What are your plans this year? I’ve got my seed in and plan to start the longest season varieties in early March- I’ll be using tromboncino as shade climbers again this year.
my list-
summer squash: early prolific yellow crookneck, tromboncino and white patty pan (all from sandhill)
winter squash: triamble pumpkin, “mashed potato” white acorn squash, candy roasters, cushaw, sugar pumpkin, red kuri, and maybe one or two others.
I’ve got seed left from a few previous varieties but also have a few new to me and feel I may try different things this year. I got two decent Hubbard this year but we don’t enjoy those as much.
I may use more alpaca manure in the rows too, it seemed very good last year, as I don’t have a lot of compost and prefer to use it for the tomatoes.
Perninnials- Fig-leaf gourd, Ki-karasu-uri (maybe a melon, its in the same family as the tropical snake gourd though) and possibly getting ivory gourd
I have a white scalloped growing right now. Keeps popping out male flowers, or I don’t know when the female flowers bloom. Not a huge squash fan, so I get my varietes locked in pretty early.
I haven’t found a better or higher quality, strong performing zucchini than Mexicana. The fruit is tender and very tasty and the plants survive longer than most. It’s similar to Middle Eastern varieties with grey skin.
I have had good success with South Anna butternut. It is a hybrid between Waltham and the indigenous south Florida Seminole squash. It’s disease resistant and resilient. Stores up to one year at room temp. Tasty and good.
Southern Exposure sells it. Territorial sells Mexicana.
Some favorites of mine have been Mashed Potatoes acorn squash, Autumn Frost (sort of a pumpkin shaped butternut), and Cousa type (middle eastern?) zucchini.
I would cross all the Squash species together into a hybrid Swarm & select Landraces out of it.
It seems nearly all good tasting winter squash also taste good as a Summer Squash. This makes me really want to go for Dual Purpose.
Of course all of these plans are when I get land to grow them on
Just researching so I can hit the floor running when I do get land. Any Ideas or Suggestions?
Oh nice! I tried one from Walmart, idk why but it had a faint vanilla after taste. I saved seeds & plan to grow them out to cross with my other Acorns.
It won the AAS (All America Selection) is 1982, but seems largely lost.
Tromboncino is a dual use type, typically grown as a zucchini substitute but it’s basically a skinny neck pumpkin.
Tetsukabuto is a super vigorous interspecific hybrid (moschata and pepo, I think?). I read once on a forum somewhere that people were trying to dehybridize it.
I also like south anna butternut here in East Texas. Very strong vigorous vine. I got my original seeds quite a few years ago when the line wasn’t very stabilized and there was a great deal of within cultivar variation, so what I grow now may not be quite like the south anna butternut seeds you can buy, but it’s probably close enough.
Nice! Altho why can’t you eat the regular Acorn Squash as a summer squash? Have you tried them? I’ve tried the greens of Acorn Squash & they were delicious when tender (Older leaves have texture issue), but deer ate everything before I could fruits could form. If I recall correctly, the Acorn Cultivar group is very closely related to the Patty Pan cultivar group, & that Pumpkin x Patty Pan created the Acorn Cultivar group.
I’m wondering how strict the dual purpose is? I’m convinced There’s a very strong correlation that good tasting Winter squash makes a good tasting summer squash (Except for very few exceptions).
Like Honeynut Squash, Tetsukubuto is (C. maxima x C. moschata). What are they trying to do by dehybridize it? I’m confused, are they trying to fix sterility problems after F2?
I plan to cross all 5 species of cultivated squash together as a Hybrid Swarm to select Landraces out of.
What do you mean by stabilized? True to type? but how much true to type defines stabilization? Or are you talking about stabilized as in no sterility issues & ability to make viable seeds?
We have massive best pressure from Squash bugs and vine borers so I only grow Squash in the species Moschata anymore due to their pest resistance.
Summer Squash - Teot Bat Put is my fav right now
I grew my first few winter squash this past year. I still haven’t eaten any of them yet.
I’ll likely do Ayote green flesh and Musquee de Maroc again. maybe some different butternuts. I’ll trellis them this time I think. If you have any Moschata suggestions that are easy, prolific, and tasty, I’m all ears!
