My garden is out of control

[Matthew Reed]

I have learned a very important lesson this year - plant the plants further apart!! My pumpkins have taken over everything within 15 feet. I have beans I can't get at to harvest. I have tomatillos that are huge, I had no idea they would get so big!

is a typical shot. You can see a pumpkin bursting out of the corn, and another one taking up what used to be a pathway I used to be able to use to walk through the garden.

this shot, if you look to the upper right you see a mass of tomatoes. The pic doesn't show it very well, but it's about 8 plants growing in a huge mass that I can't hardly get around. I cut the suckers when I can, and am just letting it grow. Suckers pop up out of the middle from somewhere down inside, I have no idea where they come from lol. I don't know what to do with it but just let it grow.

The center is a row of squash that is doing quite well. I thought I was wasting space with the wide path to the left - now I can hardly walk through it.

is what happens when you throw sunflower seeds into the garden. I cut out most of them because nothing else wround them was getting any sun.

So - lesson learned. Wider rows. Give pumpkins a *lot* of room. Plant tomatoes further apart. And space tomatillos ... maybe 3 feet apart?, mine are just huge and have crowded out nearby tomatoes and peppers.

[betsyb]

Oh, Matt this is so funny. I am in no better shape than you! I planted cantelopes just to watch them grow. They sook off and haven't stopped yet! What the heck do I need 14 melons for? From 6 little plants! Wish I liked them but my Husband does and he'd best get to eating. We live in a senior mobile home park and are not allowed gardens for food, only flowers? As if this makes sense. Just consider your self lucky, no back yard BBQ's and no lawn mowing till fall?

[JustBrowsing]

I envy all you people in the warmer climates...up here in Newfoundland you have at best 3 months from start to finish....we have really small bugs tho....to match our really small gardens...but I'm not whining...lol

[Matthew Reed]

Haha, I don't feel so bad now. I wish my cantelopes would take off, but although my squash and tomatoes are exploding, my melons and cukes are just poking along at slow speed. I"ve read that squash should be spaced 2-3 feet apart. phhhttt. My scallop squash plant is easily 6 feet across. My wife is complaining because it is so big she can't get into it to pick the squash without being poked in the face by spiny stems and leaves:

squash lovers might appreciate this pic :)

[zxcvbob]

The only thing that's doing much of anything for me this year is a yellow summer squash that came up volunteer. I pulled up most of the volunteer squash, but I left this one. It's growing like a pumpkin, but in all directions instead of just taking off with one long vine. It's probably 20 feet in diameter and still growing. I can't keep up with all the squash it's producing.

Bob

[Phisherman]

You might think so. I'm in E.TN and it can be a hell hole here. The heat can kill a lot of my favorite plants, like tomato which prefers hot days and cool nights. I used to live in Ohio--the perfect climate for tomatoes in the world--I've seen them growing in sidewalk cracks! My point here is to grow what grows best in your climate and you will be a very successful gardener.

[Matthew Reed]

Cross between a crookneck and some vining squash? My pumpkins are easily 25 feet from one end to the other - they invaded my corn and beans, and I can no longer tell which vine end comes from which plant. And we have green pumpkins the size of basket balls all over, I can't tell which one comes from which plant, or where another pumpkin will pop up.

[Claire Petersky]

[snippage]

My husband took a glance at the photos and said, "Pacific Northwest". Vancouver WA, right? It's a combo of the architecture of the house and the look of the sky.

[Matthew Reed]

Close. I moved from Vancouver last December. Now we are in Lebanon, about

100 miles south of Vancouver. The house was built in 1948.

We are having an unusually dry summer. It hasn't rained for about 6 weeks, and things are really drying out. Weather is in the 70s. Waiting to see if we are going to have another heat wave in August, or if it's going to stay like this for the rest of the summer.

[instdofsaks]

Matthew, Now is the perfect time to personalize your pumpkins. We use a homemade gadget, but I think you can buy pumpkin carving kits. Anyway, scrape off the skin, write your name, etc. now. The pumpkin should keep growing and the name, etc will scab over and look cool. Doris

[Matthew Reed]

What about the ones that are starting to turn orange? how long from the start of orange to actually being ripe?

Problem here is we can barely get to them LOL. The pumpkin "patch" is so dense, we can barely get into it to swee the pumpkins, let alone touh them :)