The Beginning of Our Pumpkin & Squash Harvest!
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00:00 I don't even know where this plant came from. It just popped up
00:03 I noticed it had squash looking leaves and we thought well, let's just see what it does
00:07 Well now it's getting to a point where you know, it's starting to get cooler at night
00:11 we're going to quickly move into the season where we need to start rolling the sides down and it's like growing out of the
00:16 Greenhouse and in the way of the the walls going up and down. It's also been tremendously in our way
00:22 We've been working around it for a long time now
00:26 So I want to get this whole vine harvested like ready or not so we can get it out of here
00:31 And then we're gonna head out to the new property
00:33 I think I've got the 30 or so hills out there and I'm not even sure what we're going to find out there
00:38 Because it's so hard with the leaf canopy like looking from right here
00:41 You wouldn't think that there was anything underneath those leaves, but then you start looking around and you think oh look at all of these
00:47 So what is this? What kind of squash? Let me cut this off
00:51 They are cute
00:54 Some type of a winter squash and it's dark green with like chartreuse flecks. I went through all my seed packets
01:01 To see if I possibly had seeds that match
01:05 What this looks like and I can't see that I do that doesn't mean that I didn't in the past
01:10 Because I know I've grown some sort of similar but there's a ton of them on this vine real quick before we start getting into
01:17 The harvest I wanted to mention the few ways you can know that your pumpkins and squash are ready to be harvested
01:23 I mean you can wait until the very end like until frost has taken the leaves and then it makes them very easy to see
01:29 And you can go out and harvest a stem is a very good indicator stem color
01:33 Oftentimes they'll change from a light green to a brown color like a tan color
01:38 This one is hard to tell because this one's dark green
01:41 But they get really hard and kind of like woody and the other way that you can tell
01:46 Is the thumbnail test you take your thumbnail push it into the skin or like a skin right just get rind
01:52 Whatever push it into the side of your squash or your pumpkin and I mean put some decent pressure on it
01:57 If it makes a big indent your fingernail makes a big in the indent
02:01 It's probably not cured enough to come off. I've harvested them like that before
02:06 It's just that takes them a little bit longer to ripen off the vine and then the storage life might not be quite as good
02:12 On them, but if it doesn't make much of an indent at all, then it's cured and ready to come off the vine. So like
02:17 Putting my thumbnail into this thing
02:21 It's making like a tiny little mark, but not much
02:24 So I mean technically we could wait on this we could wait till the leaves just wither away
02:28 But I need to get this out of the way. We've got things to water over here
02:32 And right now we're taking the hose all the way around just to water those few things
02:36 So anyway, I'm ready when we're right around October 1st
02:40 I'm ready anyway, because I want to use these we grow them to decorate with them. Some of them will go into the root cellar
02:46 So that we can store them to eat. But anyway, let's just see how many come off this vine. Let's get after it
02:52 [sound of leaves being cut]
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03:46 Okay, well that's not bad. 51 squash.
03:48 Isn't that awesome?
03:50 From a plant that I didn't even put
03:52 in the ground myself. Now, I did
03:54 find one that was immature, so this is
03:56 a really good example of one
03:58 that we could have left on the vine longer.
04:00 See how the stem is
04:02 much lighter green?
04:04 When you put them next to each other, it's pretty drastic.
04:08 And this one, like you can
04:10 see the skin, and the whole thing is
04:12 pretty squishy. And I can make a nice
04:14 indent in this one.
04:16 Do the same thing, and it makes
04:18 a tiny little indent, but not much.
04:20 And the stem is nice and stiff.
04:22 So, anyway.
04:24 Something to look for. Yeah, so
04:26 if you guys have any idea as to what variety
04:28 this might be, I would love to know.
04:30 I also saved out
04:32 the roots here.
04:34 Because I found this kind of interesting.
04:36 This whole greenhouse has
04:38 landscape fabric and gravel on
04:40 top of it. That's the way we prepped
04:42 the area when we put the greenhouse in. And I'm
04:44 so thankful we did that, because it's taken
04:46 the weed pressure down
04:48 incredibly huge.
04:50 I don't even know what kind of an issue we would have in here.
04:52 With all the water and fertilizer and stuff
04:54 that goes on in the greenhouse, we would just have
04:56 a carpet of weeds all the time.
