Sooooo... I have a little bit of an addiction to squash. I just love them! Aside from the inevitable powdery mildew at the end of the year, they're so easy to grow here in Central California and each plant provides so much food! The hard part is deciding which varieties to grow each warm season. Here are the winter squash that made the cut this year (you'll notice I grow more winter squash than summer, that's because they can be stored and supply us with food into
Winter varieties from top left: Golias, Spaghetti, Gold Nugget, Jarrahdale, Blue Hubbard, Georgia Candy Roaster. Not pictured (oops): Red Kuri and Tromboncino. These pics are all taken early in the season. I'll upload more pics of them at maturity when they're ready to harvest.
My favorite winter squash: TBD for the most part, I haven't been able to taste any of them yet. I have grown some of these before though so I know I love the flavor of GA Candy (I prefer it to butternut), and Tromboncino will always be a fav for its quirky appearance and its versatility (you can eat it as a summer squash or cure it to be a winter storage squash).
This is the first year I've grown Golias and it has blown me away. I’ve never attempted to grow a huge pumpkin before, I’ve never really understood the fascination with growing giant veggies, but this thing is so big and grows so fast that I totally get the appeal now! It’s fun and wondrous to see growth like that! I took the above pic (top left is Golias) just two weeks before the pic below, look how much it grew in that amount of time!!! I'm not sure about taste but it’s been so easy to grow and is so massive that I’m putting it on the fav list.
My least favorite winter squash: TBD because I haven't evaluated the flavor. I have been disappointed by the limited production of the golden nugget though.
For summer squash we chose: Zucchini Golden, Cocozella Di Napoli, Lebanese White Bush Marrow, Ronde De Nice, and Gelber Englischer Custard (which I think can be a winter storage squash too?). All of these are heirlooms.
My favorite summer squash this year has got to be the Lebanese. It is such a vigorous plant! I had an extra start that I just stuck in the ground near the chicken fence thinking it would surely die... I’ve probably watered it three times all summer, it's been pecked at mercilessly by the chickens, and it still looks wonderful and is a prolific producer! It's leaves are so lush it could almost be an ornamental. The one that I have actually cared for looks even better and is producing every. single. day. Also, even the ones that get too big are still delicious. An amazing squash!
The new-to-me variety Gelber Englischer Custard has also been a joy to grow this year and will surely make the cut next year as well. Super productive, yummy, beautiful big leaves, and an interesting attention getter. It's a bit of a space hog though. I think it is typed as a bush variety but it trails a bit (it will need 4-5'+ vs most bush types that need 3').
My least favorite summer squash is the golden zucchini. It did NOT like being planted in a straw bale. I'll may try it again next summer in the soil before I write it off completely but it did so poorly and there are so many other good yellow squash (i.e. zephyr, early prolific straightneck) I'm not sure it's worth the space. I only got 5 squash off it all summer; that is just not acceptable for a summer squash whose very mission in life is to overwhelm gardeners with fruit. Golden Zucchini, you are a disappointment.
What’s your favorite squash variety?
*** Seed from www.rareseeds.com and http://www.johnnyseeds.com
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