Bring a sack lunch and any squash seeds or starts to trade right after the Workshop!
Handout from the Squash Discussion
There are five species of Squash (Curcurbita)
C. Pepo Most zucchini and summer squash are of this species. Winter squash varieties do not store well and are best eaten within a few months of harvest, but also need less time curing to sweeten up. Examples include Acorn, Crookneck, Pumpkin, Scallop, zucchini, ornamental gourds, and vegetable Marrow.
C. Maxima Often quite large-growing, this species generally keeps well in storage, from a few months to a year or more, depending on the variety. Fine-textured flesh and very good flavor. Examples include Arikara, Banana, Boston Marrow, Buttercup, Candy Roaster, Hubbard, and Sweet Meat.
C. Moschata Excellent keepers, with flavorful, sweet flesh that is often fragrant. Well-suited for pies and cakes, though they are often just baked or boiled. Examples include Butternut, Pennsylvania Dutch Crookneck, Long Island Cheese, Kikuza, and Musquee de Provence.
C. Mixta (aka C. argyrosperma) A traditional Southern crop, though their popularity has diminished. The somewhat coarse flesh is typically not as sweet as maximas and moschatas, though it is well-suited to savory dishes or may be sweetened. Many are grown for the large, flavorful seeds, perfect for roasting. Examples include Silver Edged, Japanese Pie Pumpkin, Pipian, and Cushaw Pumpkin.
C. Ficifolia This squash is mostly grown in Central or South America, and is believed to have originated in Mexico. The plants are huge and can have vines 30 to 40 feet in length. One plant can produce over 50 fruit. Its leaves resemble fig leaves. The fruit is oblong, and looks like a watermelon and has black seeds. The fruit can weigh from eleven to thirteen pounds and can produce up to 500 seeds. Its skin can vary from cream or light to dark green. If kept dry, the fruit can last without decomposing for several years. The flowers, leaves and tender shoots can be eaten as greens. The immature fruit is eaten cooked. The mature fruit is sweet and is used to make desserts and beverages. The vines and fruit can be used as fodder, and it has been said that the vines and fruit were taken on board ships and fed to the livestock on board. This squash has many names: Siam pumpkin, Fig-leaf Gourd, Black-seed Squash, Pie melon, Malabar gourd, etc.
A note about pumpkins: Pumpkin is the word used to describe a pumpkin-shaped squash, but there are many colors, sizes, and types of pumpkins in the different squash species. Generally, Halloween pumpkins for carving are pepo types. The best-flavored pumpkins are maxima and moschata types.
Almost all seed catalogs will tell you which is which. However, you really only care about this if you are saving seeds. Crossing occurs easily within a species and rarely between species. Isolate varieties of the same species by a minimum of 1/8 mile if you save seed for home use. If that is not possible, you may need to hand pollinate your squash blossoms.
Hand Pollination
If you are saving seeds and you are worried about cross pollination, or you are having a problem with squash starting to mature and then shriveling on the vine, you may want to try hand pollination.
First you need to indentify the male and female flowers on the plant. The female flowers have what looks like a miniature squash at the base of the flower, while the males just have a stem. When the male and female flowers are about ready to open, they turn yellow. You need to tape them shut using masking tape the afternoon before you think they will open. You need at least one male flower for each female flower, but having more than one male is better.
The morning after taping the flower shut, cut off the male flower leaving enough stem to use as a handle. Remove the petals, exposing the pollen laden stamen. Remove the tape from the female flower and use the male flower like a paint brush and rub the pollen on the female flower (the pistol). Then use fresh masking tape and seal the female flower.
It is a good idea to mark which flowers have been hand pollinated so that you know which fruits to save seed from. Some people use colored plastic tape to mark the stem, but these can fall off. Other people wait a few days after pollination and make a shallow mark on the skin of the fruits that still have tape on the blossoms. In any case, if the fruit is not marked in some way, don’t assume that it has been hand pollinated, and don’t save the seeds.
