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Post by dld on Dec 12, 2010 23:14:13 GMT -5
I'm gonna try growing some winter squash next year and would love to hear/read your insights on your favorites?
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Post by bluelacedredhead on Dec 12, 2010 23:53:52 GMT -5
Dude, have you had a chance to look through the recipes in the Kitchen Korner? Darth's been busy making pies out of Musque de Provence and Long Island Cheese. The colour of the flesh on the Musque de Provence is sooooo rich looking. My faves are Red Kuri, Jumbo Pink Banana Squash and Queensland Blue. All rich, dry flesh, good for baking. I'm not a pie baker but I love pumpkin bread and pumpkin cookies. And hubs does NOT eat squash although he will eat a bit of Red Kuri and the occasional Black Futsu. Others that I've had limited success with are PA Dutch Crookneck, Thelma Sanders and Green Striped Cushaw. I'm not terribly fond of the taste of the Cushaw, but it's a dandy one for Autumn displays. Thelma Sanders I found to be prolific and I love the cream coloured speckled skin but again, not keen on the flavour. Good winter storer though. I've tried to grow Sweet Meat for two years now, but our soil, weather conditions and the squirrel populations meddling in my patch have been less than favourable. I ordered another package of Sweet Meat from Sample Seeds and I'm having Sweet Meat squash in 2011 if I have to sit in the pumpkin patch and usher the little furballs into the live trap personally, I'll do so In 2011, I'm also trying Long Pie (Sandhill preservation), a variety popular in ME. It resembles a zucchini but turns orange in winter storage.
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Post by sunflowers on Dec 13, 2010 9:16:16 GMT -5
While I've grown many of those mentioned above, most of those are quite large and more than what a beginner might be interested in cooking unless you are making a pie.
One of my personal favorites for growing AND eating is Festival. It is a hybrid tho if that makes a difference to you. But I grow for market and that variety is one of my best growers and sellers.
It has the size and shape of an Acorn squash and some catalogs mistakenly list it as an Acorn type. Festival is actually a "Sweet Dumpling" type. I believe the Sweet Dumplings were developed from the Delicata variety as I always get a few Delicatas that aren't oblong but have that acorn shape.
Anyway, Festival is semi-bush so it won't sprawl all over your garden. It's also one of the earliest varieties to mature in my garden most years. And it's usually productive as all get out. The flesh is smooth and fine grained and sweet, just like a Delicata. Most squash have a color change that indicates maturity. For Festival, look for the yellow in the bottom of the "valley" of the ribs to turn to orange AND the color of the stem to turn from green to black and hard.
Delicata is another good variety, but it will sprawl all over and it has a longer maturity. It's also rather irregular so sometimes you get a lot of small squash. The color change for Delicata is for the background greenish white to loose the green and turn a creamy or yellowish color.
Carol
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tomc
Breeder in Training
Posts: 155
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Post by tomc on Dec 13, 2010 9:22:13 GMT -5
I'm old. I don't have to collect the next neeto thing. I rotate yearly between baby Blue Hubbard, and Butternut. OP strains of which are available nearly everywhere.
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Post by redneckplanter on Dec 26, 2010 23:14:01 GMT -5
cushaw hands down.
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johno
Tomato Gardener
Posts: 65
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Post by johno on Dec 27, 2010 10:11:10 GMT -5
If you have problems with bugs and other environmental stresses (like I do), Cushaws are a great choice. C. mixta/argyrosperma squash like cushaws are bullet proof, but you pay for it by losing the richness that the other species have. C. moschatas are usually the next toughest, and usually have very good all around eating qualities. Examples are: Black Futtsu, Seminole, Butternut, I think Musquee du Provence. Moschatas take a ong time to mature. I personally love Blue Hubbards (c. maxima), but can't grow them here.
I guess my favorite that does well here is Seminole.
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tomc
Breeder in Training
Posts: 155
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Post by tomc on Dec 27, 2010 14:32:41 GMT -5
Pick a squash that resembles the census you are likely to cook for. If your not gonna make 300 pies any time soon, Atlantic Giant might not your best choice. The old Hubbard could weight fourty pounds+. Pick a baby version...
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Post by redneckplanter on Jan 8, 2011 0:50:57 GMT -5
cushaws....smiles
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bammer
Tomato Fanatic
Turkaconus Freak & Mater Head
Posts: 361
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Post by bammer on Jan 8, 2011 10:27:02 GMT -5
Shishigatani- Produced well and a good taste Attachments:
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Post by dld on Jan 29, 2011 14:26:57 GMT -5
Shishigatani- Produced well and a good taste Bammer, how many plants did you grow to get that many fruit?
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loeb
New Member
Posts: 10
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Post by loeb on Jan 30, 2011 13:10:38 GMT -5
My number one is Red Kuri. Really delicious, really producing well. The problem is, mice love them too I'm going to try few new ones in that season, so maybe kuri will change place in ranking;)
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tz
Tomato Gardener
Posts: 73
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Post by tz on Feb 1, 2011 8:56:11 GMT -5
I've been growing Delicata and buying spaghetti and butternut. The SVBs have been eating up the larger vined varieties so I'm switching over to the C moschatas this year (butternut, Penn neck squash...also Long Island Cheese and Musqee de Provence are in this group). I like the butternut/Neck type because I can slice disks off the neck and pan fry quickly. With the Delicatas etc they have to be deseeded and are best baked, which is an undertaking. Butternut also makes good pies.
I've been eating way too much pasta since I started growing tomatoes so I'm also going to grow a lot of spaghetti squash this year.
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Post by GunnarSK on Mar 29, 2011 10:32:28 GMT -5
The standard treatment for cucurbit seeds is stratification, a frost treatment, either naturally, as in wintersowing or leaving the seeds outside all winter, or a shorter stay in the freezer. Lately, scarification seems to be popular (or is it just here in Poland?) as an alternative for bigger cucurbit seeds (like squash/pumpkin and watermelon), where the main problem may be, that the thick and hard shell is inpenetrable for moisture and later the sprout: Scarification is a small indentation (by a nail file or as the word indentation suggests, biting). An alternative interpretation of scarification is scaring seeds to sprout, but that is of course not true.
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Post by littleminnie on Mar 29, 2011 14:20:12 GMT -5
I'm not huge squash eater. I read the Compleat Squash and took some of those recommendations and then chose what might sell ok. Amy Goldman really prefers maximas and I have always leaned toward moshatas when I do eat squash.
My 2011 list is: pumpkin, big max pumpkin, cinderella pumpkin, giant pumpkin, magdalene pumpkin, small sugar pumpkin, white pumpkin, winter lux pie squash, acorn squash, black futsu squash, burgess squash, carnival squash, delicata squash, delicious squash, galeux squash, golden pippin squash, long isl cheese squash, marina de chioggia squash, mooregold squash, mus de provence squash, necked butternut squash, seminole squash, spaghetti squash, sweet dumpling squash, sweet meat squash, Tenn SP squash, thelma sanders squash, waltham butternut
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Post by veggie maker on Apr 24, 2011 12:38:18 GMT -5
littleminnie, I envy your garden already... to grow that many squash, it has to be as large as the community I live in.... LOL. Blue hubbards are my favorite, but they do get large and have very long vines.. the acorns and delicatas are about perfect size for us... I have also had a problem with sweet meat.. getting it to maturity and have grown it for two years and not tasted one yet.... I don't think it likes dry heat
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