So close!

We still haven't gotten a female pumpkin flower to bloom, but I am still holding out hope. Since the weather was so nice today I was actually able to spend some real time pruning the garden this afternoon. It really needed it since there were so many dead leaves and overgrown vines. In doing so I found this.

This little girl was probably a day or two away from blooming. The petals were fully developed and were starting to separate at the top. Unfortunately, it had grown on one of the weaker vines, which ended up snapping a couple inches above the bloom. Ooh, so close! But it does give me hope that our vines are getting mature enough to bare fruit, and I'm starting to see a lot more female blooms getting started, so I'm hoping in a couple weeks we'll actually have a female flower open so we can finally start growing a pumpkin.

I'm not holding out much hope on actually getting any butternut squash. The pumpkins seem to be overtaking everything. Just one vine (from one single seed) is about 7 feet long. Here's a photo of one from a couple weeks ago.

They're each about 2 feet longer now! My garden is only 4' x 3', so needless to say it is already bursting at the seems. We'll see what happens!