The Last Squash Report! Son Kabak Raporu!

I promise, from now until planting season I will write nothing more about winte squash! Well, maybe not.

Here are some of the squash from the garden. The Rouge Vif d'Etampes produced nicely but with the exception of one, they didn't display the flat shape that is supposedly characteristic for the variety. They also were not nearly as tasteless as I've read, and one made a pretty decent soup.

Yemin ediyorum, ekin zamanı gelinceye kadar balkabaklar hakkında bir daha yazmayacağım! Belkı... Buyrun bu yılın balkabaklarından birkaç tanesi. Rouge Vif d'Etampes, çok güzel üretti fakat bir tanesi hariç o cinse özgü basık yayvan özelliğini göstermedi. Okuduğum kadar tatsız da çıkmadı, bir tanesinden çok lezzetli bir çorba yaptım.

The Futsus impressed me; despite the fact that I got them into the ground way too late they produced a lot of squash. I've already eaten several, but I decided to wait for a while before eating any more to see if they sweeten up. I cooked them stuffed with apples, with a little nutmeg, cinnamon, brown sugar, butter and a little orange juice. They do have a slightly different flavor but I would have never thought "hazelnut."

Küçük gri Futsu'lar beni çok sevindirdi, çok fazla geç ekmeme rağmen yine çok ürettiler. Bir kaç tanesi yedim de zamanla tatlanacak mı diye bekleyeceğim. Fırında elma, biraz tarçın, muscat cevizi, tereyağla doldurup, biraz da portakal suyu ekleyrek pişirdim. Harika! Biraz farklı bir tadı var fakat her yerde okuduğum "fındık" tadını ben duyamadım. Reklam abartısı her halde.

The biggest disappointment was the Marina di Chioggia - I only got two! The reason is no mystery - a pack of dogs that came into the garden and decided to dig right where they were growing, snapping off two of the best runners. The quality is really nice though and I'll plant it again next year.

En büyük hayal kırıklığını, Marina di Chioggia ile yaşadım - sadece iki tane verdi! Sebebi ise mechul değil, bir köpek sürüsü bahçeme girip tam yetiştiği yerde kazarak en büyük iki sürgününü koparttı. Kaletesi son derece güzel ama, gelecek yıl da kesinlikle ekeceğim.

My housemate was down in his home town of Aydın, and brought a pack of seed that is supposedlyl of the preferred variety there. Turns out the company is in Istanbul but generally the squash sold here come from Adapazarı, and are dark gray, resembling the Australian Jarrahdale pumpkin but less glossy and more irregular in shape. It makes a great pie. But there are other varieties as well grown in the south, especially a large, smooth pale gray-green one with very shallow grooves and pale orange blotches; I'd love to score some seed of that one.

Aydın'lı ev arkadaşım da bir paket balkabağı tohumu getirdi. Satanlara göre o yörede en çok yetiştirilen cinsmiş. Tohum şirketi İstanbul'da ama... İstanbul'da benzer birşey gördüm de, burada en çok satılan cins "Adapazarı" veya "Kestane" denilen, büyük derin boğumlu gri cinstir. Aydın'da yetişen başka bir cins de var, büyük, oval şekli sığ çizgili, uçuk turuncu benekli açık yeşilimsi gri renkli bir tane. Ondan birkaç tohum elde etmek isterdim!

And the last pumpkin-related bit: I was in Greece for several weeks and when I came back through Komotini in northestern Greece, I found some very attractive winter squash in the markets that looked like a more bottle-shaped butternut. (CD added for scale.) I was too curious about the variety so I bought one and it looked pretty nice when I opened it, but I was underwhelmed; it cooked up very fibrous and pulpy, with not much flavor. I won't be growing it next year!

Veeee kabaklarla ilgili son paragraf olarak... Yunanistan'da birkaç hafta geçirdim, dönüşte Batı Trakya, Gümülcine kentinde görünüşü çok güzel olan bir balkabağı buldum. Bizim çok popüler olan "butternut" cinsinin daha kabarığı, şişe şeklinde birşey. (CD, boyunu göstermek için eklendi.) Cinsi çok merak ettiğim için bir tanesini aladım, açtığımda güzel göründü fakat tadı beni hiç etkilemedi; eti tatsız, lifli ve çok sulu çıktı. Gelecek yıl yetiştireceğim bir cins değil!

Squash Update / Kabak Güncellemesi

Yeah, I know what you're thinking...This guy is really obsessing on the winter squash!



Yep, I am! There aren't many other vegetables in the garden (okay, it's technically a fruit) where you plant a seed, watch it sprout and get established, then get to watch it bloom and begin growing with amazing speed, but have to watch through the entire summer to bring those fruits to maturity. Maybe corn would compare but it's still much more gradual and subtle. Tomatoes, okra, even melons, are harvested as they become ripe, with more constantly on the way; but with winter squash, your fruits set, and it's those same fruits you nurture over the months until it's finally time to harvest them. (Potatoes are another matter - you plant them, know they're growing down there, but you really don't know how many you'll get or how well they did until the moment of truth arrives. My potato harvest? Um...let's talk about squash!)

