As promised yesterday, I've spent the past 24 hours cleaning house and browsing through seed catalogs. There is one particular seed I'm looking for and I'm having great difficulty finding it, but I persist. Call me a woman on a mission.
I'm looking for a compact/bush habit, heirloom/OP winter squash, with 2-8lb (+/-) fruits that keeps well into winter.
That sounds simple enough.
That is, until you go looking for one.
I can find good keepers. I can find 2-8lb fruits. And I can find compact/bush/semi-bush winter squash. I can't seem to find all 3 qualities in the same plant.
Typically we grow butternut varieties which are the perfect size and keep quite well, but 2 months into the growing season, my garden is a big, weedy tangled mess of pokey, scratchy squash vines. There are squash vines in the corn. Squash vines in the tomatoes. Squash vines growing across the yard into the berry patches and vining on the grape arbor. No more 'vigorous' vines for me. I need something a bit smaller and tidier, even if it has a smaller yield.
So does anyone have a recommendation for squash that is an appropriate size for a small family, an heirloom/OP so we can save the seed and keeps well, but doesn't take over the whole bloomin' backyard?
Seriously. I welcome any suggestions.
And by the way, thanks to all of you who have entered the Happy Birthday Giveaway...just a few more days and we'll have a couple of winners!
7 comments:
No suggestions. I think your goals are conflicting - that is bush type (generally a hybrid development) and heirloom (meaning an expectation that it will breed true). In fact, I don't know of _any_ winter squashes that are bush type...just the summer squashes.
Have you tried training them on frames of some sort, or pruning them? I've never tried winter squashes, so don't know where they set their fruit - I know that summer squashes tend to set them close to the stem. It seems to me that pumpkins set their way out on the vines. What happens if you prune them? I've never seen that done either...
There are a few varieties of heirlooms (acorn for example) that are compact/semi-bush habit squash, but I've always been under the impression that acorn squash don't keep very well through winter.
I don't know if you can prune squash vines or not...that's worth looking into.
Acorn squash are a hard winter squash...it seems like they _should_ keep - but I've never actually done it. Just bought and used within a week or so.
I think the training on a frame is a "Square Foot Gardening" thing...but I don't recall ever seeing anything about pruning.
Another bit I ran across somewhere is a "be careful where you plant - due to cross pollination probability" with squash. I thought that was interesting. Whatever I read (and I don't remember where I saw it) cautioned that cross pollination might occur if different squashes were too close, since they are bee pollinated, and that would affect the taste/quality of the squash itself, and of course would cause problems if you intended to keep seeds. I don't know - making hybrids isn't such a bad idea as long as you have some idea what you're doing! Just can't expect to get the same thing.
Google Jackie Clay . She likes one called a Hopi Gray.
I love Jackie Clay! I've heard of the Hopi Gray, but was under the assumption they have rambling vines. I may need to take Sue's suggestion and look into trellising.
Andrea,
The spending freeze is just that, freezing our spending on all non essentials. So, all the bills get paid and groceries are bought, but no new shoes for anyone, no new curtains just because they were on clearance, no smelly candles even if they're on sale for at least the month of January. I saw it on another blog a few years ago, although they did theirs in July. I thought it would be a great way to start off the new year and have done it in January for the past couple years. I may add July too this year.
In the past, I have slipped up here and there, and have already had to spend "extra" this month when my car battery died the other night. But for the most part, we stick with it, and it feels really good at the end of the month to realize that we can survive without the "extras". I do make some concessions, like my birthday is this month, so the hubby and I will go out for dinner, but probably with a coupon. :op
If you look into trellising, be sure to consider sun and shadows in your locations..
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