If your winter squash is not ripe at harvest time, cut the stem about 3-4 feet from the fruit, and put in storage to let them finish ripening for a few weeks until the long stem is dried. I've done this for years when we get early rains in fall. It really makes a difference, especially since many winter squash need to finish ripening and cure for a few weeks to improve flavor before eating them. The larger varieties are really helped with this late ripening technique. Wiping the fruit with a diluted mix of water with a small amount of bleach before putting into long storage improves the length of storage. I grow Marina di Chioggia, and find it excellent in curries and as a filling for ravioli. I would recommend trying Burgess Buttercup, which is a small to medium squash, with excellent creamy flavor. With the extra large squash, what we do is cut them into more manageable pieces, and freeze, dehydrate, can, and/or share with friends
I was literally just wondering "what is that variety of really productive grayish squash that Red Gardens grew?" And then you come out with an entire video on squash. Crown prince was the variety I was looking for.
How often do you consider developing your own "landrace" varieties? Your scientific mindset towards selection seems like it would be ideal in helping the plants own natural selection develop towards your climate conditions.
I've saved seed and grown out the Uchi Kuri for two years,they seem to ripen properly,store well,and taste great.Not the biggest,but perfect for our needs,always used up,making soups,curries, roasted...I grow in a 35' X 11' bed,harvesting between 50 to 60 fruits ,the three essential requirements being lots of compost,water,and shelter from strong winds...👍,for the great content as usual.
I grew the Kabocha (green) type for a couple of decades here in West Wales, but the quality of seed seemed to decline, even though I sourced it from the usually very reputable Takii Seeds in Japan. For the last three years, though, I’ve grown Uchiki Kuri with excellent results. Four plants, given a generously fertilized 4m x 4m bed watered via subsoil porous hose, regularly produce about 25 squash between them of varying sizes. They keep well, usually until February, and taste great. Highly recommended.
@@REDGardens Very true about saving seed from only one variety...I grew about 6 or 7 varieties of peas,and I'm pretty sure I got the labels mixed up when they went in the ground,and during seed harvesting there was more mixing...oh well,I don't think I should ever venture into it commercially,my customers would be 👎...
The Orange Hokkaido looks like the "Potimarron" that I used to grow in the (wet) north west corner of France. The best thing about them is that you can eat the skin! (So zero waste.) And they are usually a good size for a single meal.
I HIGHLY recommend the Zucchino Rampicante squash (Cucurbita moschata)! Use it like a typical courgette up to 3-4 feet long, or allow it to brown on the vine and store it as you would any winter squash. Amazing productivity and versatility!
Squash is just my most favourite thing to grow. I am dehydrating pumpkin as needed from my store and powdering it as I have found another amazing use for the whole thing. My dog has asthma, and a nasty dry cough - it helps so much that I'm growing a giant variety next year due to lack of space. I have always wanted to grow one but have never had a use for something so big - now I need all I can get.
Thanks for another nice trial report. Don't forget that the larger squash need some time to finish ripening, I usually wait until December to start using them. The small squash like Delicata can be used right away, but even they benefit from a couple of weeks of curing. I think of squash as "sweet potatoes for the north".
I'm in envy of all the space you have available to run your trials. In my 30'x30' vegetable garden, I've found that growing acorn type squash do best in my suburban central New York back yard. I've had much better yields when growing semi-vertically than I have on the ground. I use the term semi-vertical because I train them to run southwards on the ground along the garden fence line for about 15', then train them up the fence and northwards. Unlike completely vertical growing, this allows the plants to add roots along their nodes at ground level before I train them up the fence,Three plants produced 26 squash this season with this method - the best I've done in 20+ years growing here.