Above is a large and still-developing Rouge Vif D'Etampes fruit; it probably weighs about twelve pounds now and it hasn't even started to flatten out or turn color. Rouge Vif D'Etampes is interesting that way; whereas some squash make their eventual shape obvious even before the blooms are fertilized, this one starts out as a little yellow golf ball that doesn't show its eventual flat shape until fairly late in the game. Below is another one that is coloring up nicely. It is a bit smaller since it started forming earlier but I let several fruits form on its vine. I gave seeds to friends in Iznik as well, and there seems to be quite a bit of variation in shape; some of the fruits are deeply ribbed while others are smoother. This one is on the same plant as the one above; it grew round until just a few weeks ago when it began to flatten noticeably.



Below is another one on a different plant; all of this plant's squashes have a distinct green mottling that may fade as they mature.



Here's the same one just a couple weeks earlier. Though it had not begun to color up at all yet, it already had the green mottling.



The only "bad news" about Rouge Vif d'Etampes is the flavor reviews I've seen. The description was "delicious sweet flesh, perfect for pies and custards." Others, notably Amy Goldman, author of "The Compleat Squash," (more about her later) beg to differ. In her own words:

"This one coasts by on looks alone, being insipid and watery. It's enchanting, but I wouldn't cook with it."

Well, dang. We'll see. It was quite good when it was still yellow.

So what about Marina di Chioggia? Goldman gives it rave reviews, and even if its flavor were mediocre, I'd still be glad I planted it because it's an amazing looking thing. Unfortunately because of its situation, and the fact that a pack of dogs came into the garden are badly damaged the vines, I'll only get two of these for all my efforts. The larger of the two is just starting to develop the characteristic warts:

As a diversion from the squash, here's a picture of that nice Amaranth, "Hopi Red Dye," coming up among the leaves. There is a Rouge Vif d'Etampes lurking under the leaves though!



And then there's Futsu. I had something unusual happen with this one. Usually winter squash start blooming male, and after a succession of male flowers it finally opens the female flowers. My Futsus did exactlyl the opposite. As the fines took off, lots of male flowers developed at the nodes but they progressed very, very slowly. Meanwhile there were female flowers coming on quickly. I got two female flowers before I had any males. Since Futsu is a C. moschata, it technically can't cross with C. maxima (though it has been done artificially). But I thought "what the heck" and tried it anyway. The seeds may come out sterile but the fruits did set! Here's one of them - the picture's a little old and they're now much larger and a very dark green.



The Futsu plant is probably one of the most ornamental squash plant I've ever grown. I find the leaves beautiful with their generous white marbling, and the flowers are enormous! The mid-90s weather we have been having has seemed to put a bit of a damper on their fruit set but it's cooled a little now and some more females have started to grow instead of yellow and drop.



I've also finally found the place where gourds like to grow. Before I arrived my housemate had grown gourds in the upper garden but I've tried for 2 years in a row and despite manure and generous watering, I just can't get them to take off. I made a small arbor in the lower garden and planted a tiny ornamental bottle gourd with fruits only about 6" long at maturity. They really took off and are well on their way to to the top of the large plum tree next to them. They should be fun to decorate as Christmas or other ornaments. There are at least 14 out there and many more on the way.



If you are even remotely interested in squash, I can't say enough good things about the book "The Compleat Squash: A Passionate Grower's Guide to Pumpkins, Squashes and Gourds," by Amy Goldman. I knew there were lots of different kinds of squash but the illustrations in this book will have you drooling. She goes through the three major squash species and gives descriptions of both common and rare varieties' uses, table quality and origins. It's interesting how many heirloom varieties are stringy and unappetising; perhaps they grew them because they didn't have another variety available and were used to them. Other types, especially some of the large pumpkins, were grown as cattle feed. I'm already planning which new (to me) varieties I'll grow next year, and I'll definitely have to clear at least another 50 square yards of planting area!

And since you made it this far (well, I'm assuming), here is a compleat-ly squash-unlrelated picture: A bloom on my neighbor's giant white Datura just on the point of popping open. This is a plant with a strategy! The scent starts emerging from the flower long before they unfurl even to this point, and like hungry campers in the food line, they swarm around the flowers trying to find the entrance. Then the flower suddenly pops open, and it's dinner time!

A Botanic Garden in Istanbul! İstanbul'da bir Botanik Bahçesi!

I remember once when I was about 5, looking everywhere for my superball. It was my favorite toy. I'd just seen it a little earlier, and I was looking everywhere...under the couch, behind all the chairs, in my room, in the hall. I asked my mom if she'd seen it. "Yes, I did see it!" she said. "Where?" "Oh, I think you'll find it soon enough," she said. A couple of minutes later, I started pestering her again to tell me where it was. "It's very close to you!" she said. When I couldn't stand it any longer and was about to get whiny, she said "take a look in your hand."

It was there. And no, I was not a head-start drug user!



