Thread was a mess, split into 2…
2 years ago I made a multi-way cross where mom was a climbing pepo called Mongogo du Guatemala (heirloom) and the possible fathers were Zephyr (F1), Long White from Sicily (heirloom) and Yellowfin (F1).
The thing with Mongogo is that it can be harvested both as a “zucchini” when young and as a pumpkin when fully mature.
Mom, Mongogo du Guatemala with the crossed seeds. I did a good job there as not one single plant grew true.
My goal was to get more colors and shapes while maintaining the “pumpkinness” if that is at all possible. I often miss the harvesting window for zucchinis and so I wanted to create a population that would be OK to use as zucchini but if I missed the harvest window it would also be storable like a pumpkin and would still taste good. Slightly climbing habit is preferable over upright, the reason is that I want to be able to use it as ground cover.
This year I grew out some “F1” seeds – makes almost no sense to talk about F1 since it’s a four-way cross but also two possible fathers are F1 themselves. By no means a great sample size with just 12 plants, but something just to gauge what I got. Seeds were started very late because I had no room for this growout, had to negotiate with someone nearby to grow on their piece of land so they got into the soil a good three weeks later than I usually sow my squash.
I got, as expected, a very wide range of plants. No bitter plants. I tasted them at the coty stage and then I tasted the leaves and young fruit several times.
Out of 12 plants, I only culled one that didn’t start to flower when all the others did, and also it was much smaller in size so it would hide under another sibling.
All tasted good as young. 4 out of the remaining 11 yielded fruit that is superior to either parent when young. 3/11 have slightly orange, pumpkin-y flesh at full maturity and 2/11 taste better and sweeter at full maturity than young. Besides, 1/11 inherited Zephyr’s coloring. 3/11 inherited Mongogo’s ten ribs, although not as prominent. 2/11 were round like Mongogo.
Next year I will try to grow 50+ plants (guerilla grow it must be as I have no room for so many!)
Some “F1” offspring, then:
Obvious Zephyr dad, so Mongogo du Guatemala x Zephyr, one of those that tasted much much better as mature fruit than young (it was just “OK” as young):
Climbing plant, was all over the place. Heavy yield.
Maybe the only issue against it is that it was seedy. I got mature seed even from the smaller one (last fruit, end of season, maybe mom was stressed)
A bunch on the backseat, last harvest
Against Zephyr (dad)
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Some yellow one where father was suspected Yellowfin (very bright yellow) and it had ten ribs like mom:
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4/11 green, oval ones, now just random pix of some, 2 of which have tasted a lot better than either parent both young and mature, and had yellowish/orange flesh as mature:
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Some round ones that produced perhaps most fruit (in numbers anyway), taste is good as young, I don’t know yet how it is as mature (haven’t extracted seeds yet):
Round to the left. All the ones marked with x come from the cross
Round one against the previously mentioned yellow one
Round ones, I got I think 15 of them total. Plant was climbing.
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I also grew some pumpkins that are supposed to have crossed, they were Eden Blue (F1) and Kaori Kuri (F1), both maximas. I will guerilla grow some as well next year as they need room. Gold Nugget (also maxima) was grown within ten meters so I expect that the majority of seeds would be wildly crossed there as well.
And some group pix of the last harvest anyway (2 days before hard frost).
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That’s an aimiable goal making late harvested pepo more pumkinny. I had to open one with an axe yesterday. It was thready and didn’t taste of much.
The plant was vining/crawling.
They sûre are great lookers those!
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Now that I have extracted most seeds, I can conclude that I had two babies that gave me roughly what I wanted. Both tasted sweet at seed extraction time than at any stage before.
Nr one; the one in my original comment I’m responding to:
We regretted that we didn’t invite all our friends to eat this thing when I opened it for the seeds.
She’s visibly a Zephyr child; so, Mongogo du Guatemala x Zephyr. Flesh color at seed extraction: deep peach, very difficult to capture with a camera. I gave up. Anyway, it was orange with a slight pink hue; I call that ripe peach… Sweet like a pumpkin. Sadly, most seeds don’t look viable, but I’ll try to mass germinate some. Even the seeds that looked good at extraction time dried into nothingness over time. I wrote “seedy” back then; well, yeah many seeds but immature…
In the worst case, I will recreate the original cross just to recreate this potential.
At least now I know what’s possible.
I still have a last one in storage – maybe I can get some ripe seeds from that one!
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Nr 2:
My earlier notes said “unremarkable, but pretty color”. Meaning, I’d saved seeds because it was very yellow (on the outside)… Supposedly a x Yellowfin baby, but could be also x Zephyr.
This one had the brightest orange flesh at full maturation: looked and tasted almost like a carrot. I actually used it instead of carrots in a soup.
So even my notes got upgraded; it went from “unremarkable, but pretty” to “crazy interesting CARROT; sow!!!”.
This one was also nice and gave me plenty good quality seeds 
2024 will be interesting, especially because these two remarkable ones were actually neighbors in the patch.
This one I do have a decent picture of.
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Cathy I just wanted to share some information about a pepo variety that I have been growing that I think meets some of your goals:
I have found these to look like a zucchini and taste like a zucchini in the green stage. Once they turn yellow they don’t taste like much, sort of like a spaghetti squash then they turn orange and taste like a pie pumpkin.
I found even if you pick them entirely green they eventually turn orange. I added them to my pepo patch two years ago and this year they were larger (evidently made a cross) but still displayed the same attributes just way bigger. I unfortunately don’t have any of the original seed remaining, but these bigger fruit will most likely have viable seed.
This photo was taken Nov 4 you can see it’s starting to turn orange:
Now Dec 1 it’s mostly orange but still some ripening to do
I’m not sure if you can receive seeds from Canada or not but if you can, I’d be happy to send you some. If you want them just send me a message. According to weatherspark I get 700C per growing season but since they ripen even when picked green I think you’d have a good shot at ripening these in storage.
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Hi! Interesting! More orange than this? The ones crossed out are my pepo this year, against some random maxima. The majority of the yellow-skinned population are like this.
I’m super happy with my population as-is, because what entertains me most is all the different shapes and colors (I have many bicolors descended from Zephyr). Sending a PM anyway, new genetics can’t hurt! But I’m not aiming to stabilize the population other than the ripening characteristics Varietas delectat!
Hmm I’m not sure if they are more orange than the ones in your picture but when I open this one I can upload a picture so we can directly see the comparison. I’m just waiting for them to turn a dark orange because I want the seeds to be viable.
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