I have a new asparagus bed and just couldn't leave it "empty". I had some volunteer pumpkins last year that got HUGE, so when this plant came up I shrugged and let it grow. In the mean time, I started some crook necked and some zuks. This squash that is coming IN DROVES on the "pumpkin" vine looks nothing like the above squash! After looking it up, it looks like a lebonese squash (which I have never seen nor eaten!) It's tasty on the grill or stuffed, though! I'm getting ready to put some on the neighbor's porch and RUN like the wind! LOLOLO I also planted POLE beans, all from the same pkg and got more bush beans! My pole beans seem to have died from the heat in the last couple of days, or else a critter has made it's way into the raised beds!

In central North Carolina, you can start planting at your last frost date. May 1 until around August 1. The later dates if you wish to try keeping them in storage. They are not very good keepers tho so plan on a couple of months .

these have been taken

The whole squash family is a mess and includes winter squash (which includes what we often refer to as pumpkins), pumpkins (which includes what we refer to as summer squash) and gourds, which we really aren't discussing....but they belong to the family too. To keep them straight, remember that pumpkins are something we carve, squash is something we cook and gourds are something we look at. That's an oversimplification, but it does help you keep them straight from one another. Pumpkins, as we generally know them in this country, are Cucurbita pepo. They are mostly round, though sometimes oblong, mostly orange, and are most famous for being carved into jack-o-lanterns at Halloween. C. pepo "pumpkins" (if allowed to mature) have stems that are hard and deeply furrowed. Also included in the C. pepo family are these "summer squash": yellow crookneck and straighneck squash, zucchini, vegetable marrow, pattypan squash, and scallop. Most of the processed, canned pumpkin sold in this country labeled as "pumpkin" is from the C. moschata family. Perhaps not so coincidentally, this is the type of squash most resistat to squash vine borers, and most of my favorite "pumpkins" fall into this group. Most moschatas tend to be more oblong than round, and some of them can get pretty long. Often their skin will mature to a tan or buff color, though not always. The stems are ridged and enlarge right at the point where the squash meets the stem. Some of the common moschatas are the cheese pumpkins, cushaws and butternuts, as well as the Seminole pumpkin. Seminole is my favorite winter squash to grow because it won't die and you can't kill it. The C. maxima species produces pumpkin-like squash, but they have stems that are softer, almost spongy, are not ridged and do not enlarge where the stem attaches to the squash. Their skin tends to mature more to a yellowish shade than to a bright, true orange. This group does include Atlantic Giant and Big Max and the first time I grew them, I waited forever for them to turn a deep, dark orange--and they don't. They're a medium yellowish-orange. So, the next time you buy or harvest a summer squash, what you have really is a pumpkin. The next time you buy canned pumpkin, you're actually buying winter squash. When you buy a big orange pumpkin to carve, its' flesh is tough and stringy and not worth cooking. It doesn't make a very good pumpkin pie either. I hope this makes everything as clear as mud. When y'all have recovered from all this confusion, we can discuss cantaloupes and muskmelons. The tannish-skinned, netted melons sold in this country as cantaloupes are not cantaloupes at all. They are muskmelons. That's a story for another day.