Beş yaşı civarındayken en sevdiğim oyuncağım olan "super top"umu arıyordum. Koltukların arakasında, yatak odamda, koridorda, her yerde arıyordum ama nafile... Anneme gördün mü diye sorduğumda, gülümseyerek "evet, senin de çok yakında bulacağını zannediyorum" dedi. Aramaya devam ettim, yine bulamayınca anneme mızmız etmeye başlayınca sırıtarak "eline baksana" dedi. Oradaymış. Ve o küçük yaşta narkotik kullanmaya başladığımı zannetmeyin...! Sonuçta bazen çok aradığımız şeyler burnumuzun altındayken nedense farkına varmıyoruz. Nezahat Gökyiğit Botanik Bahçesi ise tam öyle bir vaka...İstanbul'da yaşadığım dokuz yıl boyunca otobüste bilmem kaç kez oradan geçmişim, ama varlığının bile farkına varmadım! Onların ayrıntılı web sitesinde burada yazdığım bütün bilgileri bulabildiğinize göre (hem de tembel olduğum için) bütün yazımı Türkçeye çevirmeyeceğim. Fakat hiç gitmediyseniz, hiç zaman kaybetmeden bu bahçeyi ziyaret etmenizi kesinlikle tavsiye ediyorum!

The point is, sometimes something you wish you had can be right under your nose and for some reason you just find out very late. Such was the case when, almost two months ago now, I learned that Istanbul had a botanic garden! I did know about one at Istanbul University but it is famously unkept and neglected; this one is a real jewel in a very unexpected place. As a matter of fact, I've gone right by it on the bus to Kozyatağı, and never even noticed it! And since it took me so long to find out about it, I think it's only appropriate that my post about it is late as well.

I actually was not out looking for botanic gardens; a gardening friend of mine invited me to a lunch by a group called İmece Evi. İmece is Turkish for a traditional village work party. In the old days, and sometimes still today, certain jobs like boiling, drying and pounding bulgur, making dry lavash for winter, food for weddings, etc. are easier to do as a group effort and all the women or men of the village will pitch in. The İmece Evi group has a communal village in the Kazdağı area, where they grow organic produce, learn to live naturally and sell the products of their (joint) labor. They are also planning to begin restoring and farming in an old abandoned village in the mountains near Izmir. The lunch was at the Nezahat Gökyiğit Botanic Garden in the unlikely area of Ataşehir, Istanbul. I say "unlikely" because...well, look at this! If anyone doubts the resourcefulness of the Turks, this should be enough to set them straight:

The garden is literally surrounded and bi-/tri-/quadrisected by freeway. And I have to admit that when I first heard there was a botanic garden there, I was not expecting anything very impressive; the entrance to the garden off the freeway did little to make me any more optimistic.

Sometimes it's really nice to be wrong though. In Istanbul, where there seem to be about 20 plants available in most nurseries, there were truly interesting things growing along the path up into the garden, Verbascums, rare Centaureas, Salvias and more. With over 75 species, Turkey is the center of distribution of the genus Verbascum, or mulleins. But even though there are some dandies here, they are ubiquitously seen as weeds, and even among those interested in flower gardening, it would be a rare gardener who would actually plant one! So I was thrilled to see this specimen, a Vebascum I saw in the wild near Selçuk, site of the ancient city of Ephesus. It's a truly beautiful thing with its white fur and half-appressed leaves up the flowering stem.

But the really amazing thing to me was that even though the garden was in some of the bleakest concrete high-rise sprawl of Istanbul, they had done a beautiful job of hiding it. The garden is divided by the highways into five "islands." From the main garden there is an overpass into a large picnic area which is also nicely planted. Another beautifully planned section is accessed via a drainage tunnel that runs underneath the highway. They have camouflaged this so well (see the first picture above) that you really have no idea the highway is there, and the walls of the tunnel on either side are outfitted with lighted panels explaining different aspects of plant evolution, adaptation and survival strategies.

In addition to the purely ornamental plantings, there are plantings representing a variety of habitats throughout Turkey, where local plants with specialized soil needs thrive. To the left is a beautiful scarlet Glaucium that was growing in a bed devoted to the salt plains near the Salt Lake (Tuz Gölü) in Central Anatolia.

The garden was first planted by Mr. Nihat Gökyiğit, not as a botanic garden at all, but rather with a double purpose: as a memororial to his wife Nezahat as well as an attempt to repair the land that had been degraded as a result of freeway construction. Over time it grew, and was declared a botanic garden in April 2003. It is now a member of the International Association of Botanic Gardens, and operates its own foundation.

Below is a spectacular Delphinium species native to the volcanic steppe soils of Anatolia.



Though many who visit it undoubtedly see it as simply another place to have a picnic (and in Turkey, a picnic means a grill, a gas canister to make tea and lots of meat smoke!), and a picnic area has been opened, accessed by an overpass, the hope is that people who come for the green space will also explore the rest of the garden and become more aware of Turkey's incredible plant diversity and the need for protecting it. To the right is a poster about an endangered species of Centaurea which grows in the area of Konya. And of course the plant is being grown in the garden; below are some of its unopened flower buds.



The garden has a herbarium, propagation areas and classrooms with courses and workshops on urban gardening, composting and botanical illustration. It also has an ever growing botanical library, and puts out a quarterly gardening magazine, the only one I'm aware of in Turkey which is really devoted to plants instead of "expensive crap you can buy to stick in your garden!"

In addition to the two planted islands and the picnic area, there are two more islands which are not open to the public. The reason is that although they belong to the garden, the only access to them is by dashing across the busy freeway! One of them has been allowed to develop completely naturally, as a living museum of plant life in the Istanbul area.