Most of the storable varieties will continue to ripen after the vines die back if they haven't before then. Oh boy you'll really enjoy those delicata squash. I've just discovered how wonderful they are this past growing season. Autumn Frost hybrid are also really good. They make a better pie than actual pie pumpkins in my humble opinion. Rich creamy texture with a gorgeous orange flesh. Skin goes from dark green to a frosted tan. I will grow both every year from now on. Try slicing the delicata thin and saute with brown sugar. They're equally fantastic just cut in half and roasted.
Thanks for another great video! We also grow in a climate with a short season so it was wonderful to hear you experiences! If we have a cool wet spring we actually severely cut down the amount of bed space we give to winter squash, because typically the fruit just doesn't have the time or warmth to ripen. The bush type of acorn and delicata squash have been the only ones that reliably produce, and seem to store well and taste great.
I've been growing uchi kuri for a good few years now, their size is perfect for a meal, they ripen well, they taste great. With decent additions i now get decent yields. At first I was maybe getting 4/5 per plants, this year I averaged 12/14 per plant. Flavour and storage are my main concerns but I'll definitely try a few more having watched this. Great stuff.
What are your 'additions?' I ask as more and more in the UK and Ireland are growing naturally with natural amendments. It's funny as back pre WWII up until the late 180's we were all for the chemical fertilizers but the general consensus seems to be 'Feeding the soil life' to in turn feed our plants.
The flesh colour of that musquee provence is intense. I'm interested in trying it next season. I love growing squash. Thanks for an interesting squash video and comparison.
Hi, i always love to see all your trials (and errors) videos. But about the muscade de provance type, they can be stored at little bit warmer temperatures and will ripen more after the harvest! they have such good skin, that even if unripe and green they store good but not as long as the ripe ones. There is a "Mini-Musk" or "Mini-Muscat" variety aswell which produces smaller fruits but they will ripen faster than the big ones. I really love the taste of the muscade de provance type and i grow the smaller ones in germany without any issues and they were always ripe and brownish at the end of the season.
I didn’t know they’d ripen after picking! I grew this variety this year and have a few slightly green ones. Hopefully they will ripen further. I will say it is quite delicious! And if you have any problems with borers this variety is particularly resistant. I had several other varieties get decimated by them in the same bed and this variety just took their place. Ended up producing about 80 lbs / 36 kg of fruits on one plant.
Really useful. I try to grow squash sometimes and generally have poor results, despite my giving them plenty of compost. I will try again next year, inspired by your trials.
I like uchiki kuri despite their lower yield. They’re just the right size to use for me and the skin is edible so they are easy to prepare. Gorgeous bright orange soup…..
Interesting results from a preliminary trial there! In nearby Laois had a great season for squash. Tiana F1 butternut squash gave a bumper crop in the tunnel, about 12 or more fruit between 1.5-3 kg on a single vine. Uchiki Kuri did ok outside and in again but only 2-3 per plant. Also tried Festival from Moles Seeds this year but I think it was either a cross-pollinated or mislabeled seed as the fruit came out more like a typical dark green acorn squash with orange patches. 5 or 6 average sized fruit. Knucklehead very prolific again, cool carving pumpkin. Disappointed with Baby Bear, poor pollination and only 4 increasingly smaller fruit. Must try Crown Prince again!
Thanks for sharing your experiences, especially as you are so close. That does sound like a mislabel of seeds, which is surprising from Moles, but I am getting more frustrated with the larger seed suppliers, as well as a few smaller ones. I am looking forward to trying a few varieties in the Polytunnel next year.
Bruce, Wish you had enticed a picky teenager to do a taste test! For us empty nesters, yield is not important but taste is! This year I grew tomatoes of rainbow colors; yellow, green, pink, red, blue/purple, black, etc. They taste very different. So next year, we will just grow the dark ones for the very reason.
I grew my first squash this year as a bit of an experiment/afterthought. My neighbours had already started giving away surplus courgettes before I'd even planted some ushiki kuri in early June (UK south coast). I got a few but none were properly ripe so I put them under a light indoors and that seems to have done the trick.