04:58 So, we removed the sod that was here,
05:00 put the Dewitt Pro landscape fabric down,
05:02 and then the gravel. So this was rooted
05:04 in on top of the landscape fabric.
05:06 So it goes to show the landscape fabric is not
05:08 an end-all for weeds. It's just
05:10 not. It's a help in certain
05:12 situations. Like we used it here
05:14 in the high tunnel, and then in two spots
05:16 in our garden where we had bindweed issues.
05:18 Where we
05:20 didn't want to spray or didn't have the ability to
05:22 spray it out. So, anyway,
05:24 yeah. What do you think, Russell?
05:26 I just found that kind of interesting. That root just
05:28 kind of like stopped. And then
05:30 this one is cruising out. I'm not
05:32 sure how far it goes underneath
05:34 the gravel, but I just thought
05:36 it was kind of cool looking. And all of that
05:38 is going to Bethany's pigs today.
05:40 I love that Bethany keeps pigs. It's so
05:42 perfect. Because all of our
05:44 tomatoes, like we just do, we remove just
05:46 a few at a time. Whatever we can fill
05:48 Paul's truck up with. And then they go
05:50 feed the pigs with those things. So that's
05:52 what happens with all of our
05:54 vine crops. Anything that the pigs can eat goes out
05:56 there. And this is a great start to
05:58 our harvest. Pigs can have this
06:00 one too.
06:02 (sound of leaves rustling)
06:04 Okay, so here are the rest of the vine
06:24 crops out on the new property. You can see
06:26 what's left of the tomatoes there and the
06:28 corn. We've been cutting off that for container
06:30 arrangements. And all the vine
06:32 crops are right in here.
06:34 Now I don't intend on cleaning out
06:36 the vines like I did in the greenhouse because
06:38 there's still a lot of
06:40 squash in here. Oh, look at this one.
06:42 Oh! So pretty. There's
06:44 still a lot of squash in here, I think
06:46 that needs some time to ripen. And
06:48 they may have enough time.
06:50 But oh my. Okay.
06:52 Look in here. Look at this.
06:54 Oh my goodness!
06:56 But see, like
06:58 I might pick that one or we could
07:00 leave this one a little longer. And
07:02 my word, look at that.
07:04 What a beaut! Picking
07:06 pumpkins and digging potatoes
07:08 kind of hold the same allure for me.
07:10 I'm excited for this. Let's just get into it.
07:12 And like I said, this project
07:14 will probably take me into tomorrow.
07:16 But when I'm all done, we're going to have them
07:18 all lined up and I will give you a tour
07:20 of them all.
07:22 Here we go!
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08:59 - All right guys, I'm gonna call it.
09:11 It's starting to get a little bit breezy out here.
09:12 It's kicking that powder dirt up everywhere
09:14 and it's supposed to get windier as the day progresses.
09:17 Plus I'm really excited with our harvest so far.
09:19 And this is maybe less than half of what we have out here
09:22 still yet to harvest.
09:23 Look at this, you guys, isn't this fun?
09:26 This is at least a good representation
09:27 of what we still have yet to harvest.
09:29 I bet you we have maybe not double this amount
09:33 still out there, but at least one and a half times
09:35 this amount, especially if you were to count these,
09:39 I don't, not even really kind of considering
09:41 how many of these are out here.
09:42 These are the Tennessee spinning gourds
09:44 and they're not quite ready.
09:46 And there's hundreds of these out here, just hundreds.
09:49 They're so cute.
09:51 So today I just went through and picked the things
09:53 that were the most ripe.
09:55 Some of them weren't quite there, but I picked them anyway
09:57 because I wanted to use them to decorate with.
09:59 And then we'll just leave the rest of these out here
10:02 until, I don't know, a few weeks, maybe from now,
10:04 maybe two, three weeks from now,
10:06 and then we'll come back out and do another harvest.
10:08 But let's run through some of these varieties
10:10 'cause there really are some neat ones.
10:11 Now this one's called Autumn Crown.
10:13 I put papers down on the ground
10:15 so I could remember all of the varieties here,
10:17 but I just love the shape of this one.
10:20 I've never cooked with this.
10:21 This is a type of pumpkin.