You can find further photographs of the garden on its home page under the "Album" header in the English section, as well as on this site.

Lost and Found II / Kayıp Eşya Bölümü II

Sometimes a plant becomes loaded with so many memories that it's hard to imagine not growing it, and there is one such plant in our family.

Years ago, when I was maybe 8 years old, my grandmother gave my mother what looked like nothing more than a pot of dirt and said, "grow this." My mother asked what it was, and all she would say was "something beautiful!" Mom never did know just what it was supposed to be, but what did come up was a seedling of an evening primrose with larger and more fragrant flowers than any I have ever seen. I sent seeds to somone for identification and he told me it was Oenothera biennis. I'm not convinced though, because I've never seen an O. biennis with 1) such large flowers, 2) such fragrant flowers, and 3) such a frequently branching habit. It does sometimes get a bit tall and gangly but when it's growing well, it also branches frequently.

The plant seeded itself in the rocks on our back patio, and each evening new flowers would open like time-lapse photography, releasing a heavy scent of jasmine tea into the humid Iowa summer air. When we had summer parties, there was always a crowd of people gathered around the stand of evening primrose (which we just called "night flowers"), watching in anticipation as the buds swelled slowly, then suddenly opened completely over the course of about 20 seconds, the sticky pollen stringing between the anthers in wait of the hawk moths who would be visiting, almost immediately. It turned out their larvae also liked to eat it as much as they did tomatoes.

When I moved to Seattle, I made sure I got seed of this plant that was such a part of my childhood, and grew it in the front garden of the first house I live in. It did beautifully there, and even produced one almost-white flowering plant which unfortunately did not recur. I moved to a second house and the night flowers followed me there too. Finally I moved to the last house I'd live in Seattle, where I gardened for nine years. I planted some older seed I'd saved, but it didn't come up - evidently I hadn't kept it dry enough. I went back to my old place to find a seed pod, and the entire garden had been dug up and replaced with a vegetable garden (oh, the horror!). My mother had since moved to Arkansas and though the plant will grow there, it seems to be a favorite of the deer, and she's given up. (The local O. biennis survives though, which also makes me suspect it's something else.)

So I got desperate and searched through the lawn near where my flower garden had been, and found three tiny seedlings. They became the parents of a new overgrowth of evening primrose. This time I was sure to share seed with friends as well!

When I came to Istanbul, I had no garden, but after a year or so I was living in a place with a balcony and tried growing seed I got from a friend back in Seattle in pots. It didn't like the pots, or more likely the insubstantial fluff that is sold as "potting soil" here. I saved the rest of the seed, and when I found a place with a garden a few years later, one of the first things I did was to plant "our" night flowers! And once again, the seed was no longer viable. This time, finding seed was a bigger adventure. On my next trip to Seattle, I called all my friends, and one person did have one plant growing in the garden. About to leave town, he told me he'd leave a stem of it on the chair on the front porch. A day later I went by...there was nothing there. He later said he'd put it there but evidently a housemate had been cleaning... I couldn't find anyone who had any, so in a last-ditch attempt, I went to my old house. And there, right on the edge of a sidewalk, in among the weeds, was a stem with about 8 seedpods in it. I nearly threw my back out, I leaned over to grab it so fast!



So now I've learned that it has a name here too - "Ezan Çiçeği" - the ezan is the call to prayer, which no doubt refers to the fact that it starts opening about the time of the evening ezan. I've seen seed of it offered, but it's not quite the same as mine, so I don't grow any other varieties. It's now seeding happily around my garden, so it appears that this plant will be with me for a while to come.

Squash Flowers - Stuffed / Kabak Çiçeği Dolması

Better late than never! They ended up being with meat. I suppose I could have appended this to the previous post but that would have meant 10 minutes spent removing tags....



My filling is with chopped meat, rice, parsley, grated tomato, tomato paste, pepper paste, cumin, salt, pepper, and lemon juice. As my mom would say, it's "almost good enough to eat!"

Edible Weeds - Amaranth / Yenilebilir Otlar - Sirkem-Horozibiği

In the States, Amaranth is best known as the holy grain crop of the Andes, where it was the staple grain of the Incas. It was also an important ritual food; cakes of it were made with the blood of sacrifices and this led to it being forbidden by the colonial priests. It's an incredibly productive plant, the large grain varieties can produce over a pound of seed per head.

There are also several ornamental amaranths; "Love lies bleeding" is one of the best known. I'm growing one grain Amaranth - Orange Giant (which I planted way too late so it's not "giant" at all...maybe next year...), and a beautiful deep red one called "Hopi Red Dye," that has seeded itself prolifically each year since I first planted it in my last garden several years ago. It was used as a source of red dye for ceremonial foods. My apologies for the really bad quality of the picture here. The plants are quite puny as well since it's being grown in the dry flower bed, but it goes to show just what a tough plant it is!

But there are local, native Amaranths in Turkey too, and they are just as tough. None of them are showy, they are green plants with green flowers, some with red stems. They are mostly considered weeds here, and will come up in waves wherever the soil is watered regularly and lots of places where it is not.