Don't give up on the Muscat de Provence - it will ripen indoors. I've grown it for the last few seasons, and even with this year's hot summer (central Germany), I didn't get a fully ripe squash. However, my experience from the last two years is that they will ripen at room temperature over several months. The last two years, I've harvested either mostly or entirely green squash in late September, put them on the sideboard, and by late march they were ripe and fully orange. Incidentally, they make the best purée for pumpkin pie that I have yet found. It's interesting that Tuffy was successful for you - I'm planning an acorn squash trial next year, and that one's on the list. I've had the best success so far with Table Queen, but my climate is warmer in the summer. Table queen acorn squash, like the vining delicata variety, also climbs well, so finding space in a tunnel is at least theoretically possible. I grow mine on a vertical trellis.
Thanks for the advice. the Muscade de Provence is sitting in a prominent place in our house, and I am interested to watching it ripen! I don't think Tuffy was so successful, lots of fruit but very small and low yield. I am thinking of growing a range of these squash in a polytunnel next year.
@@REDGardens Well, I guess with Tuffy I equated ripe with successful. The rest of the performance can probably be improved by different technique, but if it won't ripen in the climate, you'd be out of luck no matter what you do. Question though: where did you get your seeds? Tuffy is listed as an open-pollinated variety by both Johnny's and Kokopelli, and so I'm wondering if there's a parallel F1 variety called Tuffy, or whether your supplier just got confused.
In my experience the Hungarian Blue doesn't store well. The Muscat deprov. , if ripe stores a good 8 months. The acorn type seem to last forever, some of mine lasted more than a year.
Good to know. Thanks. Have you noticed a 'stinginess' to the Muscade de Provence flesh, similar to a spaghetti squash? Someone else mentioned that there seems to be two strains of the variety out there, with and without the stringiness, and I think the one I have grown has the stringiness.
@@REDGardens Yes, all mine had a stringiness, which made it mushy when roasted (not pleasant texture in the mouth). However, when blended in soups, the flavour is excellent . I haven't seen the un stringiness sort.
The Delicata squash is, in my opinion, one of the best tasting. The skin is thin enough that you can eat it. There might be some color loss on my computer, but the second set seems to be the closest looking to the correct fruit. Also, I would grow them vertically, using nylons as support for the growing fruit.
Wow, 23 kg is so much. I always thought round pumpkins would generally weigh less because of the big cavity inside, even with a thick flesh like the one you grew. That is why I tried growing Lunga di Napoli variety several year ago, hoping for heavy fruits which weren't "full of air". The yield was great, around 50 kg per plant with 4 or 5 similar sized fruits on each, though I must say I was watering and fertilizing them with chicken manure regularly, so they probably wouldn't perform nearly as good in your trial. My favorite thing to do with them to use a big amount was to make a pumpkin soup, but that still only required a few kilograms at once. They also didn't seem to store too well (though that may be because we don't have a proper place to store pumpkins), so we had to use them all the time in everything we made and store the rest in freezer or in jars as a puree. I'd definitely love to try the Crown Prince variety after seeing it in several of your videos, it looks great and has the perfect size for using it one at a time.
Yeah, they are big. And figuring out how to use them all at once is tough! The Lungs di Napoli sounds interesting! Have you ever tried dehydrating the squash? Apparently it I another useful thing to do with the surplus from a big squash.
@@REDGardens I haven't actually, at least not for storage. I haven't seen any recipes in which dehydrated pumpkin/squash was used, so I've never considered that option. I only did it one time when I was trying to make chips as a step before frying the slices (because it didn't work well for me when I fried freshly cut slices). It is an interesting variety indeed. I first found out about it on a forum where someone wanted to identify their mysterious 40 kg squash, though I think they probably had a cross of said variety as it shouldn't grow that big. The plant can get quite big (with leaves up to half a meter in diameter), though that should be expected from a variety with big fruits.
I’m sure at least part of the reason the prince yields so we’ll for you is because you know what the variety likes in terms of soil conditions and placement etc.