10:23 So I can't, from experience,
10:25 tell you what the flavor is like with these.
10:27 I just like to decorate with these.
10:29 I like how flat they are and the size.
10:31 They're a really manageable size
10:33 and they're just such a beautiful, creamy tan.
10:35 Oh, they're so pretty.
10:37 And then we have the Speckled Hound, just beyond those,
10:40 which come out in all kinds of different colors.
10:42 Look at that one, like much more deep orange.
10:45 This one's got more of a pink.
10:47 This one has that light sagey green with the pink.
10:51 They're just so soft and beautiful.
10:52 They actually look really pretty with these.
10:55 And then only a handful of butternuts were ready.
10:57 In fact, I picked this one only
10:59 because I accidentally stepped on the vine
11:01 that was feeding it.
11:02 See how this one still has some lines of green in it?
11:05 Not quite ready to pick, but it's fine.
11:07 It will cure off the vine too.
11:10 I think it's far enough along,
11:11 but you kind of want to wait
11:12 until they're uniformly tan, nice and firm,
11:16 the stem's nice and brown.
11:17 We kind of went through all those indicators,
11:19 but there's a ton of these.
11:21 We have two hills.
11:22 These are the butterscotch butternuts.
11:24 And then we also have honey nuts.
11:25 The honey nuts have been my favorite butternut squash
11:28 I have ever grown.
11:29 And they are the last things to ripen out here.
11:32 None of those were ready today.
11:33 So the ones I have here are the butterscotch
11:36 and they really range inside.
11:37 There's some whoppers out there that are not ripe yet.
11:40 I mean like double the size,
11:42 like double the size of this one.
11:43 They're just massive.
11:45 These are really nice because honestly,
11:47 when I'm cooking with one,
11:48 I normally don't need something super huge.
11:51 So I really like kind of the standard size of these.
11:54 And then we've got the midnight pumpkins.
11:57 Aren't these cool?
11:58 Oh, I can't even remember where I ordered these from.
12:03 I want to say it was off of Etsy.
12:05 I just came across that variety
12:07 and thought it would be so cool.
12:08 And they kind of look like an acorn squash
12:11 in color, like a green one,
12:13 but they've got that small pumpkin shape
12:15 and I thought they would be fun to try to decorate with.
12:18 Anyway, that was a successful experiment.
12:20 I don't think there's that many more of these out there.
12:22 Maybe a couple that weren't ripe yet.
12:24 So that vine overall wasn't like amazingly productive,
12:28 but pretty good.
12:30 And then there's autumn frost.
12:31 There's a whole bunch of these left out there.
12:34 These are beautiful.
12:36 They have that frosty kind of patina over their tan skin.
12:42 Aren't they gorgeous?
12:46 So just a few of those were ready.
12:47 I accidentally cut the vine that these were on.
12:50 So you can see what they look like prior to ripening.
12:53 So they will develop more of that tan color
12:56 instead of this green.
12:57 So we'll see what happens with these.
12:58 This one was trying to get tan right there.
13:00 Bummer.
13:01 Only a couple of flat stackers.
13:03 I never get very many off my vines.
13:05 I think there's two left out there that weren't quite ready.
13:08 But you know, as long as I get enough to stack,
13:11 do a couple of stacks of pumpkins,
13:12 I'm usually happy with that.
13:13 So I grow them every year,
13:14 but definitely for me haven't been
13:16 an overly productive one number wise.
13:19 Then we've got a few cinderellas.
13:20 There's more on the vine out there.
13:22 In fact, this one I picked
13:25 because it was kind of sitting in water.
13:26 And while the top doesn't look super ripe,
13:29 the bottom did, and that was what was showing.
13:32 But these are always really cool.
13:33 Some years they don't ripen up orange for me.
13:35 They stay a dark green.
13:37 So I'm thrilled.
13:39 I just love the shape.
13:40 You can kind of tell.
13:41 I always pick kind of the flat squat ones.
13:45 These are ugly.
13:46 These are big Macs right here.
13:47 I'm not gonna grow this one again.
13:49 Look at that.
13:50 Like what do you do with that?
13:51 I don't wanna decorate with that.
13:53 I'm gonna have to just,
13:55 I might have to carve it or something.
13:57 I don't know.