I would probably be trying to eradicate it entirely if it weren't for the fact that it's one of my all-time-favorite summer greens. Istanbul is not such a center of wild green lore as other parts of Turkey, and many local people just pull it out without ever thinking of eating it, but in the Aegean region, "Sirkemotu" is a very well-known and popular wild green. It, along with purslane, are two of the very few wild greens that are edible throughout the summer. You can pull off the tender last few inches of stem along with whatever leaves are there, and it will immediately branch and come back improved. If it's happy, it can get up to a meter and a half tall though usually it's shorter. Mine would get that high but I tend to keep it in check, otherwise I'd have nothing else growing in the garden. It produces a lot of seed. So much that I will not consider requests for seeds of these plants...I don't want to inflict it on the southern U.S.! Don't worry, plain old Love Lies Bleeding is every bit as good to eat, and actually preferred in many Greek gardens, where it serves as both an edible and as an ornamental. In Greece, it is known as "Vlita." Vlito is also a slang term for someon who is not too bright, due to the fact that if you eat a really large amount of it, it is said to make you a bit foggy-headed. I wouldn't know, pretty much any good meal does that to me anyway and I don't consider "food coma" to be an entirely bad thing!

You can use Amaranth in almost any way you'd use spinach - raw in salads, as a filling for pita (a friend in Naxos made a really nice "vlitopita") or boiled/steamed as a potherb and drizzled with olive oil and lemon. A little crushed garlic mixed in is not bad at all. Just be sure not to overboil it; just like spinach it will become mushy if overcooked but I think overcooked Amaranth is even less appetizing.

Today I made a very Turkish dish out of it - gözleme. It's a bit of work but not all that hard. I started with a plain dough of flour and water with a little oil mixed in and a bit of salt. It should be about the same consistency as bread dough or, as they say here, "like an earlobe." Knead it for around ten minutes, then cover it and let it rest. After 15 minutes or so, divide the dough into pieces about the size of a large egg and let rest again. (You might want larger or smaller, depending on the size of your frying pan.)

By the way, if you don't feel like dealing with dough, you could also take two flour tortillas and do this as a quesadilla. But it won't be nearly as good!

Meanwhile make your filling. Chop the amaranth leaves fairly finely. Chop an onion finely and sautee it, then add it to the Amaranth (the amaranth will cook later). The rest is up to you; I mixed in a handful of crumbled beyaz peynir, Turkey's take on feta cheese, some red flake pepper and some paprika, some salt and black pepper and that's pretty much it. You could also add kashar cheese, or boiled and semi-mashed potato.

Heat a heavy frying pan. In Turkey they use a "sac" (pronounced "saj"), like a shallow convex wok placed over hot coals. But a cast iron frying pan or griddle will do just fine.

Take a piece of dough, generously flour your counter and roll it out into a long oval about 1 mm thick. Here they use a thin dowel-like rolling pin called an oklava to do this, but you can do it with a regular rolling pin as well. You'll have to be a bit more patient though. Once it's open, take a generous spoon of the filling and spread it over half of the oval of dough, then fold the uncovered side over the filling. Press the edges to seal. Add a bit of oil to your pan, and put the gözleme in, and brush some more oil over the top. Once the bottom is browned, flip it over and cook the other side. Repeat with the rest of the dough. Gözleme filled with various fillings is a common wedding dish in E. Turkey, and I saw gözleme filled with Amaranth in the weekly market in Söke near Kuşadası. By the way, Kuşadası is pronounced "KOOSH a-da-suh," not "koosaDAWsee!"

Another great way to eat Amaranth is with eggs. Fry some onion in a generous amount of olive oil, add chopped Amaranth along with pepper if you like and saute till the amaranth is soft. Add salt to taste, then pour beaten eggs over the Amaranth, cover and let cook till the eggs are cooked through. Afiyet olsun!

Kabak Çiçeği Gibi... Squash Flowers

I'm not much of an early morning person... Actually I love early morning but early morning doesn't like me. But today I did decide to rise with the chickens (well, somwehere) and get out into the garden to photograph - and then collect - one of the treats of summer: squash blossoms. I set the clock for 8:30 but for some godly unknown reason woke up at 7, and coffee in hand, stumbled out into the garden. There was no sound except birds, a dog barking somewhere and the rumble of distant thunder. As soon as I finished shooting, the first drops began to fall.

Ben hiç bir anlamla erkenci değilim. Aslında erken sabah vaktini çok seviyorum fakat o beni sevmiyor galiba... Yine de bugün yazın sunduğu güzelliklerinden bir tanesini fotoğraflayıp toplamık için tavuklarla (nerede olursa olsunlar) kalkıp bahçeye çıkmaya karar verdim. Çalar saatimi 8.30'a ayarladım fakat nedense 7'de uyandım; kahve elimde bahçeye tökezledim. Kuşlar, bir yerden havlayan bir köpek ile uzakten gelen gök uğultu sesinden başka bir ses yoktu. Bitirir bitirmez yağmurun ilk damlaları etrafıma düşmeye başladı.

I love to grow winter squash. Summer squash is nice and I'll eat it gladly; it's arguably a more useful thing to grow in terms of the sheer amount it produces. Everyone remembers their neighborhood's dreaded "zucchini lady" who was always coming around with armloads of zeppelin-size zucchini to palm off on the neighbors. That would be my mom. ;) But the fun in growing winter squash is the incredible variety of different shapes, colors and flavors. I've resolved to try at least one new one each year.