I didn't really give it any different treatment than the rest of them, and didn't treat any of them as well as I normally do with the squash crop. I think it is either much better adapted to the conditions here, or happened to be growing in soil with better fertility (that side is probably quite variable).
Probably, it’s yielded well every year so probably pretty well adapted. Just a thought, I know a lot of the varieties I grow I can basically triple output with 3 or 4 grows under the belt. Love your channel man keep the videos coming!
Musquee de provence takes months after harvesting to turn umber. They're incredibly beautiful when it happens. Unfortunately, the strain that I have grown separates into strands, kinda like spaghetti squash, when cooked. You'll have to see if yours DJ the same thing, but I find it unpleasant in a sweet winter squash
Good to know, thanks! I think the strain I have has that spaghetti squash texture when cooked, but will see what it is like when fully ripe. I don't really like it, so would be interested in finding a strain that doesn't have that.
Thanks for yet another trial! Here my 50 cents: I usually grow about 250 vintersquash plants/year in my market garden at 59° N, close to Stockholm. Orange Hokkaido or uchiki kuri is excellent for soups or mashed. Green and blue Hokkaido are a bit dry with the texture like cooked potatoes and a bit sweeter than the orange ones. The flavour reminds you of roasted chestnut and is more intense. I usually recommend to roast them in the oven, no oil or spices, just some butter afterwards. Blue ballet is similar to both the green and blue kuri, but definitely the sweetest one and with better shelf life. Average weight around 2-2.5 kg, 2-3 fruits per plant. Curing the vintersquash at 25+ C for a few days will make the store quite a bit longer. I'm going to try Crown Prince next year, thanks for the inspiration.
I've always had mixed luck with various pumpkin until I tried the Long Island Cheese Pumpkin. it's one of the Moschata variety, and so delightful in flavor, appearance, storage. We got up to 6 months out of them.
@@REDGardens the much smaller size means they come to maturity quicker, and the color is a bit different so I can see when they are ripe. We also grow them up trellises because otherwise we'd have mole issues. They support the weight beautifully Our new England climate always seemed similar to yours, besides a little less rain. So I figured they would do well
Thanks for another interesting video. The Uchiki Kuri is my favourite. Delicious flavour and we can eat the skin. (Probably this also applies to all equivalent red kuri squash you had there). From experience (Lancashire -UK) they grow well and our season is enough for them to mature but yield can be variable . This season one plant that grew from a compost heap produced about 12 squashes but other 3 plants growing in soil with less fertility only gave me about 2-3 squashes each. Also these plants continue to try to produce fruit late though season and those don’t have enough time to ripen. (Option is to sacrifice those late growing fruit). Butternut squash has been over the years a big failure me. Difficult to germinate and producing small yields if any. It’s a shame because they store extremely well and have good and dense flesh.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. 12 from a plant of any of the similar Japanese types would be great, and I do think that lots of fertility is key! I also think that it would be better to printout any of the fruit that started to develop later would be better, I just haven't got around to doing it yet, and I don't know when in the season to start with each variety. Something I want to look at a lot more next year. Butternut just doesn't seem to be a viable variety in this climate, but I keep hoping.
Most of my squash growing experience here in SE Michigan, USA, is with Waltham butternut and Delicata. As two people have already mentioned, the skin of oven-roasted Delicata is quite edible. I brush the two cleaned halves of a Delicata with olive oil, place cut side up in baking dish, put butter in the seed cavities, salt & pepper, then bake. I agree with a previous comment/opinion, the 2nd set of Delicata in the video appear to be true to type.
The Sweet Dumpling and Delicata are two of our favorites. We find the Sweet Dumpling to be delicious and we're more inclined to eat it plain (roasted) than with other "acorn" varieties. And the Delicata is one of the few winter squash where we can roast it and eat it "skin and all" (after scooping out the seeds). This makes it a favorite of the cook (me).
