I have enough seed for all my squash except for really long-necked moschata. My plan is to locally adapt such a type to Northern Europe. See here: Zuchetta landrace: Very long-necked unripe moschata (tromboncino-type)
So if anyone has seed that fits that bill, I am very happy to receive and raise the chances for fruit with viable seed here.
For maxima, I do have seeds, but I can be happy to receive more of them to increase diversity.
For moschata, I collected some seeds from store-bought butternuts, but I am happy to receive some more diversity!
As I am at the beginning of my landrace gardening journey, I just look for the greatest diversity, I don’t really mind yet about getting specific traits.
@WojciechG I can be interested in getting one of your spare packs if still possible! 
(Those are maxima only, right?)
@verdeperto I don’t have much to offer so far in return, but I can be interested in one seed packet of your butternut landrace, as cool soil germination and drought tolerance would help me a lot in my local conditions!
@Soeren I can be interested in trying some seeds of your moschata landrace if possible!
I’ll be happy to send you some seeds.
Hi there Lénaïc
Will gladly send seed. DM me with address.
Please send me your snail mail address and I will gladly send you the seeds.
Yes, these are maximas.
@Soeren , @verdeperto , @WojciechG thank you very much! I will DM you my mail address and try my best to multiply your seeds
I found seeds from Lofthouses maxima and mochata landraces in my freezer, they’ve been lying there for almost ten years. I wasn’t interested in landraces until now.
I plan to test some of them this year. But maybe someone already tried them and found them less fit for Europe? Or are they worth trying?
Joseph send both to me, I think it was in 2013 or 2014. Both grew surprisingly well. But for kitchen reasons I’ve only continued the Moschata landrace. Every grow out season I added a new cultivar, so I can’t even tell if any of Josephs genetics is in there anymore. But starting with a landrace makes an easy start. And since there is no conservation, just living it, it’s a pleasure. Selecting follows very spontaneously. Oh, this is a good keeper. Oh, this taste fantastic. And no regret for the plant that didn’t do well.
Interesting, thanks!
“But for kitchen reasons I’ve only continued the Moschata landrace.”
Do you mean they are better tasting than maxima?
I mean, moschata logistics are better in my kitchen. The long neck allows me to cut smaller or larger slices, cover the surface with the sap, and it will store fine for months. A maxima I have to plan how to use in a short time, or store it in fridge or freezer. To me this makes moschata much less stressful.
Sören, do you share seeds from your moschata landrace ? I live in southern Sweden, your danish landrace ought to be well adapted to my location.
Hi everyone,
Planting season is approaching fast.
I plan to direct seed my C. maxima in the middle of april, altough I may have to postphone a little, reason being half a meter of snow right now. But my manure mound is prepared, covered by hay, waiting patiently, so I can sow as soon as I want.
I am still eating squash from last fall and saving seeds.
The ones that kept until now (almost 5 months in storage) and the ones I found extraordinarily well tasting I will prefer in sowing.
additional criteria: fruit size between 0.5 and 2.5 kg.
Maybe I will make some starts as a backup, not sure yet.
Hi Laura,
I hadn’t planned on participating in the priority squash cultivation project, but since life is full of surprises, I’ll be joining in because we’re planting 400 square meters of squash on a community field. We’re using the same approach as you: direct seeding, small squash varieties, and selection based on taste. Many of them are from seeds we bought, looking for genetics different from those already circulating here, particularly drought-resistant squash or varieties from South America.
Hey there :
Populations initially (2022) based on assembling “wide wide grexes” of varieties on criteria that were: said to be very good, with good keeping capacities, representative of a maximum diversity, using Amy Goldman’s book to try sampling some from each category/origin. After the grex/no-selection/crossing stage of 2 years I selected on early vigor, storage capacities, taste. “Selection” being a whole topic in itself, I guess we’ll get back to it later … Let’s plant! Cheers!
Hi Laura,
I received seeds from 3 members of the community. I feel very grateful! 
I am also still eating C. maxima from my harvest last year, and I plan to eat them all before planting, to make sure I grow these long-keeping ones this year. I will hence plant maxima and moschata, from my own harvest, plus from other people’s landraces.
This year I will be planting only my own seeds, an offspring from previous years selection.
I will start a few around April 15th, more in the end of April, last ones mid May. In the past, my last frost was May 15th, but over the last three years it’s been June 5-7th.
I never direct sow, since in my forest garden seeds are beeing eaten. I prepare seedlings in trays or pots.
I plant them in 2 ways:
I eventually planted my moschatas and maximas in last days of April, when it was warm for a couple days (daily 10-25degC window), so I had some sprouting just days after, around the 5th of May, then the weather went relatively cold for about 10 days (daily 3-5 to 18degC), so germination stopped and growth of those early plants was blocked for a while. Now 22nd of May weather just got warmer for a couple days (15-30degC daily).
Result of that weather pattern is a partial germination… Maybe 20-30% of the seeds put in the ground (thousands), which is both annoying and cool : cool because somehow it’s a “fast germination selection” that happened, but annoying also because I’ll lack some plants in my rows in which I was supposed to select, not for fast germination but for overall growth/health after 45 days or so (before flowering).
So far the others waiting in the ground have not shown up yet. Should be very soon with those daily temps…
weeding festival in 2 plots :
The relatively standard size of the young moschata plants (picture of the 19th of May):
Couple interspecific hybrids and maximas I thrown to the compost at a friend’s place in December… Some already flowering and even having their first female flowers ready… Before june!!! That’s crazy 
Insane size on those compost plants Thomas. I’m just about to sow my squash this coming week. Would have liked to sow a few weeks ago, but now we have time.
Planted our own selections from 2025 (the best 10 out of 55) yesterday. Scaling up squash growing this year. Planted 1-3 seeds per 25 cm with 1 meter spacing between the rows om roughly 250 m2.
Our own selections this year go in mulched beds with the possibility of drip irrigation if we get heavy drought. This summer might get very hot as we are entering El Nino. Our soils are quite sandy compared to the rest of the region. As my contribution to raising the bar for this focus crop, I am experimenting with family selection instead of mass selection, ie. sowing seed of each plant separately to see how they express themselves. I am curious how it will turn out!
I am also making bid to breed for drought tolerance. Today we have sown around 4000 seeds of maxima and 3000 seeds of moschata on a newly harrowed strip that was grass meadow before (so barely agricultural soils). With no watering. Covering around 550 m2 of Maxima and 400 m2 of moschata. The seed was mostly from my pool of 2nd best selections from the last three years.
I have planted that mass selection next to our own selections and hope that the drought tolerant survivors will transfer pollen to my main pool.
I expect heavy losses and hope to get some fruit from a small number of plants (well, small compared to the 7000 seeds).
Very cool Malte, now let’s hope for the best!
On that note:
Same story for me, and for the first time : one row = one fruit. And I keep references like pictures, weights, health and taste evaluation of those in my records… Very curious to see how far the mother qualities get transmitted, or how divergent filial generation is!
Our follow up on that aspect will be interesting!
