Hi! This will be the thread for Squash for the European Focus Crop project 2025. If you want to read more about the project you can do so here: Community project: Focus crops in Europe
This thread will be a place to share our our questions, challenges and triumphs of the growing season 2026.
We will use this thread to discuss, if some of us need seed and where to get it from. Since one of the goals of this project is to improve the diversity of the crop it makes sense to coordinate our seeds sources a little.
Since I will be coordinating both species (maxima and moschata in this thread), I propose that each person that posts makes a little header
like this: Maxima
so people can see at a glance what species a post is talking about. So, to get an overview about the existing diversity I ask that the participants share what seeds they plan to grow in 2026.
So myself I am saving my own maxima seeds propably the fourth year(?) in 2025. I started with some banana squashes, a grex from @Hugo and @ThomasPicard I got via the Serendipity seed swap. Last year I added some Kabocha from a farm stand and some seeds my uncle gave me. This year I added seed from a commercial seller https://www.kcb-samen.ch/
- Kenji Kuri F1
- Buttercup
- Tetsukabuto F1 (Interspecific hybrid)
- Silver Bell
- Bylinka
- Flat White Star 7001 F1
- Blue Banana
- North Georgia Banana
- Hopi Orange
- Golden Butta F1
So, for me, it is quite difficult to say what exactly is in my squash, since I don’t know what Hugo and Thomas started out with. But I can say that next year I will sow the seeds I save this year, so most if the varieties I listed above will propably donate some genetics to the seeds. Also i will again add in seeds from Hugo. other than that, i plan to put no new seeds in in 2026.
What kinds of seeds do you have access to and will work with? Feel free to add what kind of soil, growing challenges you are working with and of course, what your goals are!
Since this post is already long, I will write nothing about my goals etc and simply link the thread of my personal squash project: Cucurbita maxima landrace in Switzerland