As a cool climate gardener I love watching these trial videos and seeing what works for you. If you're interested in growing C. moschata again I'd recommend looking into Canada Crookneck squash as it's known to be prolific and do well in cooler climates.
I can recommend to plant at least one plant of the spaghetti squash. But only if u like to use it in the kitchen. I love them filled up what some spaghettitype sauce. I also loved the video. Learned a lot about the different types of squash/ pumpkin.
I have not been fond of the spaghetti squash in the past, preferring some of the other types of squash. But I should try them out some more in the kitchen!
The most dependable bigger squash I have tried here in upstate New York is 'Green Striped Cushaw'. Fast growing and pest resistant. May be worth a try in your climate.
Hm, very interesting! I haven't tried any pumpkins for years now, but plan to grow couple of winter/storage varieties next year - so I hope that your experience helps me, too! Because you have short and cool summers, maybe some (very) early varieties for cooler climate (Russia, Baltics, Scandinavia) could be interesting for you? In Estonia, bumpkins are either stored during winter as they are in proper conditions or marinated in huge quantities. Marinated ones are generally very good for couple of years.
@@REDGardens I was not able to find anything useful in English. There is several in Estonian, one man is giving decent overview (that IMHO doesn't need any understanding of language): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-5Ko_dRsw7q0.html Receipt is in the description (4kg bumpkin, 1 litre of sugar, 120 ml of 30% vinegar, 3 litre of water, 32 cloves, cinnamon bark according to taste, piece of muscat, and sliced ginger according to taste).
Boiling time was ca 3 minutes, till bumpkin pieces are half-soft. Jars should be sterilised by boiling them for short time. When boiling bumpkin pieces with marinade are poured into jars, upper edge of jars must be kept clean or cleaned properly (eg with vodka/spirit). After lids are added, jars will be put initially upside down to sterilise upper part and lid further. It is good idea to keep jars warm as long as possible, e.g. covering them by a blanket etc.
Interesting. In north Florida it's not easy to grow squash for the opposite reason, too hot for too long. I can barely get a zucchini out before vine borers, stink bugs, mold and parasitic algae kill the plant. It takes chemical warfare to get a Connecticut field pumpkin or spaghetti squash to produce. The local landrace, Seminole pumpkin, is a moschata which does very well. It's that or perhaps Calabacita, unless you really enjoy a fight.
Very interesting! I was very pleased with this experiment! Please continue with your assessment, particularly in terms of the use of larger versus smaller squash, and how well they keep. We eat a lot of squash and I would be interested to find a really great smaller squash. This year I experimented with a butternut squash grown in a container, versus a butterCup squash grown in poor soil. The buttercup squash won hands down! Maybe it was the season, or maybe I did not feed the butternut squash enough. I will try again next year and will watch for your experiments too. Best, Liz in Canada
Figuring out how long they can store is a really important part, but for this experiment so many of them didn't really grow to maturity, so I won't really know. Some of the smaller ones should be a lot better for storing. Depending on where you are, the climate in Canada should be a lot better for growing squash than where I am located.
Having farmed near Vancouver I find we also struggle to ripen butternuts most years. My recommendations would be Honey Boat, an improved delicata type with a sweeter flesh, and Blue Hubbard (a large maxima with the driest and best tasting flesh of any squash I’ve tried). There are miniature versions of the Hubbard which May ripen sooner than the biggie. Another interesting variety is Golden Nugget, a truly compact bush maxima that sets heavy yields of small orange squash around the crown of the plant, like a zucchini. Although it is super productive I rate the flavour inferior to Kuri, Kabocha and Hubbard. Lastly there is the Candy Roaster, a large banana-shaped maxima with superb flavour. However it might be challenging to ripen in Ireland. Among pie pumpkins, the finest hands-down is Winter Luxury, with a netted skin that resembles a basketball. Unlike most jackolanterns, it has very smooth flesh without stringiness. I really enjoy your variety trials - wondering if you might delve into perennials and fruits next?
