What Kind of Squash?

[bethh]

My plants were from a variety of sources... I planted some seeds and purchased seedlings from a couple of places. I first thought they were butternut so I didn't pick them because I was waiting for their color to change. They are huge now and hard. I think I'll send a pic to the place I purchased some plants from and see if they can identify them. The vines are completely taking over the space. I hope they are edible as I will collect seeds and plant again next year. I don't use pesticides so therefore my plants eventually succumb to the vine borers and squash bugs. These guys don't seem to care less. I'll try and post an updated picture soon. Thanks for helping this wanna be gardener.

 

[valley ranch]

eat one of them right now ~ cooked in butter ```

 

[Ridgerunner]

Do a search n Tromboncini Squash. Vine borers and squash bugs tend to leave those alone.

 

[bethh]

Thought I'd post some pics from this morning.

 

[Ridgerunner]

That is not tromboncini. The neck is too thick and it's too dark green. I'd let it ripen (basically the skin gets hard so it takes some pressure for a fingernail to puncture it) and try it as a winter squash. Or split it open and feed it to your chickens.

 

[bethh]

That is not tromboncini. The neck is too thick and it's too dark green. I'd let it ripen (basically the skin gets hard so it takes some pressure for a fingernail to puncture it) and try it as a winter squash. Or split it open and feed it to your chickens.

It's so huge. I may pick one and see what its like and go from there. I'll have to go through my seed packets and see if I can figure anything out.

 

[flowerbug]

That is not tromboncini. The neck is too thick and it's too dark green. I'd let it ripen (basically the skin gets hard so it takes some pressure for a fingernail to puncture it) and try it as a winter squash. Or split it open and feed it to your chickens.

yeah, it isn't long enough and too thick. so likely an odd cross or something... might be a gourd. can't tell how hard the skin is from here...

 

[digitS']

Beth, I once decided to leave a robust "something" squash volunteer.

At the season end, I had a giant, oblong, green pumpkin!

The neighbor left his "squash" volunteers one year. They produced something inedible, apparently. He left those. The tractor guy spread the seeds everywhere when he tilled both gardens! That included my squash patch ... so, I had volunteers amongst the squash and didn't recognize the difference between the plants. Some produced weird gourd-like things!

Steve
You may want to avoid that seed seller from now on.

 

[Zeedman]

Thought I'd post some pics from this morning. View attachment 32895View attachment 32896View attachment 32897

If that squash wasn't so dark green, it might pass for a cushaw (C. argyrosperma) which look somewhat like giant butternut squash... but those are usually much lighter in color, often with white stripes. The size makes me lean toward a cross with Tahitian Melon Squash; I had a few that looked like that when I tried to hybridize my Tahitian with Butternut, in an effort to shorten its DTM (which it did). Tahitian has a very long, narrow neck - the hybrids were much wider (but still weighed 15-20 pounds). I have a feeling you'll end up with something similar. There is far less variation in domestic varieties of C. moschata than in either C. pepo or C. maxima, so whatever you have will likely be fairly tasty.

My recommendation would be to allow the squash to ripen, provided there is enough growing season left in your location for it to do so.