13:57 And they're coming out sort of odd, all of them.
14:01 This one has more yellow.
14:02 This one was sitting in water.
14:03 That's why I picked it.
14:04 And then this one's kind of warty.
14:07 That one's kind of cool.
14:08 I like that.
14:09 Add some texture.
14:11 There are a few more left out there of the big Macs.
14:13 There's a whole bunch of sugar pie pumpkins
14:16 left on the vine.
14:16 In fact, you can see a green one right there.
14:18 There's a whole bunch left in there.
14:20 These are the ones that were ripe today.
14:22 This one was stealing all the energy.
14:24 It's kind of funny.
14:25 And usually they come out like this size, pretty standard,
14:28 but I've got like varying sizes going on this year.
14:31 These are always really nice.
14:33 And then we have a mix of Connecticut fields and Howden.
14:36 I just couldn't distinguish.
14:37 I planted them right next to each other.
14:39 There's a whole bunch of green ones out there.
14:41 I'm guessing that that one right there is a Howden.
14:45 They usually have a little bit more of this shape
14:47 and that one might be a Connecticut field.
14:48 See how that one's taller, but I'm not,
14:50 I can't be positive.
14:51 I'm not sure.
14:51 So anyway, hopefully we have a few more of those turn orange.
14:55 My goodness.
14:56 See the wind starting to pick up.
15:00 One of my signs is on the run.
15:02 Which one is this?
15:04 Oh, porcelain doll.
15:06 Oh yeah, it did rain a little bit there
15:07 for a little while too.
15:09 This is a variety, write it down, called Snowball.
15:12 93 pumpkins from one hill,
15:16 which means like five seeds were planted in that hill.
15:20 I just, I can't even believe it.
15:21 They're awesome.
15:23 I love the stems.
15:25 Look how long those stems are.
15:27 And some of them come out kind of curled.
15:29 We got a few little baby ones.
15:31 I just kept picking and picking and picking this variety.
15:34 And I thought, my goodness, when is it going to end?
15:38 They're amazing and bright white too,
15:39 especially once we get them cleaned up.
15:41 Next, we have a few sweet meats,
15:42 which are really good for pies actually,
15:44 and they store forever.
15:47 So I'm thrilled to have a few of those.
15:49 There's still a few more left out there.
15:51 Then we've got porcelain doll.
15:53 Aren't these so pretty?
15:55 These kind of got a weird shape.
15:58 Usually, I'm used to them looking like this.
16:00 This is like standard porcelain doll.
16:03 These got kind of like a point going on, but I love it.
16:06 I love the deep ribs.
16:08 I just think they're the prettiest color.
16:11 And I'm not sure that we got any more than that.
16:13 There might be one out there.
16:16 So it's kind of like the flat stackers.
16:17 I usually just get a handful and that's it.
16:20 And then we've got some igor pumpkins right here.
16:23 Aren't these cool?
16:24 I'm so excited.
16:25 These are so great for carving.
16:28 And we really just, we needed two,
16:30 Benjamin and Samantha.
16:31 I got those two, which aren't quite orange yet,
16:33 but we've got a few more left out there.
16:36 I just love it.
16:36 They have a nice strong stem, just classic looking.
16:41 And last but not least,
16:43 the pumpkins in the back of the gator.
16:44 A whole bunch of Jack B. Little
16:46 and Dill's Atlantic Giant pumpkins,
16:48 which aren't super giant,
16:51 but I honestly thought that we lost the vine there
16:53 for a little while.
16:54 It turned super yellow and wilted down
16:56 and I thought it was just gonna dry up and go away.
16:58 And you guys, I apologize if my audio is horrible.
17:01 I'm trying to protect my microphone from the wind,
17:03 but it's kind of a hard deal.
17:05 Anyway, the vine kind of bounced back a little bit
17:07 and I didn't take any of the pumpkins off.
17:09 I didn't do any of the little extra things you can do
17:12 to try to make your pumpkins bigger.
17:14 I just let it grow.
17:16 I was just happy that the vine survived.
17:17 I probably won't grow this again,
17:19 because again, I don't think these are pretty pumpkins at all.
17:22 This one looks pretty good.
17:23 I mean, the fact that it didn't get so big
17:25 and so like mushed down,
17:27 means that we'll probably carve that one.
