Several months ago we had successive fox attacks. First our guinea pigs were taken and then the chooks. We thought we’d done a lot to protect the chooks. They’d happily (I hope) survived 7 years living in our garden. Their pen had sunken sides everywhere except below the door and they were locked up every night. But foxes are clever, and one burrowed under the door, and well you can guess the rest.
Although I loved our chooks and miss them (aside from anything else eggs are hard to get at the moment), I am trying to focus on the positive. The garden is a lot cleaner now, I don’t have to protect my seedlings, and their demise did create something of an opportunity to grow stuff in their old (heavily fertilised) shed.
So I planted a couple of pumpkins and a Zucchini Tromboncino. Fast forward about 4 months and the whole shed has been taken over by the zucchini. It survived most of its initial leaves being eaten by rodents, smothered the pumpkins and is fruiting non stop. I’ve picked some but these ones I’ll leave because I’m intrigued to see how big they will get. I suspect the chicken wire may impact their growth a little though.
Sorry to hear about your animal losses, but I’m loving your pics. I have one from a few years ago with my 6YO daughter standing next to a tromboncino squash taller than she was! They don’t do well for us every year but I’m hoping this will be the year of the squash for us. I’ll put mine in the ground in a few weeks.
That would be so cool if mine got that long. Hopefully this will be the year!
I have had great success with trombocino 2 out of 3 years.
Fruits over 1 metre are common, and they last well.We still have several from last summer, and just cut a length off as needed.
They are a useful addition on to winter stews, and soups.