Squashes plot world domination

Pumpkin and butternut have been growing prolifically!  The main vine grows about a foot every 2-3 days!  I kind of didn't prepare for this when I was planning my garden.  I've heard a few ideas about running the main vine around.  I'll play by ear for now.

7 July:

 9 July:

You can see the pumpkin and butternut plants starting to climb.  I wonder how far they'll make it...  I'm kind of scared!  I really doubt this trellis will support its weight.  But maybe the chicken wire will.  I will most likely have to get/build a real trellis next year (if I plan to grow pumpkins here again).  

Strange colouring...  Dark green stripes beginning near plant centre / primary roots.  Not sure what that's all about.  I'll research it tomorrow.

 

Apples

This year, it seems the apple trees in our neighbourhood (perhaps the whole city) haven't produced many flowers, but have produced enormous dark green leaves.  Even the crabapples and chokecherry trees.  Honestly, our sample has been us, our neighbours, some friends and my brother's house, so this would probably be considered anecdotal.

At first, I blamed Dad for using a nitrogen fertiliser on the lawn.  The excess nitrogen would explain the lack of flowers and the abundance of leaves.  But the concentration of nitrogen shouldn't have been high enough to do this.

After hearing from my mom (about our neighbours and my brother), I'm more inclined to believe it's either weather or something in the water.  Most likely, it was that snow we had in late April.

Whatever the case, I found one apple in our tree.

We had maybe four clusters of blossoms this year.  Compare with this photo from 2008:

Dang.  I really wanted apples this year.

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