Here’s a thread to report how the Going to Seed pepo squash mixes have worked out for you! There’s a Winter Mix and a Summer Mix. Which one(s) have you grown? 
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I wasn’t able to get this year’s pepo mix, but I still have last year’s seeds that never got planted. Including that supposedly fertile hybrid seed… were there ever any grow reports from that? I’m still planning to get that one going alongside some other pepos and the Tetsukabuto this year, if possible. Hoping to get some good seed to send in this year… mind if I join even though I’m a year behind?
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Sure! Join away!
Okay, I planted the GTS summer mix and the rest from my super swarm of 15 or more varieties. Its in with the corn and pole beans planted by each bunch of corn too. Im out of space, it will have to grow together. The yellow variety is the first to show female flowers. Some are vining, some are not…lots if different leaf shapes and flower petal shapes.
Nice! All those variations in leaf shapes bode well for many different variations in fruit.
It looks like you’ve got some common mallow volunteering in your polyculture, too. I like that species – I consider it a very welcome salad green!
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Yes, we eat mallow its delicious 
. There were thousands of mallow seedlings pushing thru the soil when i started watering back in February. So many the ground was cracking and just solid seedlings underneath. Tortoise likes them too, several friends get the greens for their pets. There is purslane growing too and fluffy little grass, and something that looks like clover.
Nice! Lots of edible, locally ideal groundcovers! Short leafy greens make a great groundcover underneath squashes during a hot summer, in my opinion. They tend to like the shade above, and the squashes tend to like the (living) mulch they provide.
Wow! I’ve never seen a clover with red in the middle of its leaves like that. Does anyone know what species it might be?
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Question, what pepo mix would have pumpkins?
It would be the Winter Mix, but some pumpkin-shaped fruits might show up in the Summer Mix, too. There are some summer squash varieties that look like big, ribbed orange pumpkins if you let them get ripe. (Tatume, for example.) So if any of those were grown in the populations sent into the Summer Mix, a few phenotypes like those might show up there, too. 
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Okay, sounds good. Im getting quite a few long vines already. Im so used to summer squash just being bush type growth habit. Its fun nonetheless. Im happy with discovery and surprises!
It’s definitely fun!
Tatume exhibited a vining growth habit when I grew it in 2023, so I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of other summer squashes do, too. I personally prefer the bush habit, but there’s no denying that vining squashes can do a great job of shading the soil and keeping it cooler and moister, which can be nice in a polyculture.
I’m thinking I will put a bunch of squashes in among my sunchokes this year, and see how they like growing together. My suspicion is that they’ll be very happy. 
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Indeed, the more shade the better.
Here’s another interesting polyculture idea to try: determinate tomatoes plus bush pepos. I whimsically tried that in 2023, and I was greeted with the very intriguing sight of a happy Roma tomato growing up through a big ol’ bush zucchini, using those very tall leaves as enough of a support that all the tomato fruits hanging down over top didn’t topple the plant over.
I think tomato plants may just be tall and skinny enough to poke up between the huge leaves of a bush squash and use it as a sort of support. It’s something I’d like to try again.
I’m pretty sure the layers and layers of enormous leaves shading the soil was part of what made the tomato plant happy. I think it helped keep all the roots in that area cooler and moister than they would have been normally.
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Yes, and yes. Growing plants together is good for the soil. For kitchen gardens they seem to get full faster with multiple varieties. I just run out of space. This season i have tomatillos next to the tomatoes kinda holding them upright. I dont know how long it will last but so far the tomatillos grow faster than the tomato. But i also know when it all grows upwards another 2 or 3 feet its gonna be a looking like a hot mess. Meh, I dont mind.
I like growing peas and fava beans together for the same reason. The peas grab the fava beans and use those to hold themselves upright. It’s very nice.
Over time, I’ve been learning that our sun is so intense in the summer that I can get away with putting a lot of full sun plants together, and if they partially shade each other, that’s actually helpful to all of them. Especially if the roots end up in full shade.
Granted, of course, that’s the answer I want, so I can get away with cramming more plants into the same space. 
I really do like the way the vining habit can cover so much soil. I also dislike it, because of limited space, but there are serious advantages to it, too.
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Yes, it all works well for my kitchen garden as well. I try to put legumes throughout the whole garden area and vining next to non vining, and somehow they all find a way to support each other. Every season its a little different too, i just have so much variety to grow, cant do without herbs, and edible flowers. Keeping the garden mixed is easier to harvest for me, i can cut enough for a mixed salad in just a few feet instead of going to different rows to harvest all the components of the salads. Dry seed collecting can end up being mixed too. In years past, dill with peas and cilantro. ..edible chrysanthemum with Malabar spinach…okra and zinnia. The more seeds i collect together, the more im able to identify them. Its fun and interesting.
I got the 2025 summer pepo mix and planted 5 mini no till hills today with 2 seeds each.
These are in a previously un planted area. I mowed low, piled on a bucket of compost covered that in several inches of mulched leaves.
I’ll get some more planted next week in my fenced ‘garden’ area but zucchini over there gets decimated by pickle worms. I’ve been on this property 4 or so years and things have gone so poorly with summer squash it’s on my don’t bother list… but here I am giving it one last hurrah. I feel like the chances of my having seeds to send back from this mix are pretty low…. But if any make it to seed they’ll be real deal survivors😁
I’m planting my first round of pepos this afternoon and tomorrow. Hoping to get them producing before the worst of the vine borers!
Good luck with the vine borers! 
I planted my wildly mixed pepo seeds today, too. Tomorrow is looking to be our last big rain before summer aridity hits, and our (probably) last frost was ereyesterday, so it’s the perfect time to plant them and hope rain will germinate them for me.
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I’m going to violate some of the “don’t baby them” rules for the multi-species hybrid patch I’m putting together, using a row cover to keep the borers out and planting a “trap crop” of zucchini so I know when they’ve finished their life cycle for the year. Since I’ll be trying to hand-pollinate the first fruits anyway to get more hybrids, it won’t matter that I’m keeping out the early pollinators.
Good luck with your germination! I can’t imagine having such a limited time between last frost and the start of the dry season, it’s so counter to what I have here.