[NAFEX] off topic--pumpkins squash

Kieran and/or Donna holycow at frontiernet.net
Fri Apr 16 10:46:59 EDT 2010


It's a bit late for you this year, but Fedco really looks hard for good 
short season squashes.  Flavorwise I have to agree, Buttercup is the best.

For southerners:  Of what we can actually grow here in squash borer 
territory, butternut is of course good and reliable.  Of what we can just 
almost grow here, borderline, Seminole pumpkin is the best.  Sandhill 
Preservation is selling a version that reproduces fine for them, that's the 
teardrop shaped one.  Its pretty good.  Fedco unfortunately had the 
daylength sensitive one.  The flat Seminole pumpkin and the large round 
Cuban pumpkin are day length sensitive and probably shouldn't be tried north 
of Chattanooga, or a bit further north along the eastern seaboard.  They are 
absolutely terrific.  The Atlanta farmer's mkt tends to have them either cut 
or whole, a good way to get seeds and sample what you are buying at the same 
time.  Ditto for oriental and Mexican grocery stores.  I bought some of "The 
Star" from a guy who used to work in the Atlanta farmer's mkt, he grew them 
up near the TN-KY line and they did fine.   It's more medium sized and 
square sided than the very round Cuban type.  All these are wonderful 
eating.  Stay away from those miserable bitterish stringy long things that 
look like huge watermelons.  My mother loves them, I don't know why.  They 
too are daylength sensitive, borer resistant and will cross with your 
butternuts and Seminole pumpkins and ruin future planting with their off 
flavor.  The cow pumpkins they grow around here are also moschata but at 
least they are merely boring.  The good sweet flavor is lost in the first 
cross, so don't let any crummy ones in your garden after you find a strain 
you like.
    And changing the subject just slightly, if you don't save your own 
moschate seed, another great one to grow is Tromboncini.  They make summer 
squash to fill in after the borers have killed your zukes and crooknecks. 
The ones you don't eat young and tender are still good all through the 
autumn.    Donna 




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