Hi, all,
Please share your observations, photos, questions and tips for developing your C. maxima landrace. Looking forward to hearing from you!
DebbieA
moschata/maxima seed steward
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I planted a variety of maximas mixed together in two 3 sisters/milpa style beds. A combination of the following seeds:
Lower Salmon River, from a local seed swap
Marine grey kabocha, from uprising seeds, seed saved from my garden
Maxima mash-up, from Wild Dreams Farm (multi-year grex of Oregon Homestead Sweet Meat, Lower Salmon River, Kabocha, and Red Kuri)
Planted two seeds of a single type in 15 different spots, with the intention of culling to the most vigorous plant in each spot and letting them compete and cross with each other from there. A few seeds failed to germinate, so I’ll end up with ~12-14 plants. This will result in a very dense planting (~12-18 in on center in a staggered row, inter planted even more densely with corn and beans), but I wanted to include more than one plant of each variety for increased genetic diversity, at least in these early crosses, and can tolerate likely getting only one fruit per plant this year as a trade off.
This week I did most of the culling except a couple spots where both seedlings were slow to emerge and needed a few more days to evaluate for vigor. Overall, the Lower Salmon River and Maxima Mash up seeds have shown more early vigor, but there has been variation across the board. There has been very little pest or disease pressure, so selection to this point has really just been for early emergence and tolerance of relatively cool nighttime temperatures.
This is only the second time I’ve grown maximas, so I’m looking forward to harvesting a range of varieties this fall and tasting them over the winter.
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While thinning I noticed that some plants were getting munched on, while some had intact leaves. I tend to keep the intact ones, which may or may not be the right choice if you start thinking about horizontal vs vertical resistance. It could also just be random that some plants got attacked and other not.
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Hello, @avery.bowron and @Patate! How are your maximas doing? I’ve personally had a poor year for squash. While the plants got off to a good start, and made plenty of male flowers, the female flowers have been extremely slow to appear. They are so late that there will be no harvest this year unless fall extends well past the usual first frost date. If anyone knows what’s going on, let me know.
Would love to see photos of your harvests!
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Interesting to hear it’s been such a challenging year for your squash. I’ve heard the same from multiple people in my area this year, and mine definitely struggled, too. Originally I attributed it to overcrowding and low-fertility soil, but I’ve also come to suspect my unusually dry spring and early summer stressed the plants, and made them more susceptible to powdery mildew, which can be an issue here and was this summer.
About 1/3 of my plants produced single, small fruits, and I harvested them yesterday which felt early for here, but the vines had died back from powdery mildew and we have rain in the forecast so I figured I’d put them up now. There is one more fruit on the vine (latest maturing plant) that I still hope to get seeds from. It is a diverse mix of genetics and likely crossed, so I’m hopeful of better results in future years.
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Interestingly, the one season (of the past three years) I opted not to grow maxima squash (or squash of any kind) I’ve had my best season for growing squashies (ie, in my mountain valley I’ve had an absurdly casual random sane frost year). Go figure! AND, given this, I have several fabulous compost squash vines growing in and amongst my brussels sprouts. And, the best squash of all the pigs planted last season in their old bedding area. Right next to an apple seedling they also planted.
As you can see in the pic we are in a prototypical very dry part of our summers and early fall. That entire area was ‘planted’ by the pigs before slaughter last late Fall. I’ve watered that area maybe three times over the past four months.
I would also add, @DebbieA , if you need C. maxima seeds I have a proverbial heap of seeds I saved over the winter from last year. They aren’t even a year old. I have two gallon freezer bags filled with maxima crosses.
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It’s great that you have several varieties in your harvest. Hopefully the experience of a dry spring will be carried in the seeds and they’ll be ready for whatever weather is thrown at them next year.
I think the best thing for me right now is to move on to some fall crops. If they overwinter, the garden will be in a good position for next spring.
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@Bizarro I love that your pigs helped plant the garden. We have a couple of small apricot seedlings thanks to our band of squirrels.
Thank you for offering your maxima seeds! A small sample for next spring would be great. And just to remind everyone, your local seed library and Going to Seed are two options for finding new homes for excess seed.
My spring and early summer were very wet, and my squashes really liked that (my tomatoes not so much, it delayed the fruit setting). My current harvest of candy roaster and GTS Maxima:
(as a reference, the biggest one is 60cm and weighs 17 pounds).
Maarten
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Hi Debbie!
My seeds came from the Canada seed mix, though there were seeds from the US program in that mix.
I haven’t harvested yet, but should be able to in a week or two. Harvest won’t be great this year compared to last year but this is probably due to less fertility, and more neglect.
One fruit is huge! I’ll have to take photos after harvest. I also have a plant producing red kuri looking fruit which I didnt expect in a crossed grex.
Will try to update later!
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Nice looking harvest, @MaartenFoubert . You’ll be eating well this winter!
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@Patate Looking forward to seeing your harvest! Thanks for checking in.
There it is! GTS canada seeds which included GTS usa seeds. I also should have in there some desert spirit culinary landrace seeds that I saved last year. Check out that huge one! Also the yellow one in the center. I’m also noting some red kuri types which I wonder if the original seeds have crossed or not.
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Very beautiful display of squash! Love the diversity. Thank you for sharing.
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I didn’t plant out any of my C. maxima squash genetics this year but my living compost beds and my now slaughtered pigs apparently did (as I believe I noted above). There weren’t nearly as many plants as last year’s intentional grow, obviously, but I just preemptively harvested the nice sized and mostly finished squashies with the serious hard frost threats of the past two evenings/mornings. A nice portional representation of last years wild n wooly mix. BTW, Lovely to see that Canuck spread!
Deb I am headed to the post office right after I type this to send a nice grab bag of seeds from this past Fall and Winter. I’m also going to send you some of my ongoing C pepo (mainly acorn/delicata crosses - my opinion is they both tremendously benefit and lift each other up when crossed) seeds for ‘shirts and goggles’.
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Great-looking squash! I’m enjoying how everyone’s mix is unique.
Thank you for sending me seeds. Looking forward to planting them out next year.
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Thats a nice harvest for volunteer squashes!
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