Balkabakları yetiştirmeyi çok seviyorum. Yeşil kabak da güzel, seve seve yerim, hem de ürettiği miktara göre belki biraz daha verimli bir kabak olabilir. Amerika'da her mahallenin korkulan, toplamayı unuttuğu kocaman kabakları komşulara yüklendirmeye çalışan bir "kabakçı kadını" oluyordu... yani annem... :) Fakat balkabağı yetiştirmenin zevki daha çok sonsuz şekil, renk ve tat yelpazesinden geliyor. Her yıl en azından bir yeni cins denemeye karar verdim.

The flowers are also a draw; winter or summer, there's not much else in the vegetable department that produces anything quite as voluptuous as a squash flower. In Turkey when a formerly well-behaved boy starts sowing his wild oats and going a little wild, they say "He opened like a squash flower." It's an apt description because they are there to do one thing and one thing only - sex! Not only are the flowers beautiful, but they have a delicious fragrance that reminds me of tall bearded iris. They're edible to boot, but more about that later.

Bir de çiçekleri var, ister yeşil olsun ister bal kabağı olsun, bu kadar albenisi olan bir çiçek yoktur sebze bahçesinde. Zaten "kabak çiçeği gibi açıldı" deyimi hiç tesadüf değil! Gerçekten çok iyi bir benzetmedir çünkü bunların bir fonksiyonu var - bitki seksi işte! Hem güzeldir hem de süsen aromalı çiçekleri mis gibi kokuyor. Yenir de, o konuya daha sonra değinelim.

In my old garden I grew the local one, known as Adapazarı, for the town east of here where they are grown extensively. It's a BIG squash, with deeply-ribbed gray "pumpkin" type fruits weighing up to 20 kilos. The trouble with growing such a large squash is that although they keep well, once you've cut into it it's like slaughtering a sheep. If you don't have a spacious freezer you have to make a lot of pumpkin pie fast! So now I'm preferring slightly smaller squash.

Eski bahçemde pazarlarda yaygın olan Adapazarı cinsini yetiştiriyordum. Çok lezzetli bir bal kabağıdır ancak öyle kocaman bal kabaklarının desavantajı, çok iyi saklanabilmesine rağmen bir kestin mi kurban kesmek gibi olması! Ya büyük bir derin dondurucunuz olacak ya da bütün mahalleye dağıtacaksınız. Yine de kendinizi komşularınıza beğendirmeya amaçlıyorsanız bal kabağı dağıtmak hiç kötü bir fikir değil! Fakat şimdi biraz daha küçük cinsler tercih edip, Adapazarı kabaklarını pazarcılara bırakıyorum.

This year I'm growing three - a Japanese one called Black Futsu, a old French variety called "Rouge Vif d'Etampes" and an Italian heirloom type called "Marina di Chioggia." The Kabocha went in a little late but it's catching up fast. It produces small squash with a (supposedly) chestnut-like flavor. I'll be looking forward to that! Vif D'Etampes looks to be a beautiful thing, with broad, flattened brilliant red-orange fruits. Marina di Chioggia is definitely the "oddball" of the bunch, with dark gray, warty fruits. Both have started to set fruit now.

Bu yıl ise Siyah Futsu adlı bir Japon cinsi, Fransa'nın eski ve meşhur bir cinsi olan Rouge Vif d'Etampes ile İtalya'nın bir sahil kentinden gelen Marina di Chioggia olmak üzere üç tane yetiştiriyorum. Kabocha'yı biraz geç ektim fakat yetişiyor. Ürettiği küçük boylu kabaklarının tadı kestaneye benziyormuş, onu dört gözle bekliyorum! Çarpıcı turuncu-kırmızı yayvan meyveleri ile Rouge Vif d'Etampes çok güzel bir şeye benziyor. Koyu gri "siğilli" kabakları ile Marina di Chioggia ise kuşkusuz grubun garibidir, okuduklarıma göre en lezzetlisi de.

As long as you provide a few basics, winter squash aren't too difficult to grow. They want sun, decent soil with plenty of organic matter, and a good supply of water. You'll do yourself a favor if you dig in a healthy amount of manure in the fall, supplemented by compost. This year I added "green manure" in the form of fava bean stalks; I just chopped them up into the soil below where the vines were to be planted.

Birkaç temel ihtiyacı yerine getirirseniz bal kabakları yetiştirmesi pek zor değil. Güneş, bol organik madde içeren iyi bir toprak ve bol su istiyorlar. Sonbaharda toprağa bol gübre artı compost (çürümüş yaprak, çim, mutfaktan kabuklar v.s.) katarsanız çok iyi olur. Bu yıl ise "yeşil gübre" de kattım: sonbaharda yoğun olarak ektiğim bakla gövdelerini kürkle ufalayıp kabakları ektiğim toprağın içine karıştırdım.

The common knowledge is to grow them in "hills," but I'm not really sure why. One thing squash really resent is dry soil, and hilling IMHO makes it more likely for the soil to dry out, especially when the plants are young. I just dig the soil deeply and plant at the normal level. The American Indians of the Southwest actually planted them in deeper depressions so that they would have a better water supply. If the soil is moist, the vines will root readily at the nodes, and you can help this along by mounding the soil up every 8th node or so. The large leaves of squash plants transpire quickly and this way there are more roots to help quench their thirst. In the picture at left an emerging root is visible.

