21484/page-2#post-157716

So, yeah, ideas (not just Bigfoot's) include adding baking soda, don't cook them with tomatoes (add tomatoes after the beans are soft), pre-soaking overnight, and other stuff. They say older beans stay firmer longer.

cooking_

* Santo Domingo Winter (plenty)
* Santo Domingo Dark Green (multiple)
* Santo Domingo Brown Seeded (several)
* Large (in my garden) or other winter types: Corner Round/Long, Weeks NC Giant cross, unknown winter watermelon, Tom Watson cross, Winter Queen, Wintermelon, Navajo Winter, King Winter, Navajo Red, Carolina Cross

Maybe:
* Mayo

If I get seeds:
* Desert King
* Tohono O'odham

Good thing I harvested the ripe tomatoes earlier today, because it's raining, now! It often gets wet at the end of the season here. (It's supposed to freeze on Tuesday: read Wednesday morning.)

There's nothing quite like harvesting tomatoes in the cold and rain.

Here are some Sweet Orange Cherry tomatoes that I harvested, today. They're nice. It's an early, prolific, hardy variety with good taste. It's somewhat larger than my Galapagos Island. I had it in tough soil, this year, unamended, unfertilized. I also grew it in 2017, and 2016. I gave my plant to some people in 2018. Mine came from dianeseeds.com, as Orange Cherry.



Offsite articles:
• Tatiana's TOMATObase

Offsite forum search results:
• Google: Dave's Garden
• Google: Gardenweb
• Google: proboards.com
• Google: Tomatoville

heirloom_tomato

The Sausage tomato is a favorite of mine. It produces large paste tomatoes in abundance. Sausage seems to be able to handle heat and drought well.

Here's a picture that includes some of mine (they ripen red, but the picture makes them look pink). Some or all of these Sausage tomatoes might be a cross, as they're a little smaller than I'd expect.



heirloom_tomato