Ben Crowley

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:

Ben Crowley wrote:Where I live in the southeastern piedmont in NC any variety of cowpea does really well, particularly the heirloom ones adapted to the heat like red ripper or more recent ones like pinkeye purple hull, but also planting store bought blackeyed peas. What also does fantastic in the climate but also terribly, if you seed save, is squash. So many people grow squash and gourds and pumpkins that you can get some odd hybrids from cross pollination. Last year what should have been yellow crookneck squash turned out to be some sort of large green pumpkin type thing.  

Yes, that's the problem with gourds/pumpkins/squash. And that's why for the Cucurbitaceae (I think that's the best name to use for them all together) now I buy seeds (from a good organic seeds company).  I don't use seeds anymore from home-grown pumpkins or from the ones I bought and ate.

Yeah, I try to develop landraces by saving seed as much as possible but I don’t think squash can be part of that. Maybe if I lived further in the city or further out in the country where my garden isn’t close to other people’s gardens it would be doable.

Jay Angler wrote:

Ben Crowley wrote:... So many people grow squash and gourds and pumpkins that you can get some odd hybrids from cross pollination. Last year what should have been yellow crookneck squash turned out to be some sort of large green pumpkin type thing.  

Yes, but did it taste good? Did it store well?

The gourds are an issue as they tend not to be human edible, so if they cross, you can get bitterness. I was given some small zucchini that I suspect were crossed with something nasty. In the past I could eat zuc raw, but not that year. It didn't occur to me at the time to try pealing them - it's quite possible that I could have eaten just the insides raw.

I didn’t eat them as my kids and wife were a bit skeptical of them and folklore where I’m from is that hybrid squash might be a bit poisonous. I have no idea if that’s true or not or the probability but I can’t afford even a minor GI issue with my job so in the compost they went.

Where I live in the southeastern piedmont in NC any variety of cowpea does really well, particularly the heirloom ones adapted to the heat like red ripper or more recent ones like pinkeye purple hull, but also planting store bought blackeyed peas. What also does fantastic in the climate but also terribly, if you seed save, is squash. So many people grow squash and gourds and pumpkins that you can get some odd hybrids from cross pollination. Last year what should have been yellow crookneck squash turned out to be some sort of large green pumpkin type thing.