Garden Log 2024: Fairly Odd Squash

This year’s squash harvest was a mixed bag. One that I thought was a Black Beauty Zucchini turned out to be something quite different

I’m big on saving seeds, especially vegetables that were successful in the garden the previous year. Seeds can get expensive, so saving some for next year makes sense.

Last year I grew three varieties of zucchini to see which one was best for smaller gardens. Of the types I grew, Black Beauty, Striata di Italia, and Cocozelle, I decided that I liked Black Beauty Zucchini the best. Unlike the other two, it was a compact bush variety, spine free and produced more than enough zucchinis for our family over the season.

It was also free of problems with powdery mildew and, as an heirloom variety, should breed true season after season unlike some of the hybrids I decided to keep.

Knowing that I might be saving seeds from some, I grew each Zucchini well away from each other as well as other squash varieties to prevent accidental cross pollination. I was pretty sure next spring’s plants would be as good as last fall’s.

May: Not Quite Right

I planted seeds saved from one of the late season fruits (the Black Beauty kept on producing until late October) in the greenhouse in March, and transplanted a pair of plants into garden in mid-April.

I probably should have started getting suspicious in early May when the zucchini plants were already starting to outgrow the bed before even flowering. Asa bush variety, they had stayed well within the bed the previous year.

Still, they were bushy and didn’t have any of the prickliness of other squashes, so I didn’t think much of it and let them be. Days later they were obviously no longer staying bushy and were off and running.

June: Definitely not Black Beauty Zucchini

By the first of June the plant pair had consumed the entire 6 foot by four-foot bed and were making moves on the two adjacent beds in the row. If that wasn’t clue enough that they weren’t the Black zucchini I thought I had planted, the first few fruits confirmed it.

Rather than the small sausage shape you expect from baby zukes, these guys were eggplant shaped. And while they were still speckled like Black Beauty, they were a much lighter green. Definitely not black.

Still, I didn’t have a plan to replace them, so I let them go, only whacking back the runners if they threatened the peppers and basil next to them.

July: The Vegetable Garden is Theirs Now

As July rolled around the two plants had grown to the point where they made it impossible to pass using the paths to either side of the bed. Oh, and the big, leathery leaves they were producing were prickly now.

I could see blossoms poking out of the greenery, but the leaves and vines were dense enough to kept me from getting a better idea of just how many there were.

By late July the sweet corn in the beds to the west was harvested and the (now) monster squash plants took possession of those as well.

August: First Look Inside

The heat took some of the wind out of the monster squashes’ sails. The leaves, many 2 feet or more across, would wilt in the midday sun allowing me to see the interior of the plant where dozens of football-sized, orange-and-green-splotched fruit lay.

Obviously there had been a pumpkin in the area last year.

Curious if they were more tender, summer zucchini or firm, winter squash, I picked one that was still all green and at least looked like a tear-dropped version of a zucchini. Even all green, the skin was thick and hard.

Definitely more winter than summer.

September: This is What Sprawl Looks Like

The monster squash continued to sprawl out as the vegetables in the adjacent beds petered out. First to the east where the beans and tomatoes had given up, then to the west all the way to the blackberries on the fence.

By the last day of summer this pair of definitely-not-zucchini-but-might-be-pumpkin plants occupied around 600 square feet of garden space.

October: It Ends With a Wheelbarrow

Mid-October rolled around and both plants were in steep decline, brown and dying from the interior of the plant outward. As the vines died back they revealed squash after squash, all about the size of a football, teardrop-shaped, weighing 3-5lbs, speckled green and splashed in orange.

I pulled two wheelbarrows worth of fruit from the beds, more than 70(!) in all, and stacked them out of the way while I figure out what to do with them all. There are still a bunch in the blackberries that I’m not going to bother with.

Characteristics, Taste & Quality

As I mentioned earlier, all the squash are dense, slightly smaller than a football and in the 3-5lbs range. Some of the fruits are dark green with orange splashes, others are a lighter, speckled green with an orangey-yellow wash. The speckled ones also have a very slight ribbing to them.

The skin is thick, hard and difficult to cut through or shave even with a sharp knife. I take that as another clue that this is a pumpkin cross as Black Beauty’s skin is thin and delicate.

Cut it in half, the flesh is dense and thick while the seed cavity is small and densely netted. Given the thickness of the flesh, whatever variety the pumpkin parent was, it was definitely one grown for eating rather than carving.

I had the Mrs cook one in the oven so we could find out what it tastes like. Once cooked, it was soft and much more chewable than raw. The flavor is neither zucchini nor pumpkin, but somewhere in between. Fairly low in sugar sweetness and a bit nutty. All-in-all it was edible, but nothing to rave about.

Summary

Obviously my Black Beauty zucchini cross-bred with some sort of pumpkin although I have no idea what kind or where it might have come from. I did grow a couple of Rouge Vif D’Etampes French heirloom pumpkins last year, but these odd squash have nothing resembling the squat, flat, deeply ribbed shape, or deep orange-red color they did.

My neighbor told me he grew some pumpkins for Jack O’lanterns last year, but his vegetable garden is more than a football field away from my own. Still, I guess it’s possible some busy bee could have carried the pollen over from his field as his pumpkins had much more the shape of these squash than the Rouge Vif D’Etampes.

While these two monster squash plants were super prolific (70 fruits… yikes!), the sprawling nature of the plants made them hard to control, and the flavor and appearance are nothing to write home about. I won’t be growing these again.

I hope the ducks and chickens like them. They’re going to be eating a lot of these odd squash over the next few weeks.