Türkiye'yi bilmiyorum, Amerika'da hep "tepelere" ekilmesi öneriliyor. Nedenini pek anlamıyorum açıkçası, balkabağı kuru topraktan nefret ettiğine göre tepelere ekmek, kuruma olasılığını daha da artıyor. Ben toprağı derine kazıp, toprak seviyesinde ekiyorum. Hatta Amerika'nın güney batı bölgesindeki Kızılderililer, suları eksilmesin diye küçük çukurlara ekiyorlar. Toprak nemliyse gövdelerden de kök salar, bunu teşvik için 5-8 boğumda birini toprakla hafifçe gömebilirsiniz. Geniş yaprakları, sıcak havada bol su kaybettiği için ne kadar kökü varsa susamışlığını o kadar iyi giderebilirler. Soldaki resimde bir kök görülür.

Once the vines get to the necessary size, they'll begin to produce flowers, and lots of them. Squash have separate male and female flowers, and the male flowers are produced first. This ensures that when the female flowers come along, there will be plenty of male flowers to ensure that they get pollinated. If the flowers don't get pollinated, you get no fruit. We have a beehive in the garden so the deed was done long before I ever got out there, but if you have a dearth of bees in your area, you can help them along by pollinating them yourself. You'll have to get up early in the morning though; as soon as the heat sets in the flowers shrivel and close.

Bitkiler yeterli büyüyünce çiçekler de açmaya başlar, hem de çok. Kabakların erkek ve dişi çiçekleri ayrıdır, ilk çıkanların hepsi erkek oluyor. Bu durum, dişi çiçekler gelince tozlaşmayı yerine getirebilecek kadar erkek çiçekleri olmasını sağlıyor. Çiçekler tozlaşılmazsa kabak da olmaz. Bizim bahçemizde bir arı kovanı olduğu için ben çıkmadan çok önce iş işten geçiyor fakat büyük şehirlerde arı eksikliği ciddi bir problem olabiliyor. Durum öyleyse tozlaşmayı siz de yapabilirsiniz. Yetişmek için erkenci olmanız gerekecek ama; sıcaklık basar basmaz çiçekler solup kapanıyor.

How to sex a squash flower?

Kabak çiçeğinin cinsiyeti nasıl tespit edilir?

The male flowers, which you'll see first, are fairly simple affairs and borne on tall thin stems. The flower in the photo to the right is male. Notice how it's held high up (though they aren't always above the leaves), and the base of the flower is fairly simple.

İlk önce göreceğiniz erkek çiçekler oldukça sade olup, yüksek gövdelerde yer alıyor. Sağdaki çiçek erkektir. Çiçeğin dibi sade, her zaman öyle olmasa da gövdesi onu yaprakların üstüne yükseltmiş.

Inside is a single anther (actually a group of them but they appear as a single unit). The produce a lot of pollen, enough to generously cover the bees that are irresistably drawn to them.

Çiçeğin içinde tek bir ercik başı var. Aslında 5 tane var fakat birleşmiş haliyle tek gibi görünyor. Cazibesine karşı koyamayan arıları tatmin etmek için çok polen üretiyorlar!

The female flowers, which start to appear a bit later, are always in the minority. They are borne close to the stem, and are atop a round swelling - the ovary - which will grow into a squash if the flower is pollinated. Below are newly developing female flowers of Marina di Chioggia and Rouge Vif d'Etampes side by side for comparison.

Biraz daha sonra çıkmaya başlayan dişi çiçekleri ise her zaman daha az oluyor. Ana gövdenin çok yakınında açıp, tozlaşma gerçekleşirse kabak olacak yuvarlak bir tohumluğun üstünde yer alıyor. Aşağıdaki fotoğrafta kıyaslayabilmeniz için Marina di Chioggia ile Rouge Vif d'Etampes'ın yeni gelişen dişi çiçekleri görünüyor.

They grow fast, and a few days later they're open and ready for business! Just hush up about those weeds...

Çiçekler hızlı büyüyor, birkaç gün sonra ise açık ile işe hazır olacaklar! Otlara gelince...yorumlar istemiyorum!

Their insides are also different. On the left is a male flower - notice the shower of pollen on the bee inside. On the right is a female flower; to get to the nectar produced in the base, she has to squeeze in between the three-lobed pistil and the walls of the flower, ensuring that the load of pollen on her back will be rubbed off.

İçleri de farklı tabii. Sol taraftaki erkek çiçeğidir, içindeki arıyı kaplayan poleni farkedin. Sağdaki ise dişidir; tam dibinde üretilen nektara ulaşmak için çiçeğin duvarları ile 3 kısımlı dişilik organının arasında sıkışarak sırtına yapışmış olan polen yükünün dişilik organına yapışmasını sağlanır.

Success!

Başarı!

If pollination is successful you'll know it within a couple days, because the stem whill thicken and the ovary will begin to grow at an astonishing rate. Here are flowers just two days after pollination; Rouge Vif d'Etampes is almost golf ball size already.

