There are a few more not yet ripe, including one that looks like it may be Iran squash. And two that have more pumpkin looks. I only see one that looks like it is a Tesukabuto.
I planted various C. mixta in the row. Does this look like a maxima or a mixta?
The row was approximately 4 feet by 20 feet, shared with moschata ( about 1/3 amount of maxima) and corn at the end of the row. To achieve better chance of crosses I planted close. Perhaps too close and too many. I have to irrigate. I used drip lines with holes every 12 inches. I planted 4 seeds per hole like this: ------------ : o : -------
In the past I only grew 3 to five squash due space.
Next year I plan to plant from this years crop with seed from established grex/landrace seed. Also am going to plant larger ratio of the Tesukabuto in both the maxima and moschatas. Not many pest issues. As I was picking I did see one of the striped beetles. Earlier on one plant had yellowing in the leaves. I looked it up. Did not seem like a nutritional deficiency or too much of something. Possibly mosaic virus? As the plants grew it went away.
I am pleased with my results and I think I’ve learned some.
The orange one looks like a Maxima to me. I tasted one that looked exactly like it, a boston marrow, and it was stringy and watery. Maybe it was my climate. I thought it might be an effect of selecting heirlooms for big size and ruining the flavor over time. Let us know how they taste!
I only tasted the orange crooked neck.
Raw it seemed like it might be past peak ripeness. I just put it in a stew. It had a black spot on it and it might of been over ripe.
I am going to wait the 6 to 8 weeks for sugar flavor development.
Something else I learned about ripeness. I was paying attention to how the stems looked, but I saw some of the squash rotted. I reviewed the squash seed saving video in the gts landrace course. Very useful this time of year to go back and look at the seed saving for what I am harvesting now.
Thank you Simone and Julia. I think it is Maxima. The photo on the link from Julia has one with a similar neck.
I had remembered the guide said “No necked squash” for maxima. All the photos of orange mixta were striped.
I will look closer at the stems of what is left in the row.
Thank you
I do not plan on keeping seed from the baseball sized ones. I also had some small crooked necked ones, but they ended up having rotten spots after 2 weeks.