Thank you for the recommendations! I want to try them all! Id love to spend more time exploring perennials and fruits, though not sure that will happen next year.
We are a commercial market garden in a similar climate to yours, near Seattle. Over several years we have developed the opinion that C. moschata do not perform well at all in our climate. C. pepo are generally reliable, and C. maxima are better than C.moschata for our larger, long-storing squash. In a cool year, however, C. maxima can under-perform. Our usual C. pepo types are Delicata and Thelma Sanders Acorn, and we have settled on Red Kuri and Rouge vif d'Etamps for our Maxima types. We occasionally grow a few others, but always C. pepo or C. maxima. Too many failed Butternut and Musque de Provence crops!
Thank you for sharing your experiences! Very useful to know, especially about the C. moschata, which adds to my very limited experience with failed Butternut varieties. I was surprised the Musicale to Provence did so well, at least for producing a heavy yield. Need to see if they ripen properly. I am also interested that you have success with the Rouge vif d'Etampes!
Very interesting! I wonder if you also noted down the full plant size? Squash plants can vary in size quite a lot, and if a smaller plant doesn't quite compete on the whole yield but can on kg/sqm it might be worth a look after all.
French varieties seem to have good potential. Sucrine du Berry, and potimarron (a variation on the japanese squashes) are favorites. Of course the Provence variety might enjoy being undercover more, it’s a hot region of France.
Im looking forward to trying crown prince next year, acorns are my go to here, I cand plant them behind garlic and get a respctable crop before freeze in zone 5 a in the US. I am also going to try a couple dutch crookneck plants next year.
Interesting topic. I grew Delicata this year and noticed slight variation in fruit sizes and colour. Another year, I grew uchiki kuri (seed from a small internet company) but the fruits were too large for this variety. One plant produced green Hubbard fruits. It's hard to source reliable seeds as many UK seed companies don't seem to know a lot about winter squashes.
@@REDGardens it's becoming common. Chard in beetroot seeds, green cabbage in red cabbage seeds and so on. No wonder there are more F1 seeds in catalogue nowadays...
Isn´t it the ´Gele gentenaar´? It's a pretty populair variaty here in Belgium. ´gele´ is ´yellow´ and ´gentenaar´ is someone living in ´Gent´ (a city in belgium).
The pack labels as 'Centenaar' which someone else suggested it was 'cent' or one hundred, as in 100 kg. It is a big one, though not that big, just trying to figure out how to use it all once we cut it open.
interestingly, the Waltham Butternut was developed about a mile from me. I've grown it for a couple year,s but admittedly, only two plants each year. That, and Acorn. I am going to try Delicata, and Spaghetti, since we eat Spaghetti Squash most winters.
@@gregbluefinstudios4658 Yeah, I think we get more rain here, but also probably quite a bit cooler in the summer, and warmer int he winter. Our summer high temperatures are usually below 20ºC or 70ºF.
@@REDGardens wow, well, definitely cooler in summer and warmer in winter. Our summers often hit 35ºC, and winter drop well below 0ºC sometimes as low as -20ºC
@@gregbluefinstudios4658 Sounds very similar to the Toronto area weather that I grew up in. I found this useful website that lets you see the typical weather for a place, and you can compare a few, which is really interesting. I use it to help understand the type of weather someone might be dealing with. Here is an example (I am based near Birr, Ireland) weatherspark.com/compare/y/26350~33067/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-Manchester-and-Birr
Do you have access to Seminole Pumpkins? We grow those, Cushaw Squash, and Long Island Cheese Pumpkins. These are the squash we like to roast and cook with and the Seminole and Cheese pumpkins store for about a year. We have so many bugs here that eat squash that we can't grow any that aren't Moschata or Argyrosperma. We just let them run through the yard. They send down roots wherever they send up a leaf. I'm not sure how well they'd do in your climate, but they definitely out-perform butternut squash here. The small Seminoles might be a good choice for a high tunnel trial.