Both books in the References section have a much better description with pictures of how to hand pollinate squash flowers. In addition, there are youtube videos on the net.
References
The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times by Carol Deppe, Chelsea Green Publishing, has an excellent chapter on Squash and Pumpkins.
Seed To Seed: Seed Saving Techniques for the Vegetable Gardener by Suzanne Ashworth, published by Seed Savers Exchange, Inc., has a chapter on Squash and has some excellent pictures depicting hand pollination.
Many seed catalogs have a short discussion of squash including how to grow them, insects, pests, diseases, etc. More information is also available on line.
On Saturday, April 11th, seventeen gardeners shared a delightful lunch and discussion about growing squash, our Crop of the Year. We shared seeds and starts, tasted homemade zucchini relish, and discussed which squashes we like to grow and how we grow them.
Some of the highlights from our discussion were:
Many of us are curious about seed saving and want to try it with some of our squash plants this summer. We have made contact with a plant breeding technician who is very experienced in hand-pollinating squash blossoms and is willing to come teach us.
Stay tuned for an announcement of this workshop!
We are collectively anxious to taste new kinds of squashes and share recipes with each other. At the summer Gathering of Gardeners, on August 12th, we’ll start with a potluck dinner highlighting everyone’s favorite summer squash dishes. At the fall Gathering of Gardeners, on November 11th, the winter squashes will be ready to be baked and roasted and made into soups and pies and all manner of yummy things, so we will hold another potluck and a squash exchange.
Some of the highlights from our discussion were:
- It’s better to plant the seeds of big, viney varieties directly in the ground rather than starting them in pots and transplanting them. These varieties send down a tap root that often gets damaged during transplanting. Bush-type squashes like zucchini can handle being started in pots.
- Winter squashes don’t taste good unless they have been allowed to fully mature on the vine and then cure (sit around) for a month or two before being eaten. How much curing time they need depends on the variety.
- Quite a few of us have recently discovered how incredibly sweet and tasty the Kabocha squash is. It’s a long-storing winter squash. Winter Sweet seems to be most peoples’ favorite variety. It’s available from Johnny’s Selected Seeds.
- It is good to rotate crops in your garden. If you grow squash (or any other crop) in the same spot year after year, you build up diseases in the soil.
- Some squashes can be grown vertically, on a trellis. One gardener described how she successfully supports heavy squashes like butternuts on a trellis by fitting each squash into a net onion bag and tying it to the trellis.
- Powdery mildew inevitably shows up as a white coating on the leaves of squash plants. Several gardeners described how they either prevent or suppress it by spraying their plants with a mixture of baking soda and water (1 t. baking soda per quart of water). Other gardeners spray with a sulfur/water mixture (1/2 – 1 T per gallon) six weeks after planting and two more times after that. Nobody talked about spraying with milk, but that is supposed to work, too. All these sprayings need to be very thorough, wetting both the upper and under sides of all the leaves and stems.
- The squash varieties most of us grow fall into three separate species. Members of the same species will cross pollinate each other if they are planted close together. This really doesn’t matter unless you want to save seed. If you save seed from such a cross, and plant it the following year, the resulting plant may not produce the kind of fruit you expect.
- Some gardeners are going to try to dry farm some of their winter squashes, meaning they will plant the seeds deep into moist soil but not water them again. To make this work, each plant needs a lot of room from which to draw water. No other plants should be allowed to grow within 8 feet.
Many of us are curious about seed saving and want to try it with some of our squash plants this summer. We have made contact with a plant breeding technician who is very experienced in hand-pollinating squash blossoms and is willing to come teach us.
Stay tuned for an announcement of this workshop!
We are collectively anxious to taste new kinds of squashes and share recipes with each other. At the summer Gathering of Gardeners, on August 12th, we’ll start with a potluck dinner highlighting everyone’s favorite summer squash dishes. At the fall Gathering of Gardeners, on November 11th, the winter squashes will be ready to be baked and roasted and made into soups and pies and all manner of yummy things, so we will hold another potluck and a squash exchange.