17:29 That'll be kind of fun.
17:30 And then our Jack B. Little's here,
17:32 which are just the classic.
17:33 I just love these.
17:34 These are so awesome.
17:36 There's probably, I don't know,
17:38 150 left out there, I'm guessing.
17:43 They just, I don't know.
17:44 They're so prolific.
17:45 I had two hills of these.
17:46 So I planted these pumpkins from seed out here
17:49 right around May 24th.
17:51 So they've been in the ground for just over four months,
17:53 which a lot of the varieties,
17:54 especially the ones that get big,
17:56 take quite a long time, about that long,
17:58 to start to ripen, except for butternuts,
18:01 which usually take longer than everything else.
18:04 I don't know what your experience has been there,
18:06 but that's been my experience throughout the years.
18:08 So that will be one of the last things that we do harvest.
18:11 But when I planted them out here,
18:13 it was just tilled up soil.
18:14 I'm not even positive I added any fertilizer.
18:16 I think I was just so concerned
18:18 about getting the water system set up
18:19 and getting them in the ground and getting it done
18:21 that that's all that happened.
18:23 And they didn't get anything throughout the season.
18:24 Nope, they did get one application of fertilizer.
18:27 I did come out here and I did garden tone.
18:30 So I know that they got some at one point in the season.
18:34 And they probably would be even more productive
18:36 if I was a little bit more diligent
18:38 about fertilizing through the season.
18:40 And I'm just, we're lucky to get
18:42 one or two applications down.
18:44 And I couldn't be happier with that.
18:45 I mean, that's an amazing harvest.
18:46 I mean, given the fact that we still have
18:47 so many more out there,
18:49 and I didn't tromp around quite a lot,
18:51 I was as careful as I could be to not step on vines.
18:54 So it's possible some of those vines
18:56 might start to wither up,
18:57 in which case we'll take the plants off.
18:59 And oftentimes, especially if they're kind of close to ripe,
19:02 you can set them somewhere out of the,
19:04 I usually set them in the barn on the floor,
19:06 and they usually do a pretty good job at curing
19:09 and ripening up the rest of the way.
19:11 Now, some of these I grow just for decorating
19:13 and some I do just for eating.
19:15 Like butternuts, I don't normally decorate with butternuts.
19:17 We usually put those in the root cellar right away.
19:20 I do like to go through them though.
19:22 If any of them have any nicks or any bruising
19:25 or any damage to them,
19:26 I like to try to get through those first
19:28 before we get into the good ones
19:30 because the storage life of those
19:31 just kind of goes down a little bit.
19:32 They usually like a temperature for storage
19:34 right around 50 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit
19:36 with really good air ventilation.
19:38 Right now, I think our root cellar's at 40,
19:40 so I might kick that up to about 45,
19:42 but we are also storing potatoes and onions.
19:45 I have to try to kind of find a happy medium,
19:46 and then we are gonna be moving dahlias in,
19:48 and we're gonna dig some of those.
19:49 So anyway, I think that's gonna be it for today's video.
19:51 I did forget to mention,
19:52 and maybe I should have mentioned this first,
19:54 that you probably noticed the kids out there
19:56 helping me pick and haul some of the pumpkins
19:58 after I mentioned that I wasn't gonna let them do that
20:01 because I thought there might be black widows out there.
20:03 I did not run across a single spider.
20:05 I started in harvesting, and I was very careful.
20:08 I was going fairly slow, looking through the vines.
20:11 I didn't even run across, like, not a spider,
20:13 not even a benign spider out there.
20:15 I ran across some ladybugs and lots of squash bugs,
20:18 and that is it.
20:19 So I let them come in,
20:20 kind of in the areas where I'd already
20:22 tromped down the vines a little bit,
20:23 and they had such a big time, you guys.
20:25 So fun when kids are involved
20:27 with the picking of the pumpkins
20:29 because it is like a treasure hunt,
20:30 and it's like this special thing
20:32 that they have been watching grow through the season.
20:34 So I was super thankful that it turned out
20:37 to be the way it was because it was fun for everyone.
20:39 So anyway, that is it for today.
20:41 Thank you guys so much for watching,
20:43 and we will see you in the next one.