Tozlaşma başarılı olarak gerçekleştirilirse bir iki gün içinde gövdenin kalınlaşması, tohumluğun şaşırtıcı bir hızla büyümesinden belli olur. Yukarıdaki fotoğraf, çiçeklerin tozlaşmadan sadece iki gün sonraki durumunu gösteriyor; Rouge Vif d'Etampes'ınki bir golf topunun boyuna büyümüş bile.

Aborted Flowers

Düşen Çiçekler

Often in my experience the first one or two female flowers abort without opening. I'm not sure why, but if they continue to abort it may be that the weather has gotten too hot, or your plants aren't getting enough water. I have fairly well-drained soil, and give them a good soaking each morning. If your female flowers make it to blooming size and then abort a day or two later, they were most likely not pollinated, or under-pollinated and the plant "decided" that it was not worth it to expend the energy to produce a big honking squash for the sake of a few seeds.

Genelde bende ilk çıkan dişi çiçekler nedense açılmadan kuruyup düşüyorlar. Fakat sürekli düşüyorlarsa sebep, havanın fazla sıcak olduğu veya susuzluk olabilir. Benim toprağım fazla yağlı değil, her sabah iyice suluyorum. (Burada akşam suluyorlar genelde fakat gecede yapraklarda kalan su damlaları, mantar sorunlarına yol açabilir.) Eğer dişi çiçekler açılıp sonra dökülüyorsa, büyük ihtimalle ya hiç tozlaşılmamış ya yetersizce tozlaşılmış. Bu takdirde bitki, bir avuç tohum için kocaman bir kabak üretmenin faydasız olduğunu "karar" veriyor.

Hand Pollination to Maintain a Variety

Bir Cinsi Korumak İçin Elle Tozlaşmak

If you want to collect seed from an heirloom variety for next year and are growing more than one variety of squash, you'll want to hand pollinate. Start by selecting a female flower and bagging it with some cheesecloth or gauze to keep the bees out, or you may get a cross with the others you are growing. When the female flower opens, take a male flower (preferably from a different plant of the same variety), peel off the petals leaving only the stamen in the center, rub the stamen all over the pistil of the female flower, and replace the cheesecloth. You can do the same thing with a small paintbrush. Once you're sure that you've gotten pollination and the flower fades, you can remove the cheesecloth. Be sure and mark your fruit to remind you which one it is.

Eğer birden fazla cins yetiştirirken tohumlarını gelecek yıl için saklamak istediğiniz beğendiğiniz bir cins varsa, melezlememelerinden emin olmak için elle tozlaşmanız gerekecek. İlk önce gelişen bir dişi çiçek seçip, arıların girişini engellemek için bir parça tülbentle hafifçe sarayın. Çiçek açılınca aynı cinsten fakat tercihen başka bir bitkiden bir erkek çiçeği koparıp, sarı yapraklarını tamamen sökün. Geri kalan ercik başını dişi çiçeğin dişilik organına sürünüz. Sonra tülbendi bir daha yerine bağlayıp bekleyin. Tozlaşma işini küçük bir fırça ile yapabilirsniz. Tozlaşmanın gerçekleştiği, çiçein solduğundan sonra tülbendi alabilirsiniz. Hangi kabak asıl tohumunu içerdiğini hatırlamak için mutlaka etiketleyin!

Eating Them

In villages on the island of Mytilene in Greece, kids coming from the garden with big boquets of squash flowers was a common sight. Their mothers would stuff them in exactly the same way as peppers or grape leaves; you can use your favorite mixture but I think if you do it without meat the flavor of the squash flowers will come through better.

You can also fry them, either dipping them in batter or dredging them in egg then flour before they hit the oil.

Another way I found, from a YouTube comment no less, is to make a quesadilla out of them. Put a tortilla in a hot pan, sprinkle on grated cheese, a bit of hot sauce if you like, arrange the squash flowers over the cheese, then cover with a second tortilla, and cook, turning occasionally, until the inside is cooked and the tortillas are lightly toasted. I was going to take a picture but Blogspot adds endless "div" tags every time a photo is added, and I worked so long to get the spaces right!

Nasil Yenir?

Yunanistan'daki Midilli Adasının köylerinde bahçelerde gelen, ellerinde kabak çiçeği demetleri tutan çocuklara sık sık rastgeliyordum. Anneleri tıpkı yaprak sarması veya biber dolması gibi yapıyordu. Zaten Türkiye'de de yapılır, özellikle Ege bölgesinde. Bence çiçeğin tadını daha güzel ortaya çıkardığı için zeytinyağlısı daha lezzetli.

Ayrıca güzel bir meze için ya hamura, ya da ilk önce yumurtaya sonra una batırıp kızartılır.

YouTube'da bırakılan bir yorumdan öğrendiğim bir yöntem daha, "quesadilla"sını yapmaktır. Artık her yerde satılan tortilla ekmeğinden bir tanesini hiç yağ katmadan kızgın bir tavaya yerleştirin, sonra üzerine rende peyir ve isteğe göre acı sos serpin. Sonra peynirin üzerine kabak çiçeklerini dizip, ikinci tortilla ile kapatın. Tavada birkaç kez çevirerek, içi pişmiş, dışı biraz çıtır hale gelinceye kadar pişirin. Herhalde gözlemesi de çok güzel olurdu.