Butternut squash

Dark ones are honeynut. Light ones are Waltham butternut.

Would you like some that would fit in the palm of your hand?

https://www.row7seeds.com/products/898-squash

Pricey, but it's a chef alliance and might be kinda meant for high-end restaurants. ... i guess.

Steve

Any thing mini is always 5x more money

@ninnymary FYI, gave one of them to a young man starting a business growing and selling home grown plants/produce. He liked it so well that he bought seeds for next year. His research says they like to be trellised so he is going to do that.

Oh that’s nice. I’m going to trellis mine also due to lack of space.

Hope they do well for him. Let me now how they do.

Mary

Johnny's has a new winter squash.

(LINK)

The link is to the first page of Johnny's list. There is also Cha Cha and Buttercup, both repeat performers in my garden.

Tetsukabuto is the new one ... (too many syllables! ) It's described as a "versatile kabocha/butternut cross," so it is a hybrid of 2 species not known for crossing.

They say it has resistance to both vine borers and mildew! "Eye-popping yields!" The plant can do it all ...

Extensive selection at Johnny's. You need to have a C. moschata or C. maxima plant near the Tetsukabuto because it isn't self-pollinating (too many syllables!).

Steve

I'm having that issue with pickling cucumbers. The variety recommended for down here, Calypso, is a hybrid that produces practically all female flowers. Productivity is supposed to be tremendous, but you need a pollinator. Some seed packets are supposed to contain 17% of a different variety to act as pollinator. I'm going to be limited in how many seeds I actually plant. How do I know which one is a pollinator or which is the Calypso? I don't want to plant all Calypso with no pollinators. I don't want to plant mostly pollinators.

My plan is to wait until the 2019 seeds come out and get a packet of Calypso seeds. If I can tell which seeds are which by appearance I'll go with those and plant one pollinator for every four Calypso. If I can't tell which is which I'll go with a self-pollinating variety.

Steve, I wonder how they handle that with your Tetsukabuto. Is that seed packet 100% Tetsukabuto or is something else mixed in? Not every supplier of Calypso seeds I looked at mentioned the issue of needing a pollinator. Do they contain a certain number of other pollinator seeds? Life keeps getting more confusing!

You would think the package would be all one seed and mention that it needs a pollinator and tell you which one. Unless they want to include the pollinator in the package but in a separate tiny envelope and clearly label it.

Mary

Or maybe the pollinator seeds will be a different size or color, maybe dyed. But yes, you would expect them to be different and recognizable in some way.

I will probably do what I'd suggest you do in this situation, call and chat. But not until I'm ready to order in case I need to complain about shipping costs.

As I said,

"too many syllables!"

And, like a puppy, I'm scared of anything new. I am hoping that others try this new squash and share their thoughts about it.

I thought of responding to Cat's thread on the ancient squash seeds found. The university actually issued a statement that the seeds in their digs were not viable and not grown. The Smithsonian may have messed up in their debunking of the story after pointing out that the squash that was grown was an heirloom of a different tribe. Then, they went on to say something about it being around for thousands of years amongst North American tribes.

C. maxima squash appear to have wild ancestors only in a small area of South America. The other squash species are known to have been grown on the northern continent pre-Columbus but not that one. Even in its home, it hasn't been found in the oldest digs.

C. maxima are kinda new to most everyone.

Steve