I'll have to look into getting some Seminole seeds, not sure if they are available over here. We don't have the vine borer over here, thankfully, so that is not an issue, but the C. moschata types don't seem to do well in our climate.
You should look into Joseph Lofthouse. He has been working on breeding several varieties of pepo, maxima, and moschata for the cold short season in the mountains in utah. I wonder if his work and seeds wouldn't do awesome things for your trials (even though the humidity is so different)
Two notes: I've grown sweet dumpling. They were more blue-grey in color, smaller than the ones you grew, and had a typical pumpkin shape. This leads me to believe that there are several types of sweet dumplings out there. Because mine were so small, they were productive, ripened well, and were very tasty. Perhaps it's worth exploring this further if you're interested? Secondly, indulge me, as a native Dutch speaker: 'Gele' is pronounced with a G as in the Scottish/Irish 'ch' in 'och', the first 'e' as in the 'a' in Yale, 'le' as the lu in 'lurch'. You pronounced Centenaar 100% correctly. 😁 It means something along the lines of 'yellow 100 kilograms' (compare centenaar to the quintal/centner).
With a name like that I would not be surprised if there are a bunch of different varieties with the same name. Thanks for the guidance of the pronunciation - makes sense now that you mention it. Now I just need to train my brain and tongue to remember that!
i'm a bit late, but you may want to try the french lounge de nice butternut squash. it supposedly ripens well here in southern sweden. i have yet to try it myself though.
Squash Question: I am new to gardening. I am under the impression that when you grow multiple varieties of squash at the same time, you can't save the seeds because of cross-pollination. Has anyone had success saving seed and getting the same variety after growing multiple varieties together? Thanks.
All that family of Squash / Courgette / Marrow etc. are very promiscuous - difficult to prevent cross pollination from nearby plants. Maybe cover a flower with a bag and hand pollinate (ideally from a different plant)
You can save seeds. You simply can't be sure of purity unless you know your species. I save seeds every year, have done for decades and I'm quite aware of what will cross and what will not. Anyone can successfully grow and save seeds from different varieties if they choose one Cucurbita maxima, one Cucurbita moschata, one Cucurbita pepo, etc.. Although I would not rely on seed companies always knowing the correct species of some varieties. There are some sub-species out there that do not cross and likewise some that will cross to produce what I call a "mule" of a fruit. Like a horse and donkey, where different species cross and produce a sterile offspring (you get a fruit but either no seed or, more often, seeds without any viable germ in them).
Hand pollination is an option. I had thought I could save seeds from one C.pepo variety of squash I was growing, but then I realised that the courgette/zucchini in the next garden could also cross with that. in my situation, I would not save seeds unless I hand pollinated and carefully taped up the flowers before and after, or bagged them, to keep out all insects.
If you grow too many squash varieties, they cross pollinate and taste horrible. You can tell they crossed when you see bumps on ones that don't have bumps.
I wonder which pumpkin do you find tastier - Japanese or Crown prince? I grow Japanese only which I find super tasty but storage isnt that great so I hope Crown prince would have similar taste and store much better.
I like them both, but for different purposes. The Japanese ones I have tried are really good roasted, but I think I like the Crown Prince best in soups, pies or as a puree.
The Maxima cross pollinate among themselves, likewise the others but not between ...ie maxima not with Pepo. So if you grow only one from each type not F1 you could save the seed......
Adding to what Caroline commented, I had thought I would be safe growing only the one C. pepo type, but then realised to late that there were courgettes/zucchini nearby which are the same species.
I disagree, I found this fascinating. Bruce is still learning, so drawing a line and declaring 'lessons learned' is a bit premature, and I am pleased to look into his thought processes. 🤔
I have friends in the PNW who have your issues, too cool and wet, they always struggle with squash while here in the Midwest I'm usually drowning in them. Have you sought out seeds from types developed in the Pacific Northwest?
