These are the three best - depend Dutch squashes that come in out of my garden this year .
I buy a packet ofsquashseeds inHolland , The Netherlands , last year , and I develop a few of the plants this season in the garden . A few week ago , we harvested the squash racquets . Shown above is a photo of the best - looking three . I could have imprecate the fruits had an unusual xanthous cutis timber on the seed packet , but what I nonplus were a gnome variation of Muscade de Provence , which is a very pop squash in northern European garden . I suppose I should economise the semen , as dwarf cheese squashes are all the rage in farmers marketplace these days , the orotund squashes being deemed too bountiful for loose retail cut-rate sale .
I ’ve always been a bit baffled by squash racquets naming , being somewhat aware that there are a few renowned genus , includingCucurbita maxima , Cucurbita moschataandCucurbita pepo , and thatpumpkinsandzucchiniarepepos , and the winter squash are the twom ’s . In my quick on-line research for this web log , I crack up when I found Muscade de Provence variously describe as a member of themaxima , moschato , andpepogenera . In this taxonomic scurry , I vote for the right name being credibly something likeCucurbita moschataMuscade de Provence .
I come across lots of other name for this squash racquets , such as Fairytale ( It has fruits shaped like the Cucurbita pepo - wrick - stroller inCinderella . ) , French Cheese ( It is a cheese - eccentric and an obvious baby of the Long Island Cheese squeeze . ) , Musque , and Musqee de Provence , and evenpotiron bronze de Montlhéry ! In any case , I ’m sure that what we have is a deliberately dwarf rendering of the classic Muscade de Provence . Those adult Muscade squashes can press 30 pounds , and our squashes are much diminished , perhaps 3 to 5 hammer each .
squash rackets do interbreed comparatively easy , as long as side by side plantings allow easy pollen transfer by bees and other pollinators . I would care to breed some of the colorful yellow and immature stripe into one of the mini muscade , but again , I ’m discombobulate taxonomically . IfTonda Padana , also screw as American Tondo , my favorite yellow - with - green - stripes squash variety is aCurcurbita pepoas I suspect , then there ’s a good chance I wo n’t be able to foil it with a moschato , as I speculate the Muscade is . Ha !
fortunately , growing these squash is pretty well-off around here because we do n’t have those cruddy squash rackets stem pests . I ’ve always imagine of squashes as being perfect compost plants , so I seek to plunge a bunch of compost or interchangeable into sub - surface kettle of fish before I implant squash vine . There does n’t seem to be a giving reward in other planting except in northern surface area where the inhuman sneaks in betimes in fall . Space is the job that I have , because the squash racquets flora are really vast compared to the belittled size of it of the small planting areas we have on the drop garden . I drape them up and over fixture when I can , but even then it ’s a challenge because thevinescan well cower up to 30 feet in length . I think I really should be growing this squash vine on a bounteous , flat field of force near a epithelial duct somewhere in Holland .
Read more of Rick ’s Favorite Crops »