Stabilized as in a true to type variety that has been through enough generations of selection so that it grows a consistent squash & a consistent plant. Initially, I got some long skinny types, some typical butternut types, a few round pumpkin types, a few squash with a white skin instead of butternut brown etc. Pretty much all were healthy and vigorous, but the type had not been fully stabilized.
I want to grow a hull-less type this year. I don’t have a ton of room for squash, but I’ll grow romanesco zucchini, shishigatani, and some variety of hull-less.
@ampersand@Professor_Porcupine I’ve heard good things about the mashed potatoes acorn squash and it’s definitely on my list.
Planning on for sure potimarron, galeux d’eysines, blue hubbard, musquee de provence, a delicata (maybe candystick again; it was very productive and vigorous). I want to try my hand at some of the larger varieties, but haven’t ordered any seed yet. I want to grow seminole again…I made an error in where it was planted last season and it was still very healthy and vigorous.
My favorite summer squash is "
Bianco Lungi Cylindro". I got it from Sandhills. It’s a whitish Marrow type. Italian. It can grow huge and as long as it’s peeled, no issues for eating for me.
No member of the house likes winter squash, most won’t eat summer either. So I’m thinking I’ll try “Emerald Naked Seeded” from Experimental Farm Network instead.
Is this because moschata have hard stems? I’ve heard squash bugs mostly go after the most bitter squash plants (Those with bitter toxins you wouldn’t want to eat anyways, almost as if the squash bugs are your best friends), becaue the bitterness in squash is their chemical defence for predators. That’s what some plant breeders noticed.
That being said, have you considered crossing squash species to improve flavor of the pest resistant moschata? I’d imagine maxima & pepo could do wonders to improve flavor.
ah… so I guess it depends on how much “True to Type” you want . For my personal landrace, True to Type is good tasting squash. Is the only way to get “True to Type” to make a very consistent fruit to self-pollinate many generations until the fruits are almost always uniform? Does this not make them highly inbred if the genetics remain the same each generation to produce the same fruit? I’m thinking this might explain why your unstablized butternuts were vigorious due to hybrid vigor.
I have seeds so if you want, I’d be happy to trade you them. I also have Galeux d’eysines, musqee de provence, delicata & many more.
What kind of error? Like did the fruit not mature in time? I’ve tried saving immature summer squash from the grocery store, waiting like ~5-6 months for it to cure & got viable, fully formed seeds from them. Others who grew Zucchinnii x Spaghetti Squash hybrid got theirs to ripen fully mature off the vine after growing on vine for only 2 weeks (Granted this was in peak season when the faster growth happens, but still impressive).
That’s one I’m thinking of growing too, it’s also possible to get the naked/hulless seed trait into other species using those naked seed pepo genetics.
I don’t know anything about that. Moschata grow on a much longer vine with grabbing tendrils so I can trellis them much more easily than a zucchini. For the summer squash, that I have grown for a few years now, I trellis them and remove the lower leaves so the squash bugs become more easy prey for birds and such. it seems to keep them in check.
No. Frankly, I have 2 young kids, a full time job, a hobby orchard with ~50 fruit trees and bushes and the giant vegetable garden. I just don’t have the time to experiment with plant genetics. I buy seeds that sound promising and grow them.
Nice! I’ve heard pruning also doubles for reducing disease cuz of better air flow.
Have you tried eating the squash leaf tips?
Depends, each species has good tasting winter squash. Maximas just tend to have more of them with different flavors not found in moschata or pepo & vice versa. Maximas also tend to have the sweetest cultivars altho Fully ripened Orange acorn squashes can be SUPER Sweet.
I plant to just let everything cross & save seeds from the best. Breeding them is as easy as saving seeds from your favorites (Altho I like to nerd out about it).
I saved seeds from a squash once. thought they were fully dried out and put them in a bag and they turned green with mold. everything is easy until its not.
. For my personal landrace, True to Type is good tasting squash. Is the only way to get “True to Type” to make a very consistent fruit to self-pollinate many generations until the fruits are almost always uniform? Does this not make them highly inbred if the genetics remain the same each generation to produce the same fruit? I’m thinking this might explain why your unstablized butternuts were vigorious due to hybrid vigor.